A note from Dounya Chennah
When I first began volunteering to support children’s rights as a teenager, I encountered children living in institutions. I remember wondering: Does it have to be this way? And what would it take to create real, lasting change for children separated from their families?
​
Those early experiences stayed with me. They shaped the questions I carried into adulthood, the stories I paid attention to, and the path I eventually followed, one that brought together my personal experience as an adoptee, my current academic journey in psychology, and more than a decade of independent inquiry into the wider contexts that shape adoption.
​
The true lightbulb moment came in my early twenties, when I began studying children’s rights and child protection. It opened my eyes to the idea of a “wicked problem”, the understanding that the root causes of the issue are often interconnected across social, historical, political, and cultural contexts. This realisation led me to explore adoption through a much wider lens than my own story. It was the moment I first understood that if we focus only on the tree, we risk missing the forest, and that what sometimes felt deeply personal was, in fact, contextual.
Over the years, through study, research, volunteering, conversations, advocacy campaigns, and the generous wisdom of experts and lived-experience voices, one thing has become increasingly clear to me: we are connected beings, and adoption narratives should never be isolated or generalised. If we want adoption experiences to be healthier, happier, and better understood, we must look at adoption in context.
​
Adoption is never just a single moment, nor solely a personal act involving the adoption triad ( the birth family, the adoptee, and the adoptive family) It is also connected to histories, policies, cultural narratives, social systems, early experiences, and the environments in which we grow up. Yet far too often, adoption is discussed in isolation, without acknowledging these interconnected contexts.
​
Understanding adoption more fully and more compassionately requires evidence, critical reflection, and nuanced perspectives. It requires us to move beyond generalised narratives and binary views, and to see the whole landscape.
Throughout my life, I have been fortunate to learn from researchers, mental-health practitioners, NGOs, and members of the adoption triad who have shared their knowledge and experience generously. Their insight has shown me that advancing adoption understanding is not only possible, it is urgently needed. For adoptees. For birth families. For adoptive families. And for the systems that support them.
​
Because when adoption is understood in its full context, outcomes improve.
Families feel better supported.
Professionals are better informed.
Communities become more nurturing.
And adoptees, at every stage of life, feel more seen, understood, and grounded in their stories.
But change begins with awareness, with learning, with conversation and with each of us choosing to see the full picture.
​
My hope is that the Centre for Adoption Context becomes a space where understanding deepens, compassion expands, and meaningful change begins.
​
Dounya
Founder, Centre for Adoption Context, December 2025