Who I help · Online across BC
Adoption Counselling
Counselling for everyone in the adoption triad: adoptees, birth and first families, and adoptive families, with a focus on transracial adoption.
What we can work on
- Identity, belonging and cultural connection as a transracial adoptee
- Grief, loss and relinquishment, for adoptees and for birth and first families
- Racial trauma and navigating race within your family and community
- Search and reunion, and relationships with birth or adoptive family
- For adoptive parents: supporting your child's racial and cultural identity, and your own feelings along the way
How I work
Adoption touches attachment, identity and loss in ways that often sit below words. I use Brainspotting, including Brooke Randolph’s specialty training in adoption, alongside AEDP and Internal Family Systems. My work is culturally affirming and centres the experiences of People of the Global Majority.
My background with adoption
- Wrote my honours thesis on transracial fostering and adoption
- Delivered Fostering Inclusion workshops on supporting children and youth of the Global Majority in foster care
Who you’d work with
Ruth and Maddy both work with adoption. Ruth brings specialist Brainspotting training in adoption and her research on transracial fostering and adoption. Maddy, a counselling intern and an adoptee herself, offers free sessions under Ruth’s supervision.
Ruth Unaegbu
MA, RCC-ACS · Founder · she/her/we
Transracial adoption, identity and belonging, grief and loss, and search and reunion, for adoptees, birth and first families, and adoptive parents. $170 per 60 minutes.
Madeline (Maddy) Devitt
Counselling Intern · she/her
Adoption and transracial adoption, Black identity, and growing up between different worlds. Youth (15 and up) and adults. Free until December 2026.
Not sure which of us is the better fit? Tell us what is going on and we’ll suggest someone →