April Dinwoodie, CEO of the Donaldson Adoption Institute on Advocating for Adoptive Families and Leaning into Self Discovery

January 10, 2017

Episode 137 - April Dinwoodie - Support is sexy podcast image

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Elayne Fluker

Elayne Fluker is author of "Get Over 'I Got It' (HarperCollins) and host of the "Support is Sexy" podcast, which has over one million downloads. She facilitates customized workshops for corporations and organizations to create psychologically safe, supportive cultures for ambitious, high-achieving women so they can stress less, thrive more and be fulfilled in work and life.

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April Dinwoodie, CEO of the Donaldson Adoption Institute on Advocating for Adoptive Families and Leaning into Self Discovery

April Dinwoodie is the adoptive daughter of a loving family in Rhode Island, a family she says created a center of gravity for her, a safe space. While Dinwoodie, who now lives in Harlem, New York, is grateful for a home where she felt grounded, accepted and loved, she always felt pulled to discover more about herself. That pull has been with her since she was a child, growing up as a biracial girl with her within a white family. And that pull is with her still today, fueling her passion to be a voice for adoptive families, adopted and foster care children and children within transracial families as Chief Executive of the Donaldson Adoption Institute and the founder of several programs and organizations around adoption.

On this episode of the Support is Sexy podcast, April speaks about her personal journey of self discovery and navigating the world as an adoptee and as a Black woman, how her work in the adoption field began because she was solving a problem for herself in her journey to find her birth family, and how her passion for creating programs and spaces that support adoptive and foster and families has evolved into her purpose.

What you’ll learn…

How growing up adopted pushed her to learn some coping mechanisms.
April’s advice of when to tell your child they are adopted.
How she had to overcome the fear of “leaving home.”
How to create programs and opportunities that align with your personal experience, passion, purpose.
The moment she began to shift from individual work to focusing on impact.
The ways race, class and culture play into adoption, foster care and women’s reproductive health.
How secrecy and shame play into the adoption process.
What work she’s doing today to preserve families and affect policy.
What she wants people to know at transracial adoptions.
How creating her podcast, Born in June, Raised in April has been cathartic for her and how she plans to grow moving forward.
How self care is crucial to her.
Resources for those on adoptions — including movies and TV shows she recommends related to adoption.