What is “Anti-Adopterism” with Dr. Seungmi Laura Cho

Transcript:

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (00:00):

So as an adopted person I’ve always had questions about Korean adoption, not just about my personal case, but how has Korean adoption come to be? How has this practice of separating vulnerable Korean infants and children from vulnerable Korean families become normalized as a child welfare best practice?

Cassie Gillespie (00:23):

Hello, I’m Cassie Gillespie, and you’re listening to the Social Work Lens. The Social Work lens is a podcast brought to you in partnership with the University of Vermont and the state of Vermont Department for Family Services division. Today we have a really exciting guest with us here in the studio. My colleague in the social work department, Dr. Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D., is here to speak with us about adoption. Welcome Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D. .

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (00:51):

Thanks for having me Cassie. My name is Seungmi Laura Cho. I call myself Seungmi , but a lot of Korean adoptees call me Laura.

Cassie Gillespie (01:00):

Alright. Thank you for coming in today. I’m really excited and I know we have a little bit of a plan. So we wanted to start, or we thought it might make sense to start by talking a little bit about how you became a social work researcher.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (01:14):

Yeah. what I like to say is that my first encounter with social work was as an object of social work intervention. The institution of Intercountry Korean adoption began in 1954 following the Korean War ceasefire agreement. I was adopted to the United States in 1985, the peak year of intercountry Korean adoption. I locate myself as one in 200,000 Korean infants and children who are adopted overseas. And I grew up in the segregated white suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In a typical family, I learned from my family that my birth mother loved me very much, but God had a plan for me here in the US. Over the years, I’ve increasingly asked questions about that dominant narrative of adoption as I continue to ask questions about what are the conditions that led to my adoption overseas from Korea. Why do I speak English to white people instead of speaking to Korean to Koreans?

Cassie Gillespie (02:15):

Yeah.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (02:15):

Which is something pretty ordinary and yet goes overlooked. I found myself connecting with other Korean adoptees not just in Wisconsin where I grew up, not just in the US but adoptees from all over the world in Korea who had returned to Korea to make connections with each other and explore questions about how Korean adoption came to be and what does it mean to be an adopted person. You know, I I think it’s interesting that when I’ve been asking critical questions about adoption during that period of my life, when I was a blogger around 20 11, 20 12, 20 13 it wasn’t as common to where someone told me, you know, maybe you should be a research scientist.

Cassie Gillespie (03:01):

Yeah. <laugh>.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (03:02):

People were interested in what I said. Some people weren’t. Some people told me to go back to my country and to be more grateful for the opportunities afforded to me through adoption. But for me, coming back to school to become a research scientist has been an opportunity to engage with knowledge that already exists through Korean adoptee activism and choose academic research as a tool to be in conversation with the knowledge that already exists, and also be in conversation with Korean adoptee activists Korean adoptees who are helping other Korean adoptees in Korea and throughout the world more broadly.

Cassie Gillespie (03:39):

Can I ask you a question?

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (03:40):

Yeah.

Cassie Gillespie (03:40):

What does it mean to, I’m already gonna mess up the phrase you used, but you talked about like being in relationship with the knowledge that already exists. What do you mean by that?

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (03:49):

Oh, yeah. So let’s see here. You know, the story of knowledge as told by the ivory tower. Oftentimes suggests that knowledge hatches in the academy, that there is a theory, theory motivates a question. That question is investigated by a researcher who is objectively looking at the problem and the researcher is discovering that knowledge.

Cassie Gillespie (04:17):

Ah, Like they’re creating it almost.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (04:19):

Yes. And what I want to take seriously is that knowledge exists beyond academic research. That knowledge that is articulated through lived experiences is a contribution to knowledge not only non-academic knowledge, but knowledge that takes form through lived experience also contributes to what becomes scholarly knowledge.

Cassie Gillespie (04:46):

Very cool. And I very overlooked. Yeah. I interrupted you. You were talking about that connection to kind og how you became a social work researcher. How did you decide to go get a PhD in social work and and specialize as a researcher?

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (05:00):

Yeah. I think for me, I’ve always loved school. I have always been curious about people’s stories. What is the nature of truth? How do we understand truth? But at the same time, I also felt a level of alienation from ivory tower knowledge, social work, scholarship on race and adoption tends to look at racial difference and adoption status as a risk factor.

Cassie Gillespie (05:27):

and a risk factor for what?

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (05:29):

A risk factor for developmental outcomes. So a stereotype about, let’s say Korean adoptees, for example, is that they may have a higher risk for anger issues, for suicidal ideation, for disordered eating. And so I became curious about, while that might be a reality that shows up in the data what questions aren’t being asked about the normalization of whiteness and post-adoption environments that only, and how do these studies only look at racial difference of adopted children in typically white adopted families, and then overlook the normalization of whiteness as largely invisible.

Cassie Gillespie (06:17):

Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. I mean, it’s not cool, but thinking about it that way is super helpful. You were telling me something about, I asked what motivated you to go back and get your PhD, and you were talking about how transracial adoption is often only looked at in the context of these risk factors.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (06:36):

Yeah. So I felt like some of the social work scholarship was asking the quote unquote wrong question. And I’m really interested in not only looking at quote unquote what’s wrong with adoptees, but I’m interested in what we can learn from adoptees. I’m interested in taking seriously the ways that Korean adoptees, adult adoptees have contributed to knowledge. Adoptee solidarity, Korea, for example. A group of adult Korean adoptees in Korea who came together to ask questions about Korean adoption. This group is now retired, but the ways that they put Korean adoption in conversations with problems related to single moms, low income families in Korea being neglected by welfare state policies, was an important contribution to how we understand international Korean adoption and adoption politics more broadly. Mm-Hmm

Cassie Gillespie (07:35):

<Affirmative>. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. You’ve actually started to coin a term around some of this. Do you wanna talk a little bit about that?

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (07:42):

Yeah. thanks for asking me about that. So I call this lifelong personal and political project anti adopter. I wanna be careful that to say that anti-adopterism is not anti adopter. But anti-adopterism takes seriously the oppressive power relations that can be normalized through adoption policies and practices that can displace vulnerable low income infants and children from Korean families, for example, into typically more affluent white adoptive families in the US or other western countries. The first time I coined this term, I was a blogger around.

Cassie Gillespie (08:25):

Yeah. Tell us about This whole thing. This is fascinating. Yeah.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (08:29):

And actually, you know, I should say that in 20 10, 20 11, I, I definitely wanted to go back to school to become a research scientist, but I didn’t get accepted. And so I think it’s important to know that, you know, that

Cassie Gillespie (08:41):

Blows my mind. <Laugh>, I don’t know anybody is brilliant as you so

Speaker 1 (08:45):

Well, thank you. Those

Cassie Gillespie (08:46):

Folks are, it’s very silly <laugh>.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (08:50):

You know, and we can unpack that in a lot of ways, but I got rejected and I still wanted to participate in creating knowledge with Korean adoptees. And so I re-rated back to Korea to live and had the privilege of connecting with other Korean adoptees who were also living in Korea, building political coalitions with single moms families who lost children to adoption and other Korean NGOs concerned with the Korean welfare State. And so I was a blogger, I was pretty prolific. I was, you know, posting every week. I was staying up till 2:00 AM working on my blog coloring out to yellow and, the construction of Lori Jane. What

Cassie Gillespie (09:26):

Does that mean? It

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (09:27):

Was a plan words coloring as a sort of counterpoint to whitewashing

Cassie Gillespie (09:35):

Oh, I see. Yep.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (09:36):

Out as sort of a play on words with coming out. Okay. as a person and understanding that Lori Jane, my previous name, Laura Jane Klunder, and my nickname being Lori Jane was sort of a whitewashed version of a Korean child who was adopted into a white adoptive family in the segregated white suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the eighties.

Cassie Gillespie (10:01):

Yeah.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (10:01):

Yeah. So anti doism, this word came from my activist projects mm-hmm <affirmative>. And for me, coming back to school was an opportunity to continue to articulate this word as a form of resistant knowledge which resist a pro adoption status quo, meaning that adoption is largely viewed as a child welfare solution. And yeah.

Cassie Gillespie (10:26):

Can we slow down here for a second?

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (10:28):

Yeah.

Cassie Gillespie (10:28):

Because I think part of what I really wanna make sure we cover, you know, having you here on this episode, we’ve done one previous episode unpacking adoption from what we might say is a more critical stance. Right? And that was with nom halts. And we talked about, you know, how adoption, especially transracial adoption is complicated. But I think it would be really helpful the way I understand it, so much of your work is rooted in examining the discourse and the beliefs and sort of the dominant culture around adoption. Can we name what some of those, maybe largely unseen or unexamined cultural norms are around adoption here in the States?

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (11:06):

Yeah. So I think the first step to this conversation is to bracket a good bad binary around adoption. Because if we don’t bracket that, then a lot of what I say can get lost in translation.

Cassie Gillespie (11:18):

Okay.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (11:20):

\when I think about the story that I was told growing up by my white adoptive family, I was told that my birth mother loved me very much, but God had a place for me here in the US. More broadly, I’ve been told that adoption is an opportunity through which I was able to access education, housing, nutrition that otherwise would not be available to me. And I wanna think of that story about adoption as a very specific story which I call part of my scholarship has been taking seriously abolitionist perspectives such as Dorothy Roberts critique of the US child welfare system as family policing. And to put that in conversation with some of the work that adult Korean adoptees have done, such as adoptee, solidarity, Korea, petitioning the Korean government to end intercountry adoption looking at Korean adoption as state violence against Korean women and vulnerable families in Korea. And so, I, I really wanna hold space for adopted individuals and their truth, that adoption created a wonderful loving family that they are devoted to. And I’m also interested in examining the macro level realities that can marginalize low income, vulnerable single parent families as merely quote unquote birth mothers and center adoptive families who oftentimes can be white more affluent And have more access to privileges.

Cassie Gillespie (12:51):

Mm-Hmm <Affirmative>. And although these ideas are not isolated only to Korean adoptees, you know, as you just talked about state sanctioned violence against Korean women, can you talk a little bit about like why, why it’s framed that way and what was happening ’cause I think a lot of people are maybe unaware or just have not had access to good and credible information.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (13:14):

Yeah. I should say that I’m not a critical Korean studies scholar. And so my understanding is pretty limited to the conversations that adoptees have had with each other to ask questions about their lived experiences. But during the time when I was adopted in the eighties the Korean welfare state had not prioritized protecting vulnerable families. In some ways. Intercountry Korean adoption was a way to offload welfare state costs to other countries.

Cassie Gillespie (13:49):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative>.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (13:51):

Kimberly McKee disrupting kinship has examined this DeFacto intercountry Korean adoption as a DeFacto welfare policy.

Cassie Gillespie (14:00):

Yeah.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (14:01):

That offloaded these costs. What else can I say about that? I’m thinking about the ways that I was constructed as an adoptable infant because I was assimilable into a white adoptive family. That being said, my Korean mother was not eligible to access the United States through intercountry Korean adoption policies. And so we can see that there is a level of social engineering with intercountry Korean adoption when an adoptable infant who is seen as assimilable into whiteness as the norm can access United States citizenship, a passport and all the privileges that come with it, but Korean women are excluded. Korean adults are excluded.

Cassie Gillespie (14:48):

Yeah. That’s really powerful. And I don’t think we at least I have not had an opportunity to think and talk and read about that in really meaningful ways. Okay. So before I <laugh> brought you on this whole sort of side quest, you were talking about some of the dominant beliefs about adoption as a child welfare solution. There’s others though, right? In terms of sort of like adoption as a mechanism to create families. You told me once adoption is often framed as a love story.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (15:17):

Yeah. Yeah. So I think a normative way of thinking about adoption is through family is as a form of family formation.

Cassie Gillespie (15:25):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative>.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (15:26):

Sometimes I’m not able to talk about normative stories because I’m an academic, and so I spend.

Cassie Gillespie (15:32):

<laugh>.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (15:34):

like so much time in isolation looking at a very specific thing in a very specific way.

Cassie Gillespie (15:38):

Yeah, yeah.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (15:39):

But I think a normal way of thinking about adoption is that it’s family formation. It’s a start of a beautiful story. It’s a start of a family. This is when we have Hollywood depictions of instant family. Yeah. And so one of the contributions of critical Korean adoption scholars, adoptees themselves, has been to draw attention to adoption, not only as the start of family formation, but at the same time the destruction of biological families and vulnerable families. So when we think about intercountry Korean adoption within this critical lens, we can see the ways that potentially the story of adoption as a love story, as the start of a family actually normalizes your oppressive power relations that make invisible the ways that adoption can be the end of a family, that adoption can mark a vulnerable family not being cared for, and instead positioning that family to be vulnerable to coercion, to surrendering that child to adoption, for example.

Cassie Gillespie (16:52):

Yeah. And when you were writing that post that went viral, you know, in the 2013, something like that, you had like a snazzy way of putting this together. Do you wanna share a little bit about that?

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (17:05):

Yeah. In 2013 I was living in this is known as a closet room. It’s a terrible place to live. I lived there for nine months, <laugh>, and I wrote.

Cassie Gillespie (17:15):

a closet Room because it’s so small,

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (17:17):

It’s so small, it’s a place, these rooms are known for Korean students who need to have a private place while they study. But it’s basically just big enough where you can sleep, your feet go under this little desk area where you can put a notebook. And there’s really limited ventilation. So I had a drip in my closet room, and like there was no way to escape that drip.

Cassie Gillespie (17:38):

Oh my gosh.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (17:39):

Yeah, it was unpleasant. So, let’s see here. Yeah, I was blogging and I wrote this satire, which I came to call adopter savior syndrome with the acronym ASS. So as you can tell, the acronym stands for ASS. So and, and the satire ended with a cheeky joke of if you’re struggling with an irritating or relentless case of ASS, please contact your local adult, adopt your organization. So this was a mock diagnosis where I listed symptoms and risk factors for a bad case of that looked at feeling paranoid about reverse racism or like having delusions of grandeur that you’re the only parent for your adopted child. I will say that in 2025, I, it’s important for me to problematize this language of medical diagnosis. I think I was trying to denaturalize racism, but it also exploited medical diagnosis which is not consistent with my intersectional disability politics. I mean, but this is also the privilege of being an academic that I can go back over my creative works and problematize them.

Cassie Gillespie (18:45):

Yeah.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (18:45):

And also, Give credit to the movements that have helped me edit my work such as disability rights movements Yeah.

Cassie Gillespie (18:54):

And disability justice. But that, that post caught on, that resonated with lots of people. Did it not? Yeah. It

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (19:00):

Was a bit of a lightning rod. Some people were really excited about it. You know, it inspired them to open up and tell their own stories, their own lived experiences in the common section. There are also people who had a really strong negative reaction to it asking me to think about adoptive parents telling me that adoptive parents didn’t deserve this sort of mistreatment. And so recently I went back and revisited those blog comments and in one of my scholarly research papers, and I advanced this idea of anti adoption affirmation as an oversight for social work. So whether or not you agree with a pro or anti adoption position, I posit that social workers can adopt anti adoption affirmation approach to Korean adoptees who might express anti adoption sentiments as a form of self-expression. And

Cassie Gillespie (19:59):

Let me pause you there.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (20:00):

Yeah.

Cassie Gillespie (20:00):

Because that’s a lot of academic words, so, oh, that, no, they’re good. They’re good words.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (20:05):

<Laugh>.

Cassie Gillespie (20:05):

We just gotta pause and unpack them. So when you say social workers can adopt.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (20:10):

Yeah.

Cassie Gillespie (20:10):

Anti adoption affirmation.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (20:12):

Yeah.

Cassie Gillespie (20:13):

Let’s slow that down.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (20:14):

Sure.

Cassie Gillespie (20:15):

Yeah. <Laugh> and all the same words, but in really powerful ways. Here’s what I think I hear you saying correct me if I’m wrong or expand. So when social workers are working with people who have been adopted, who are adoptees or people who have adopted children, there’s a wide range of ways they might show up to this conversation all the way from being really pro adoption and seeing it as a really incredibly positive thing to anti adoption and thinking about it from this much more critical lens. Yes. So far?

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (20:46):

Yes. But I would also say that maybe in a lived experience as an adopted individual, which I am I may want to, I may experience a range of thoughts, feelings, expressions, that can range from being really grateful for my life, really loving my friends and family, and also having questions about isolation, alienation in white friend groups. And to the extent that those lived experience can become categorized as either pro or anti adoption, I posit that social workers can create space for that range of feeling, thoughts, expressions, and help adopted individuals understand that even if they’re asking questions that quote unquote can be characterized as anti adoption. That doesn’t mean that they’re being anti adopter, anti-family, or ungrateful or anti-American for that matter. I think the ways that Korean adoptees, for example, have asked questions about international Korean adoption and the mistreatment of Korean women, for example, we can appreciate Korean adoption, anti adoption movements as pro-family, pro Korean family, pro poor families, pro-women, and that being a contribution to preserving vulnerable families, which is something that social workers care deeply about. So my hope is that social workers can follow the leadership of adult Korean adoptee anti adoption movements by affirming anti adoption expressions as a contribution to knowledge.

Cassie Gillespie (22:31):

Okay. So what are you, what are you working on now? Because that, that all came outta that viral plug, you know, many, many years ago.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (22:39):

Yeah. That was 2013, I think that was over a decade ago.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (22:44):

Yeah.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (22:45):

Which means I have way more white hair now,

Cassie Gillespie (22:47):

<laugh>.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (22:48):

And may or may not be missing a tooth.

Cassie Gillespie (22:51):

<laugh>. Fun fact,

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (22:53):

Fun fact <laugh> it dyed in my mouth when I was living in Korea and didn’t have access to health insurance and wasn’t good at Korean, so wouldn’t go to the doctor <laugh>.

Cassie Gillespie (23:03):

Oh.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (23:03):

Yeah. So these are the consequences of unpaid activism. <Laugh>, Let’s see here. So I currently am interviewing adult Korean adoptees about dual citizenship. So Korean adoptees have become eligible to access Korean citizenship for some time now, but more recently it became more accessible and it’s become more prominent potentially in conversations at a, with each other. And so I’m just interested in this specific time. What are Korean adoptees hearing about dual citizenship? What are Korean adoptees hearing about Korean citizenship and how might it be moderating, how might it be affecting their experiences with access to healthcare or social connections? And so this study is I’m interested in talking to people who have dual citizenship. I’m also interested in talking to people who don’t have dual citizenship, but might be thinking about it Or people who maybe have thought about it and then decided against it. Yeah. Is there anything more I can say about that?

Cassie Gillespie (24:17):

I Don’t think so, but I guess my question for you is how can people find you if they wanna be part of that and, and what’s the timeline?

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (24:24):

Yeah. So a great way to get in touch with me is through my email account slcho@uvm.edu. And if you send me an email, I will email you more information.

Cassie Gillespie (24:37):

And we can link to your email in the show notes for this episode for anyone who’s, you know, driving and then going, oh, no, wait, what was it? So you can click on it, it’ll be there.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (24:46):

Excellent. Thank you so much. Let’s see here. And for now, I’m conducting initial interviews. So until that changes, it’s open. Yeah. Everyone’s welcome. Oh,

Cassie Gillespie (24:57):

Very cool. You know what we didn’t talk about, and this is my poor interviewing, but we sort of jumped from 2013 to what are you doing now? Do you wanna just tell us a little bit about some of the studies you’ve done in between on this topic? And maybe we can link to those too, so people can go in who are curious and wanna hear more and maybe wanna read some before they decide to reach out to you or not.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (25:19):

Yeah. Well, you know, I was a PhD student for, I think

Cassie Gillespie (25:23):

You should see the face. She’s making

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (25:25):

<Laugh> somewhere between a decade and forever. I’m not sure. <Laugh>. so, you know, I wrote a three paper dissertation. One of those papers was anti adopter as resistant knowledge. We talked about this paper a little bit. Where I look at my own adoption case and think about the messages that I was given as an adoptee and advance this idea of anti adopter, this idea of thinking about the structural power relations and adoption more broadly. The second paper for my dissertation is this paper that I also mentioned where I was investigating the reaction comments to my viral social justice satire, adopter savior syndrome. It’s coming out in abolitionist perspectives in social work in November. So when I get

Cassie Gillespie (26:14):

Congratulations.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (26:15):

Yeah. Yeah. I’ll if, if the timing aligns, I’ll send a link so that that can be available.

Cassie Gillespie (26:21):

Great.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (26:22):

And there’s also a paper that I, that began during my full break career year where I was interviewing adult Korean adoptees about their daily life. So I interviewed 19 Korean adoptees between the 20 22, 20 23 academic year in person in Korea. And I asked them to broadly tell me about their lived experiences, broadly tell me about their relationships in Korea. Through that inquiry, I was able to articulate what I call a Korean foreign or binary KFB for short. And this paper, I think, can illuminate realities of racialization for Korean adoptees beyond the black white binary in the us. Korean adoptees might experience racialization in the US, for example, as a black white binary, but they also might experience racialization in Korea where there is a Korean foreigner binary. And to understand the richness of Korean adoptee, racialization, I think it’s interesting to explore the ways that Korean adoptees who return to Korea and encounter adoptees who have returned to Korea are being racialized as quote unquote, not Korean.

Cassie Gillespie (27:34):

Yeah, That is fascinating and I imagine impactful in so many different ways.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (27:39):

Yeah. I would like this paper to get published

Cassie Gillespie (27:42):

<Laugh>, and then we can all read it and enjoy it. Okay. is there anything else that feels important to share or a closing thought that you wanna offer the listeners about your work or about anti adapter?

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (27:55):

Yeah, I think it’s important for me to say really clearly that I, I really love Korean adoptees. You know, when I talk about my research, it can sound a bit clinical, but I think for me, my encounter with adoptees has been really lifesaving, has been transformative. And that’s not to say that I’m in every individual adoptee’s life in a meaningful way, quite the contrary. But when I do my research, it’s, it’s not unbiased in that I am pro adoptee and really interested in hearing what adoptees are saying. And as a researcher trying to contend with that and be in conversation and, and amplify the meanings that oftentimes can be overlooked by adoptees themselves. And so, you know, when I work on anti adopter as a lifelong project I’d like it to come through as like a thank you note a love letter to adoptees. Academic research isn’t always the best form for a love letter, but, you know, we’ll see. Maybe I can find something there.

Cassie Gillespie (29:02):

I think it’s an amazing format for a love letter <laugh>. Okay. Thank you so much for coming in today.

Seungmi Laura Cho, Ph.D.  (29:09):

Yeah, Thank you.

Cassie Gillespie (29:13):

The Social work lens is produced by the University of Vermont’s Child Welfare Training Partnership, and the State of Vermont. Our theme music is composed and performed by local band Brick Drop, and our sound production and engineering has been brought to you by Egan Media Productions. We’d also like to give a special thank you to our in-house administrative production assistant Emma Baird for the social work lens. I’m Cassie Gillespie, and we’ll see you next time.