About Us

Creating a Family is the national adoption and foster care education and support nonprofit. Our mission is to strengthen foster, adoptive, and kinship families and the professionals who support them by creating expert-based, trauma-informed resources, community support, and training. Our vision is that every adopted and foster child has a family who understands their unique strengths and challenges and is equipped to help them thrive. Check out our Five Core Values that we use to guide every decision. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and you can check out our financials and IRS Form 990 at GuideStar.

What We Do

We have the most extensive and diverse collection of resources for pre and post-adoptive families and foster/kinship care families. We are constantly creating more resources and new content every week. Since 2007, we also have our weekly radio show/podcast where we interview the top experts on every aspect of adoption, adoptive parenting, and foster care. 

While education is important to helping you make decisions on this often painful and confusing journey to creating a family, support is equally important. We have created an incredibly strong online support network via a private Facebook group, Pinterest, and Twitter.   Our mantra is ‘Information is Power’. We aren’t promoting one way of family building over another. We trust that with the right information, every family will find their right path to parenthood. We’ll freely admit that we would love for every child in this world to have a family. We would especially love to help find homes for older children and those with special needs, but we know that this is not the right decision for every family, and our goal is to help every family find their right path to parenthood.

Our Leadership

Dawn Davenport is Executive Director of Creating a Family, and the “Official Voice” of Creating a Family since she also hosts our weekly national radio show and is a frequent speaker at conferences. (We try to not let that title go to her head.) We also are proudly led by a terrific Board. You can check out their bona fides if you’re so inclined.

Dawn Davenport, Executive Director

Speaking Engagements

Our Board

Meet the Staff


Bit of Bragging

Adoptive Families of Hong Kong

Louise Garnaut

Creating a Family has made a big difference to the quality of information that we can share with our adoptive community. We sometimes use your podcasts as the basis for roundtable discussions or our monthly Parent Support Meetings.

S. Potter

Creating a Family and in particular your radio show has been a lifeline to me over the past 2+ years. In the privacy of my home/car I have been connected with others whose family-building has been challenged and I have had access to invaluable information from experts that have helped us make better decisions. Thank you!