Karen J. Campbell, M.N., R.N-C.S., P.N.P

Ms Campbell has worked as a Certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner since 1991. After graduating from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, with a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing, she worked in pediatrics and pediatric intensive care before beginning her postgraduate studies at Emory University.  While at Emory, she completed her training as a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and earned a Master of Nursing degree in Child Health.  She is now on the faculty for the Emory University Pediatric Nurse Practitioner program and a clinical instructor for Kennesaw State University.  Karen has a special interest in international adoption and adoption-related health issues, and she uses her personal experience as an adoptive parent and her professional knowledge as an adoption consultant to assist families born through adoption. Other interests include diagnosis and treatment of asthma, and attachment-related issues.  She has served as a board member for the Families with Children from China organization in the Atlanta area. 

Mary Anne Castranio

Ms Castranio, a long time supporter of China adoptions, lives in the Atlanta, Georgia, area with her daughter Amy. Mary Anne adopted Amy, who will soon be 8, in June 1998 from the city of Xiangtan in the Hunan province.

A long time technical writer in the software industry, Mary Anne has also worked at CDC as a biomedical editor. She currently serves as the executive editor of "The Georgia Bulletin," the weekly newspaper for the Archdiocese of Atlanta. Mary Anne served on the board of Families With Children From China-Atlanta chapter for seven years, the last year as the chapter's first president. Among other accomplishments, she helped to form a large, active single parents' playgroup in Atlanta. She also volunteers with the Love Without Boundaries Foundation and served on the editorial committee for their book, "Love's Journey."

NANCY P. HEMENWAY
Executive Director and Co-Founder of INCIID,
The InterNational Council on
Infertility Information Dissemination

For more than a decade Nancy Hemenway has provided information and support to those who suffer, mostly in silence, with infertility and pregnancy loss issues.

Ms. Hemenway is the mother to two miracle children: I have the best of all worlds: a child that grew under my heart after seven years of infertility and four pregnancy losses and a child who grew in my heart through the miracle of international adoption”, says INCIID Executive Director Nancy Hemenway.

Hemenway's own struggle so impassioned her that she left a very successful career as a special education teacher to help empower other infertile consumers by building what is now the largest infertility information and support organization in the United States.

She has made it her mission in life to provide consumers with the tools they need to successfully build their families. She has spoken to thousands in seminars, presentations and one-on-one meetings across the country and internationally with only one goal in mind: to provide immediate access to accurate cutting-edge information and 24/7 emotional support to the consumer.

Ms. Hemenway received a BA degree in Psychology from Mary Baldwin College and has completed graduate course work in psychological services from Mary Mount University. She has worked as a special educator, an advocate and a part-time lobbyist in the Virginia State Legislature. Before co-founding INCIID in 1994, she contributed extensively to infertility support forums on Prodigy, America Online and the Internet. She and her husband, David, live in the DC Metropolitan area with their two daughters.

Leigh Anne Harrington, LCSW, PIP

Family Intervention Specialist

University of Alabama International Adoption Clinic

Ms. Harrington has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a master’s degree in Social Work. She is a licensed Certified Social Worker in the State of Alabama and has her Private Independent Practice License for clinical social work. She has worked in areas relating child and family issues and adoption in particular for several years. She is certified facilitator in Group Preparation and Selection for Foster and Adoptive Families and was the first facilitator for post adoption support groups in the state for Alabama Post Adoption Connections. She is also the co-author of a curriculum to help troubled teens. She has both a personal and professional interest in international adoption. Her first experience with children in institutional care came in 1985 when she volunteered in a Haitian orphanage. She and her husband, Mike are proud parents of two little girls from China. Meredith is 5 years old and Ally is 2 years old. In her work at the International Adoption Clinic, Leigh Anne educates families prior to adoption to promote healthy attachment and adjustment, assesses for needs post adoption, assists with therapeutic interventions to improve attachment and decrease trauma, provides counseling and support for specific emotional needs and provides crisis intervention. She also has a personal and professional interest in the evolving issues surrounding families locating birth relatives of their internationally adopted children. Her own family has experienced the ups and downs regarding possible sibling discovery and would like to offer parents support and education about this process filled with many unknowns.

Agnes Horrigmo
B.S. in Psychology and Social Work
Macalester College, MN

Ms. Horrigmo is an adult adoptee from Korea. She is a Norwegian citizen, living in Stockholm, Sweden, where she works as a psychotherapist, both with individuals and groups. She is trained in Psychosynthesis (at the Psychosynthesis Academy in Stockholm), a holistic and psychospiritual approach to psychotherapy and personal growth and she also cooperates with the Adoption Counseling Service in Stockholm, which is a center that provides support and assistance to all adoptees and adoptive families nationwide.

The need for emotional support and psychological assistance varies. However, she believes that for many, there is a need for adoptees, adoptivefamilies or birthparents to process the psychological effects of the adoption and heal the wounds of separation. This may be of importance as adoptees or birthparents/relatives take the steps towards searching for each other, a journey that may reawaken old memories, experiences and feelings that have earlier been repressed. At this stage, it is significant to have someone to talk to, someone who can be an emotional and psychological guide, and help you meet and deal with the situation/experiences that you are having.

Susan Rittenhouse
B.S.
Biology and Environmental Studies
Iowa State University

Susan Rittenhouse is an adoptive mom to a 5 year old from China. Her daughter, Meredith, recently found a biological sister. Susan is the moderator of Yahoo groups for families who have adopted children from the Jiangemen City Social Welfare Institute and for families who have found or suspect that they have found biological siblings for their adoptive children.

Susan and her family live in the western suburbs of Chicago. Susan has B.S in biology and environmental studies from Iowa State University. Susan works the the US Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5.

Bonnie J. Ward
B.S
University of Massachusetts
Amherst Massachusetts

Bonnie J. Ward is Vice President, Telecommunications Strategy and Support Services for Liberty Mutual Group, with responsibility for the company’s voice, data and video networks and equipment. Ms. Ward began her career in the telecommunications field in 1981 by assuming the role of  Telecommunications Manager at Boston City Hall during the Kevin H. White administration.  She worked with the Data Processing Department to establish the first department charge-back system used by the COB for accurately dispersing telecommunications charges to end-user departments.  From the City of Boston, Ms. Ward’s career took her to positions of increased responsibility at Wang Laboratories, Shawmut National Corporation, and First Data Corporation, where Ms. Ward was Vice President of Telecommunications, responsible for the successful implementation of parent company American Express’ corporate initiative in outsourcing and was directly responsible for the delivery of voice/data services to their client-base.  From FDC, Ms. Ward moved to John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance, where she was responsible for Technology Operations Support and developed a strategy for implementing an integrated Infrastucture Operations Center before she joined Liberty Mutual in 1998.

As Liberty Mutual’s Vice President of Telecommunications Strategy and Support Services, Bonnie is responsible for the strategic direction of Liberty Mutual's nationwide voice, data wire line and wireless networks. Liberty's trend-setting strategies are helping to create future standards for tomorrow's emerging technologies. A key to Liberty Mutual's success in the industry is not only found in Liberty's technology developments but also in Bonnie's vision of the rapidly changing vendor world and her ability to effectively position Liberty Mutual to take full advantage of the marketplace in which we all work.

Ms. Ward has been an active member of her community, winning both the Distinguished Service Award for volunteer commitment to the Newburyport Community and the Community-minded Banker Award while employed at Shawmut National Corporation.  Her involvement in Newburyport’s Yankee Homecoming, the From All Walks of Life campaigns, and more recently the China adoption community, have made her a well-known voice on these and other issues.  Her family, specifically her two daughters, are her passion.  As one of her life goals is to provide them with cultural connections to their birth-country, Ms. Ward established ChangDeKids, a parents group for children adopted from ChangDe, Hunan.  Additionally, Ms. Ward has been asked to speak on behalf of single parents within the China adoption community by Mr. Lu Ying, Director of the China Center for Adoption Affairs.  She recently returned to China with her children to spend their summer vacation in their birth-city and meet with CCAA officials in Beijing.

Ms. Ward received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1978.