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Honoring World Adoption Day: Family, Identity, and Inclusive Storytelling

  • DEI Holidays & Recognition Days
Illustration of office workers—some using laptops, others standing with children and balloons—set against a world map background, celebrating World Adoption Day.

Recognize diverse paths to family with care, complexity, and visibility.

Looking for a quick, actionable way to observe World Adoption Day? This post gives you a fast, DIY DEI tip you can apply right now.

World Adoption Day is observed on November 9 to raise awareness about adoption and celebrate the families it creates. It’s also a moment to recognize the complex emotions and lived experiences that come with adoption—from joy and belonging to grief, identity, and loss.

This day isn’t just about celebration. It’s about making space for the full, layered stories of adoptees, birth families, and adoptive families—especially across cultures, borders, and systems.

Why This Holiday Matters

A diverse group of five coworkers in an office celebrate with confetti and gift boxes, while two colleagues applaud from their desks, highlighting cross-cultural friendships on International Day of Friendship.

Adoption is not one story—and it’s deeply shaped by race, class, identity, and power. World Adoption Day invites reflection, not just celebration. Here’s why it matters in DEI work:

✅ Many adoptees—especially transracial and international adoptees—navigate lifelong identity complexity.

✅ Systems of adoption are often rooted in inequity, trauma, and systemic failure—not just family-building.

✅ LGBTQ+, single-parent, and nontraditional families are part of the adoption landscape and deserve visibility.

✅ Making room for adoption stories at work helps normalize diverse paths to family—not just biological or “traditional” ones.

Inclusion means recognizing all the ways people come into our lives—and all the feelings they carry with them.

One Inclusive Celebration Idea

Four people work together at desks with laptops, while digital icons and charts appear in the background, illustrating teamwork, employee engagement, and collaboration in an office setting.

Try this inclusive activity to mark World Adoption Day:

Create a “Family Is…” Share Thread or Reflection Prompt 

Here’s how:

  • Ask your team (voluntarily) to complete the sentence: “Family is…” with a word, image, or short phrase that reflects their lived experience.
  • Frame it with this context: “World Adoption Day is a chance to celebrate the many ways families are formed—and to honor the layered stories behind them. Today, we invite you to reflect: What does ‘family’ mean to you?”
  • Keep the invitation broad and non-disclosing—no one should feel pressure to share personal adoption stories unless they want to.

This activity affirms family diversity and honors lived experience—without forcing a one-size-fits-all narrative.

Ready to explore more workplace-ready tips? Keep reading.

Ready for More?

Would you like a more detailed celebration guide for this observance?  Join our Free Community Here In our community, you’ll find deeper DIY DEI guides, a full diversity calendar, and workplace-ready tools to help you sustain inclusive, impactful celebrations year‑round.

Pause & Reflect

Five people are in an office setting, embodying workplace inclusion; two sit at a desk looking serious, while three stand in the background—one using a tablet and the others observing, highlighting cross-cultural friendships on International Day of Friendship.

How does your organization make space for the full spectrum of family—and whose stories are still missing from that picture?

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