Maris Blechner is an adoptive and birth parent, a licensed clinical social worker and educator, and an internationally respected trainer and speaker who has spent the last thirty-nine years working for the improvement of the lives of children in the child welfare system.  One of the founders of the parent-led multi-service adoption agency that she directed for twenty-six years, Maris relates proudly that she comes from the citizen-activist child-advocacy community and brings that neighborhood and personal family experience to her professional work. These days she has enjoyed mentoring, doing specialized consulting and training, and teaching at her own school, the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College.  She has been featured as a storyteller (about adoption) on The Moth Radio Hour, on NPR and podcasts, and even on the BBC, and has a chapter in It’s Not About You:  Understanding Adoptee Search, Reunion & Open Adoption, 2016.