Australia’s first ever National Adoption Awareness Week is this week. With many Australians having been touched by adoption in some manner, this week is aimed at encouraging Australians to have a greater understanding of adoption and how adoption impacts Australian families.

In increasing our understanding of adoption, we consider the different ways that families are formed in Australia and also gain an insight into how many children in the world are without families.

The Adoption Institute has produced a paper on ‘Tools for Primary Schools’ which gives some simple strategies that can be used in the school environment to help both adopted children, their peers and their teachers sensitively deal with questions surrounding adoption.

The children in our picture have come to Bellingen from China, Thailand and Taiwan through Intercountry Adoption and from New South Wales through local adoption. Codi will begin school at St Marys in 2009, Chai is at school at Chrysalis and Jake and Bella attend Bellingen Primary School. LiLee is at Bellingen Pre-School and Star is at home with Mum.

Any schools interested in taking part in this programme can contact Robin Ashley on 66558812.