Past International Adoption Conference Locations
- October 2011 - Austin, TX
- September 2010 - San Antonio, TX
- April 2009 - Washington, DC/Baltimore, MD
- April 2008 - Chicago, IL
- November 2007 - Tampa, FL
- May 2007 - Dallas, TX
- October 2006 - Minneapolis, MN
- April 2006 - Atlanta, GA
- October 2005 - Columbus, OH
- April 2005 - Pasadena, CA
- October 2004 - Princeton, NJ
Past Beyond Border Conference Speaker Bios
Dr. Todd Ochs
Dr. Ochs has been a general pediatrician in Chicago since 1984. He began working with adoptive families in 1997, during the adoption of his first (of four) Chinese daughters.
Since then, he has seen over a thousand internationally adopted children in his practice and adoption clinic, has done thousands more referral reviews, has spoken to thousands of adoptive parents, and has adopted three more special needs Chinese daughters.
His office also is recognized as a “Center of Excellence” by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services to see foster children for their comprehensive examinations after placement, and he is the pediatrician for an adolescent group home as well.
He has written adoption medicine articles for several adoption publications, for the AAP Illinois Chapter Newsletter, and for the Child’s Doctor of Children’s Memorial Hospital. He has since spoken on international adoption at the International Pediatric Association in Beijing in 2001 at the CAFFA and Midwest Adoption conferences, at NACAC, Joint Council, The Child Welfare League of America, and to hundreds of adoptive parents each year at agency educational sessions.
He is a founding member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Adoption and Foster Care, and served on its executive committee for six years. He has advocated for adopted and fostered children with public and private schools regarding adoption health and mental health issues, including Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. He is an advisory board member of Illinois NOFAS, and has spoken at several conferences and hospital grand rounds on FASD. He lives in Ravenswood, Illinois with his wife, five daughters, and dogs.
Craig Juntunen
Craig Juntunen is the founder and president of the Both Ends Burning Campaign. A child welfare advocate and a passionate believer in international adoption, Juntunen is the author of Both Ends Burning: My Story of Adopting Three Children from Haiti. Juntunen leads the campaign’s effort to build a social movement to enact real and lasting change for the world’s orphaned and abandoned children.
In his early life, Juntunen was involved heavily in athletics, playing quarterback for a total of 14 seasons. He finished his athletic career as a quarterback in the Canadian Football League. He was elected into the State of Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame and the University of Idaho Hall of Fame. His experience as a leader on the football field led to his developing into an entrepreneur. He built and sold a company with a very successful track record and temporarily retired. His experience as a quarterback and as an entrepreneur blended together to form philanthropic passions.
He has been involved in many charitable giving efforts, and until recently his most notable achievement was launching the Chances for Children foundation, which supports villages in Haiti and has placed more than 100 children in adoptive families in the last three years. He and his wife live in Scottsdale, Arizona with their three children.
Chuck Johnson
Charles Johnson is the Chief Operating Officer and Vice President for the National Council For Adoption (NCFA) and the Director of the Infant Adoption Awareness Training Initiative. In his current position with NCFA, Mr. Johnson is responsible for coordinating efforts among member agencies and professionals involved in national and global adoption advocacy. He is the primary editor of NCFA’s highly rated Consider the Possibilities curriculum. He is also the project manager and editor of the Intercountry Adoption Journey: Hague-Compliant Training from NCFA, a Web-based training for prospective adoption parents that promotes the learning objectives required by the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption.
Prior to joining NCFA, Mr. Johnson served 17 years with a licensed child-placing agency in Alabama, including eight years as its executive director. He was a consultant and on-camera participant to Hallmark Entertainment’s A Family for Li. His recent citations include CNN International, USA Today, Newsweek, the New York Times, and Family News in Focus. Mr. Johnson is a graduate of Auburn University with a degree in Social Work and holds a Masters degree from Birmingham Theological Seminary. He has been a licensed practicing social worker since 1986. He is a father by adoption and lives with his wife and three children in Maryland.
Pierre Alexis
Pierre Alexis is the director of Maison des Enfants de Dieu, an orphanage in Port au Prince, Haiti. He has been active in orphan care for nearly a decade. In his role as director he is responsible for the ongoing care of children living at the crèche which can number from 60-120 at any given point. Pierre manages a staff of caregivers and support personnel that operate at the home around the clock.
Pastor Alexis is also on the board of For His Glory Adoption Outreach, the U.S. based organization that funds and oversees Maison. Pierre is in the states several times a year to represent the crèche at board meetings, and to present the orphan ministry to churches and other supporters around the U.S.
Prior to becoming involved in orphan care, Pastor Alexis was a monitor for seminars at Compassion International. He has also been a teacher, President of a league of youth association and accountant at his church.
Pierre has been a pastor at Eglise Baptiste Du Cote Brilliant since 2002. He had begun studying theology in 1999 but was unable to finish when called upon to replace the existing pastor at his church in 2002. He has recently begun taking online courses at Dallas Theological Seminary.
Pastor Alexis lives in Port au Prince, Haiti with his wife and four daughters.
Kim Harmon
Kim Harmon is the president of For His Glory Adoption Outreach (FHG), a 501(c)(3) organization devoted to the children and people of Haiti. FHG's primary mission is the support of Maison des Enfants de Dieu, an orphanage in Port au Prince, Haiti. In her role as president, Ms. Harmon leads the fundraising efforts for Maison and provides the primary oversight of the operations of the orphanage. She is also the liaison between the Haitian adoption processor and U.S. based adoption agencies.
Immediately following the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti on January 12, 2010, Kim was instrumental in securing and organizing the evacuation of 110 children from the orphanage to their adoptive parents in the U.S., Canada and Argentina. She worked closely with USICS, several congressional and senatorial offices, the U.S. military and numerous other organizations both in the U.S. and in Haiti.
Patricia Hickey
Patricia Hickey has been with the Department of State for 12 years, and during the past three years has served as an Adoption Officer in the Office of Children's Issues, handling intercountry adoptions between the United States and Canada, and Western European countries. She is also the officer responsible for outgoing adoptions covered by the Hague Adoption Convention.
Prior to working in the Office of Children's Issues, she served in the Office of American Citizens Services and Crisis Management; in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs; and overseas as a Consular Officer at the U.S. Embassies in Athens and Kuwait City. She lives near Fort Hood, Texas with her husband and two sons.
Mara Hudock
Mara Hudock has been an Adoption Social Worker with Great Wall China Adoption / Children of All Nations since 1998. She has worked with more than 350 adoptive families. Mara is the proud mother of a daughter from China, whom she and her husband adopted through GWCA in 2001. Mara has a Master's in Social Work and holds the license of LCSW.
Timothy Wolfer
Tim began his filmmaking career as an intern for a Northern Indiana PBS station, ultimately working as a Director of Photography and Editor for a variety of local programs. Wolfer has traveled extensively, filming humanitarian efforts and producing documentaries and TV shows in New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina, Mozambique, Bangladesh, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Uganda and the Sudan.
The January 12, 2010 earthquake outside of Porta-au-Prince, Haiti inspired Wolfer to film the struggles of the local Maison des Enfants de Dieu orphanage. Hitchhiking into Port-au-Prince, he lived solely off what he could carry in his backpack. The resulting documentary "Adopting Haiti" was released last January on Hulu.com and has been screened at several film festivals and humanitarian events around the world.
