2009 Joint Council Adult Adoptee Institute,
Medical Institute and Conference

Hyatt Regency Indianapolis
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - Saturday, March 28, 2009

- Keynote Address -

Joint Council is pleased to announce that  Dr. Dixie van de Flier Davis will keynote our 2009 Conference in Indianapolis. Dr. Davis is the President and Executive Director of The Adoption Exchange, a child welfare organization that works for safety and permanence in the lives of foster children. You can read more about Dr. Davis and The Adoption Exchange below.

Dr. Davis founded The Adoption Exchange with a challenge grant of merely $20,000 in 1983. With headquarters in Denver, the organization now maintains offices in UT, NM, NV and MO. Every year, its Education Center trains over 7,000 families and professionals in all 50 states and abroad.

The Adoption Exchange has collaborated with public and private adoption placement agencies across the country to facilitate more than 5,400 adoptions of American special needs children. Adoptive families worldwide and member states of OK, UT, CO, WY, NV, MO, NM and SD utilize The Adoption Exchange’s broad range of services to recruit and sustain families for children in foster care.  The organization was also one of the first U.S. agencies to begin working with institutionalized children and child welfare colleagues in Romania in 1990. 

It boasts one of the longest lasting media partnerships—25 years running Wednesday’s Child weekly on the same major TV network news station.  It now runs Wednesday’s Child on three major network stations and two Spanish speaking stations. 

Dr. Davis has made even further contributions to the field in the following ways: 

• Current President, Board of the national Adoption Exchange Association

• One of the originating partners and the Principal Investigator  of  The Collaboration to AdoptUsKids, a national adoption recruitment and training initiative of the federal government

• Pioneered the development of a network of collaborating organizations to serve military families and Americans living abroad

• Honorary member of National Association of State Adoption Programs

• Member of Lt. Governor Jane Norton’s 2005 Committee to Promote Adoption

• Founding member and Past President of Voice for Adoption, a national advocacy organization

• Served on numerous expert work groups and national advisory committees of Departments of Justice and Health & Human Services and on national coalitions to set standards and  improve  implementation of interstate placement of children

• Speaker and published writer on ethics, technology, and other issues in adoption

• Recipient of the 2007 Child Advocate of the Year Award from the North American Council on Adoptable Children

• Authored Adoption: Stories of Lives Transformed, which won the 2008 EVVY award, the IPPY award, and was on the best seller list in May 2008

• Recipient of an Adoption Excellence Award for Individual Contributions, presented by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2008

We look forward to Dr. Davis' keynote the morning of Friday, March 27, 2009 to kickoff the Annual Conference portion of our event!