Colleen Buckner
Biography
My name is Colleen Buckner and I am an adoptive mom that helped my daughter find her birth family in 1994. I have ten years of experience in the search and reunion process. My goal as a volunteer on this website is to help you prepare for the search journey and to provide you with resources to gather information that will be the foundation of a successful search. There are three distinct parts to the search process; 1) preparation before searching: becoming knowledgeable about search, contact and post-reunion issues so as to be better prepared for all outcomes of a search 2) getting organized and gathering search information from state and agency resources to assist you in your search process and 3) actually locating your birth relatives at their current residence. My connections with the adoption community are: o From 1998 to 2002 I served as a volunteer moderator on the http://www.adopting.org website providing nationwide and international search advice and searching resources for members to use to resolve their search for their birth relatives. a.. Since May 2002 I have served as a volunteer moderator, "The Search Guru", on http://www.adoption.com providing search advice and searching resources to enable members to gather the necessary information to find their birth relatives. This information often includes agencies and states that will provide original birth certificates or Confidential Intermediary Search services to locate the birth relative for you and registries for mutual consent contact. a.. I host the Thursday night chatroom for Search and Reunion issues. http://www.adoption.com/chat/ a.. I am a member of the California Genealogical Society. a.. I am a member of the American Adoption Congress and have attended many of their conferences over the years. a.. I served as a Site Manger for the I.S.R.R. (International Soundex Reunion Registry) annual "Registration Day" for several years. b.. From 1995-2000 my volunteer activities included: · Facilitating a monthly face-to-face triad post-adoption support group. Support group leaders of our organization met several times a year for training in relinquishment, adoption, search and reunion issues and for leader support group issues. · Giving face-to-face search workshops sponsored by a post-adoption support resource organization. · Writing a monthly "Search Tips" column for a post-adoption newsletter. · Participating in a peaceful activist demonstration in San Francisco to bring attention to the sealed original birth certificates of adoptees. · Speaking to groups of pre-adoptive parents at an adoption agency in the San Francisco Bay Area. My daughter and her birthmother and I addressed the issues we felt adoptive parents should be aware of when their adopted sons and daughters as adults make a decision to search for their biological relatives. · Speaking on a San Francisco Bay Area television program about searching and reunion. My daughter and I shared the meaningful relationships that all members of the adoptee's biological and adopted families can experience as a result of search and reunion. · An article that I wrote "From One Adoptive Parent to Other Adoptive Parents" for the adoption community was reprinted in a number of well known adoption support newsletters nationwide. http://library.adoption.com/author/Colleen-Buckner/614/1.html · I have had several reunions that I was involved in published in newspapers and one was included in a book about adoption reunions. Many blessings on your search journey, Colleen Buckner, THE SEARCH GURU Moderator for the Search and Reunion Message Board thesearchguru@yahoo.com http://www.therighttoknow.info
Articles
Guide to Adoption Search & Reunion
Should I Really Search, and What Are My Reasons?· CuriositySearching is about relinquishment and who we were before we were adopted; it is not about adoption. Seeking information about our [more]
Using A Search Consultant
Search Angels are volunteers and do not charge for helping you with your search. You can find Search Angels by state/region:http://www.vsn.org/request.html. Once you have information from the search... [more]
Hitting A Brick Wall
Sometimes the best efforts still result in an unresolved search for locating your birth family relative/s. You would be amazed though at how many times that link to resolving your search is one that... [more]
Relationship Stages After Reunion
Not every individual goes through every stage; they may not be sequential, they may be repeated. The stages are common to the post-reunion period and are normal consequences of reunion.HONEYMOON... [more]
