[ripples]

I'm curious to hear from adoptive parents and/or people who are about to adopt internationally and/or transracially. Before you completed the adoption, how much info did you receive regarding the possible challenges of raising an adopted child from another race or country?

I'm an adoptee from Taiwan who was raised in North America and Australia by loving parents. Several of my friends who are considering international adoption don't seem to be getting much info or advice about the possible challenges that they might face, and so they come to me for input.

One of Australia's major post-adoption resource centers has noted a lot of unmet issues and challenges faced by families who adopt transracially. I am also aware of a study in Sweden that found that intercountry adoptees had 3.6 times the suicide rate of children born in Sweden. (Anders Hjern, Frank Lindblad, Bo Vinnerljunt, "Suicide, psychiatric illness and social maladjustment in intercountry adoptees in Sweden: a cohort study" published in 2002).

The combo of questions from friends, the questions posted by adoptive parents in the International Adoptees section of this web site and the above studies lead me to wonder:

1. what sort of information and support are adoptive parents provided with (either by their adoption agency or otherwise) regarding the post-adoption challenges and needs for raising intercountry and/or transracial children?
2. what else do adoptive parents and their children need?

In a lot of societies there are pre-natal classes for parents about to give birth, pre-departure orientation sessions for people who are about to live overseas, so I'm wondering what sort of pre-orientation is provided to prospective adoptive parents of intercountry/transracial children?