Ensuring a safe, permanent family for every child: the global response
What is ICAR8?
Celebrating its 25th anniversary, the 8th International Conference on Adoption Research (ICAR-8) is a premier event for attendees from the Global South and Global North who are devoted to ensuring permanent, nurturing family care for every child. A cross-disciplinary exchange of ideas, innovation and information, the conference explores how to improve the entire spectrum of services for children without permanent families.
More than a conference, ICAR-8 is....
- A Community
We are a cross-disciplinary group of advocates, scientists, researchers, policymakers, practitioners, scholars, and adopted persons coming together to share ideas, advance research, and support children, birth parents, kin, and foster and adoptive families at every stage of a child's journey to permanence.
- An Opportunity
We champion ideas that transform care, policy, and practices to ensure permanent families for every child. We are mobilizing to create the next generation of child-centered professionals who will work toward the goal of achieving a permanent, nurturing family for every child.
- A Movement
United by the spirit of collaboration, mentorship, inclusivity, innovation and scientific rigor, we affirm the dignity of every child and their right to safe and nurturing permanent family.
Program
Morning keynote presentations are focused around 3 major themes:
Understanding what’s lost when a child is deprived of permanent family care
Responding to the needs of children without permanent family care
Ensuring permanence through evidence-based practice
The afternoon scientific sessions consist of over 90 presentations by speakers from 27 countries. Almost 20% of these talks discuss work performed in low- and middle-income countries.
Friday July 12th, the final day of the conference, is very special and a first for the ICAR series. The theme is Lifelong issues in adoption: reframing the discourse through lived experience. All speakers/artists will be adopted individuals, and we are moving the conference to the Carlson Family Stage at Northrop Auditorium, to accommodate a larger audience. In the past two decades over 27,000 adoptees, the majority of whom are children of color, have joined Minnesota families from abroad or from the public welfare system. Many, if not most, are now at an age where they are grappling with issues of identity and race, questioning how and whether to search for birth family, and wondering if their early experiences might affect their physical and mental health in the future. Therefore, in addition to ICAR-8 attendees, we are inviting adoptees in our community and their families and friends to attend this symposium. Speakers for Friday are included in the attached speakers list.
Information and Registration
- Further information about ICAR-8 can be found on our registration website.
- Tickets for the Friday, July 12th symposium alone can be purchased here. If you are attending the whole conference, this event is already included in the full registration fee.
- A PDF of the current conference program and presentation schedule for ICAR-8 can be found using this link
- An Interactive program for ICAR-8 can be found here.
ICAR-8 Location
The Twin Cities campus of the University of Minnesota, with more than 50,000 students and 20,000 faculty and staff is the flagship of the University of Minnesota System and one of the most prestigious public research universities in the United States. The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul and the surrounding region offers exceptional choices in terms of outdoor recreation, professional sports, internationally recognized theater and music, shopping, award-winning restaurants and numerous craft breweries. Despite what you may have heard about Minnesota’s weather, average July temperatures range from a high of 82oF and a low of 64oF and it has never snowed in July.
Conference Venues
The conference will be held at the McNamara Alumni Center on July 8th-11th and at Northrup Auditorium on Friday July 12th.
McNamara Alumni Center
Internationally-renowned architect Antoine Predock of Albuquerque, New Mexico set out to reflect Minnesota’s natural assets — its 10,000 lakes, the North Shore, the Iron Range, the Northern Lights and more — in the forms, materials, and design elements of the McNamara Alumni Center. Striking features include a pink granite-covered geode exterior with star-shaped glass fissures; an 85-foot tall Memorial Hall complete with six miles of wood lining its walls and a water stream and pool; and 75,000 square feet of copper cover exterior and interior walls.
Northrop Auditorium
Cyrus Northrop Memorial Auditorium is a lecture hall and performing arts center named in honor of the University's second president. The building was opened in 1929 and completely renovated in 2011-2014. The July 12th session ICAR-8 will be held in Northrup and be open to the public to allow participation by Minnesota's large community of adoptees. The program features speakers who are adopted persons who focus their research, professional or creative activities in the field of adoption.
