Consultations

Feeling lost or unsure where to look for adoption support and resources? Many topics in adoption such as race, identity, and reunion can be incredibly challenging to address alone.

We are here for you.

We offer several types of consultations: individual, group or family services, and business services.

In our individual and group non-therapeutic consultations, you will meet with empathetic, open-minded adoption experts who can provide customized resources and recommendations on topics specific to you and/or your family.

*Community support available for adult adoptees.

Consultations with:

Astrid Castro

Astrid Castro

Astrid Castro

Founder and CEO

(she/her)

Astrid Castro (she/her/hers) is the founder and CEO of Adoption Mosaic. Her life-long interest in adoption is rooted in her own adoption at the age of four from Colombia (along with her older sister). Astrid has been in reunion with her birth family in Colombia since December 2011. Read about Astrid’s journey of searching and finding her birth mother in The Oregonian Part 1 and Part 2.


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.

Astrid Castro

Adoptee Consultations:

Possible topics include

  • Discussing adoption with your adoptive parents
  • Strengthening relationships within your adoptive family
  • Connecting with your adoptee community
  • Exploring your adoption consciousness
  • Transracial/interracial identity
  • Navigating search and reunion

Non-adoptee Consultations:

Possible session topics

  • Deciding if adoption is right for you
  • Birth family support
  • Supporting adoptee/adoptive families in your life
  • Building adoption competency
  • Learning about race and racism
  • Navigating search and reunion

You will begin with a free 15 min meeting with Astrid to do some light introductions and review the main topics that you would like to discuss. If you decide to move forward, then we start you with a package of three sessions. We have found that it takes at least three visits to establish our working relationship and to dive into the topic(s) you are wanting to discuss. After our initial three meetings, if you decide to continue, we can decide on a schedule that works best for you and your needs.


If you want to pause after you have completed our initial package, you can always email us if you would like to start up again after some time has passed and we will be happy to work with you.


Our constellation member consultation package starts at $500* for three sessions. All sessions after that are $150 an hour.

Astrid Castro

Family Consultations:

Possible session topics

  • Connecting with your adopted child of any age
  • Navigating conversations with your adopted child
  • Strengthening relationships within your adoptive family
  • Connecting with adoption conscious adoptive parent community
  • Searching for biological family members
  • Reunion with biological family members

Family consultations begin with free 15 min meetings between Astrid and the various parties involved, whether that is the adoptee, one or more parents, siblings, significant others, and loved ones. These meetings are to get a better sense of the kind of support the situation may call for and can be done in a combination of meeting both separately and jointly.


Family consultations begin with a package of five sessions. After the initial meeting, Astrid will develop a tailored plan for the clients.


Family consultations start at $800* for five sessions. All sessions after that are $150 an hour.

Astrid Castro

Travel Consultations:

A travel consultation package is designed for adoptive families planning to travel to an adoptee’s country of origin and can be adjusted for adult adoptees traveling without their adoptive family. This package consists of five, one-hour sessions:


Session 1: Astrid meets with the parent(s) on Zoom, focusing on history gathering and discussing what the parent would like us to focus on for meetings with the adoptee. In this meeting Astrid, gives recommendations of topics she can cover specific to birth family/country visit when meeting with the adoptee.


Session 2-3: Astrid meets with the adoptee to share some of her personal travel “aha!” moments in an age appropriate way while asking what hopes they have for this trip). The 3rd session the adoptee and Astrid will also create/decide on an agenda of what they would like to talk with the adoptive parents about in the upcoming 4th session.


Session 4: Astrid meets with everyone together to discuss the items on the previously created agenda.


Session 5 (post travel): Astrid meets with the adoptee after the family returns from the trip to debrief with the adoptee, bringing the parent(s) in for the last portion of the discussion and to decide next steps.


Beyond the five sessions ~ If, after the 5th session, you decide to continue meeting, parent(s) will schedule the next meeting and start the process again.


Fees ~ $750 for the package of five, one-hour sessions. If you decide to continue beyond the five sessions, the session rate is $150/hr.

Jennifer Poole

Jennifer Poole

Jennifer Poole

Adoptee Outreach Coordinator & Consultant

(she/her)

Jennifer Poole was adopted as an infant in a closed adoption. She holds a Masters Degree in Interfaith Pastoral Counseling, where she wrote her thesis on “Openness in Adoption as an Opportunity for Spiritual Growth”. It was during this time, in 2001, that she initiated her reunion with her birth mother and later with her birth father.


Passionate about supporting families, she is certified in Hand in Hand Parenting, Redirecting Children’s Behavior, the Enneagram, and Whole Person Design Life Coaching. Drawing from a large tool box which includes continuing education in Mindfulness, High Conflict Diversion, ADHD, ACES, Attachment Theory and Trauma Informed Care, Jennifer provides counseling and coaching to help families move from conflict to the connection they seek.


She currently lives in Oregon with her husband. Together they have 4 grown children.

Astrid Castro

Parent Consultations :

Jennifer specializes in addressing these topics:

  • Interfaith and Spiritual Counseling
  • Strengthening relationships within your adoptive family
  • Compassionate/non-violent Communication
  • Whole Person life coaching
  • Co-Parenting, Parallel Parenting, and High Conflict Diversion techniques for divorce and separation
  • Using the Enneagram to facilitate personal growth
  • Unpacking religious trauma, existential anxiety and reconstructing a personal spiritual framework

Family consultations begin with a free 15 min meeting between Jennifer and the various parties involved, whether that is the adoptee, one or more parents, siblings, significant others, and loved ones. These meetings are to get a better sense of the kind of support the situation may call for and can be done in a combination of meeting both separately and jointly. Family consultations begin with a package of five sessions. After the initial meeting, Jennifer will develop a tailored plan for the clients.


Family consultations starts at $500* for three sessions. All sessions after that are $150 an hour.

Laura Batt

Joplin Finfrock

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.

Maureen McCauley

Joplin Finfrock

Maureen McCauley

Consultant

(she/her)

Maureen is the adoptive mom of four now-adult children, two sons born in the U.S. and twin daughters born in Ethiopia; she has lived experience with infant adoption, international adoption, older child adoption, U.S. adoption, and transracial adoption. She also has two granddaughters. Her professional background is in social and educational welfare advocacy, including as former executive director of three nonprofits focused on adoption and foster care. Maureen is passionate about understanding and supporting the complexity of adoption, and about partnering with others in the adoption community to support families and individuals.


With Adoption Mosaic, Maureen co-facilitates Conscious Adoption: Seasoned Parents, an adoptive parent course for which she also co-developed the curriculum and she was a panelist on “We The Experts: Non-Adoptee Panel” series featuring adoptive parents. Maureen has facilitated and presented workshops on adoption in the U.S. and Canada for organizations such as NACAC (now Families Rising), KAAN (Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family Network), The Barker Foundation, COFFEE (Central Oregon Families and Friends of Ethiopian Ethnicity) camp, East Coast Ethiopian Culture Camp, and more.


She is a writer and editor, including co-editor with two Ethiopian adoptees of “Lions Roaring, Far From Home: An Anthology by Ethiopian Adoptees.” Her writing has been published in Slate, Catapult, Focus on Adoption, Adoption Today, Adoptive Families of British Columbia, and others. She blogs at Light of Day Stories.

Maureen has been quoted/cited in the New York Times, Seattle Times, Hofstra Law Review, Case Western Journal of Law-Medicine, University of Washington Law Review, Santa Clara University Law Review, Adoptee Rights Law Center, and elsewhere.

She has a B.S. degree from Georgetown University and an M.A. from the University of Maryland. She is a Certified Sage-ing Leader via Sage-ing International, an organization focused on aging consciously and intentionally with joy and contentment. She also has a certificate as an End-of-Life Doula for Companion Pets, partnering with their humans.

Hear from our community!

  • "Adoption Mosaic is a solid rock, in the midst of a sea of information [and] misinformation. When I want information, resources, and learning opportunities I can trust, I turn to Adoption Mosaic."

    ~Rachel Ginnochio, adoptive parent

  • "Astrid brought together my bio mom and me after I learned I was adopted for the first time at age 44... and was a wonderful successful reunion because of Astrid’s guidance. Cannot recommend her enough."

    ~ Debbie Earl, adoptee

  • "[Adoption Mosaic's] offerings are varied, thoughtful, provocative and powerful in the way they put adoptees first...We are relieved, as parents of young adult adoptees, to have found this resource."

    Sue Unkenholz, adoptive parent

  • "The way that Adoption Mosaic’s Team run ‘We The Experts’ creates an immensely safe space with healthy boundaries and a place to focus on the rich content... Being a panelist was a wonderful opportunity to share and be connected to other adoptees."

    Suzanne Bachner, adoptee

  • "Adoption Mosaic has been a huge support for us in navigating issues around transracial adoption and reunion with birth family. Adoption Mosaic helps me be a more compassionate parent."

    Karen Orth, adoptive parent

  • "I'm a Late Discovery Adoptee...I wish I had discovered Adoption Mosaic at the beginning of my journey. This is a stellar organization, headed by phenomenal people who care greatly, and offer a safe place to seek out unique paths towards healing."

    Carlyn Montes de Oca, adoptee