Adoptee Beacon

Estrangement support group

This group leans into exploring adoptee critical thought and the nuanced layers of estrangement, fostering a deeper understanding of self unique to the adoptee experience.

  • Members are supported in practicing compassionate assertiveness and understanding how to maintain boundaries with extended family and shared communities. 

  • Recognizing that complete estrangement may not always be feasible due to financial, emotional, or social dependencies, "Turning In" explores strategies for holding intensive boundaries.

  • Understanding reconciliation, in its many forms, is a pivotal part of the journey. Whether reconciling with others or oneself, the group embarks on this path together, shedding light on the multifaceted nature of healing while removing the focus from basic ideas of reconciliation. 

  • Celebrating individual and shared growth, understanding, and healing journeys, the group underscores transformation, marking not an end but a new beginning in each member's journey.

Every other Wednesday (6 month group): April 24 - October 9, 2024 (no group July 17)

Time: 5:30 - 6:30 pm (PT) on Zoom

Cost: $290*

*Limited community support fund available.

Astrid Castro

Astrid Castro

Founder & CEO

(she/her)

Astrid has a degree in sociology with an emphasis in adoption. Since 1992, she has traveled the country to lead youth groups, present workshops on transracial parenting, how to talk with children about adoption, and various other workshops focusing on adoption. Prior to creating Adoption Mosaic, Astrid worked in both the private and public sectors of various adoption organizations such as the Oregon Post Adoption Resource Center (ORPARC), Holt International and Rocky Mountain Adoption Exchange, and VIDA (while living in Italy).


She has also sat on several boards of directors (North American Council on Adoptable Children, Open Adoption and Family Services, Northwest Adoptive Families Association, Spoon Foundation)​ to support the adoption community.


Astrid has also been featured on many podcasts and contributed a chapter to the anthology, Parenting as Adoptees. She has also helped to develop materials such as Adoption in the Movies, and Adoptive Parent Training: Developing Communication Skills, an innovative, evidence-based, training DVD.


Astrid’s personal experiences as an adoptee, a woman of color, and growing up in a white family and community, fuel her professional path to helping others. She is aware of the benefit of post-adoption services for individuals and their families and seeks to bring these services to the adoption community.


When Astrid is not working she loves training for half marathons, firing up her outdoor pizza oven and sharing homemade pizza with family and friends and biking with her little dogs, Guapo and Baci. Her absolute favorite thing is to enjoy the adventures of life with her amazing daughter.


Laura Batt

Laura Batt

Consultant

(she/her)

Laura Batt was adopted domestically as an infant and raised in a closed adoption. Laura has been in reunion with her biological family for 25+ years.


Laura is a birth/first parent to her oldest adult son. She is parenting another teenage son, and young child with her significant other in Oregon.


Laura has a master’s degree in social work. She has worked in adoption and parenting support for 18+ years, supporting people to continue to parent their biological children. For families who opted to make an adoption plan, Laura supported birth/first parents and adoptive families with planning an adoption, creating open adoption plans, and providing post adoption support. Laura worked as a therapist in a community mental health setting and is currently a perinatal social worker in a medical setting. Laura completed an adoption therapy certificate and has a certification in perinatal mental health.

Becca Flatt

Becca Flatt

Course and Group Facilitator

(she/her)

Becca Flatt (she/her) is a Mixed Race, Black and white, closed, domestic infant, interracial adoptee. Becca’s biological family and adoptive family mirror each other; however, Becca, being mixed race, does not share the racial identity of either set of her parents. Becca identifies as a recovering compliant adoptee.


Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and raised in San Jose, California, Becca was raised in racial diversity while being raised without racial mirrors. Becca was also raised in adoptee isolation. It wasn’t until Becca was 28 that she started the search and reunion process that she recognized the importance of being in a community with other adoptees. Becca has spent her entire adult life trying to understand the human condition and the importance of identity and mental health.


Becca Graduated from The University of Southern California with her Master’s in social work and a concentration in mental health in 2014. Becca provides mental health treatment to transracial, interracial, and same-race adoptees of color. Becca is also an adoptive parent dedicated to discussing and participating in relationally focused adoption.


Over the past 20 years, Becca has gone through estrangement and reconciliation with her adoptive parents. Through her lived experience, she understands how devastating estrangement can be for all parties involved.


She hopes to help adoptees and adoptive parents learn how to navigate the grief, trauma, desperation, shame, and fear that often accompanies estrangement.

FAQs

  • Yes, you are absolutely welcome to register!

  • We are planning to offer this annually. Sign up for our newsletter to be notified when registration opens for the next one!

  • This group is facilitated by two adoptee professionals providing the compilation of many years of professional and personal experience. We understand that the amount up front is not always possible. We offer payment plans to accommodate different financial needs. Please feel free to request funds from our Community Support Fund or schedule a 15 minute free consultation with our CEO, Astrid Castro, who would be more than happy to discuss what our groups have to offer in more detail.