Talking about adoption: considerations for multicultural counsellors when working with transracial families

In global terms the number of international adoptions increased over 40% between 1998 and 2004. Research from Canada that surveyed white parents of children adopted transracially on their experiences of pre-andpost-adoption services raises a number of issues with implications for multicultural counselling. This study found that many professionals charged with the responsibility of helping to facilitate transracial adoptions need to be better educated in the needs of adoptive children and families. Findings also showed that, because of parents' lack of preparation in the pre-adoption phase, transracially adopted children may be at risk for medical, social and emotional problems. This paper suggests topics that should be considered in a multicultural counselling setting in order to be responsive to some of the experiences of transracially adoption children and their parents.