Send us a text Welcome to The Australian Adoption Podcast , where we explore the stories that shape us; stories of identity, resilience, and the courage it takes to search your truth. Today’s guest is someone many of you will recognise, not just from the hugely popular Toni and Ryan Podcast , but from a more personal journey that’s touched hearts across Australia and beyond. Ryan Jon is a storyteller, a broadcaster, a podcaster, a husband and father and an adoptee. In 2017, he shared a heartfelt...
Aug 04, 2025•44 min•Season 4Ep. 40
Send us a text Today, we’re sitting down with Michelle- a mum, a midwife, a nurse, and someone who has walked the winding path of adoption and healing. Adopted at six weeks old, Michelle grew up in southern Sydney with her brothers and a whole lot of freedom, never really thinking adoption was a big part of her story. But like many of us, life has a way of inviting us deeper. In her forties, Michelle started to ask new questions, about identity, belonging, and the layers we carry without realisi...
Jul 12, 2025•51 min•Season 4Ep. 39
Send us a text Welcome to The Australian Adoption Podcast: My Unknown Truth, a space for the stories that live beneath the surface. In this trailer, host Nadia Levett shares the origins of the podcast and in Episode 1 she shares her personal journey from foster care to adoption, shaped by both love and complexity. But this series is about more than one story; it’s about many. With compassion and curiosity, Nadia brings forward voices from across Australia and internationally: adoptees, adoptive ...
Jul 12, 2025•1 min
Send us a text Hey Everyone, and welcome to this special bonus ep of The Australian Adoption Podcast . This one’s a bit different - I’m flipping the mic and sharing an interview I did with Jo Sparrow on Adopt Perspective . We get into all of it - early care, family, reunion, identity, and what healing really looks like over time. Jo asks the kind of questions that get under the surface, and I reckon this chat might hit home if you’ve ever wondered where you fit, or how to make sense of a story t...
Jun 26, 2025•1 hr 38 min•Season 4Ep. 38
Send us a text Welcome to Season 4 of The Australian Adoption Podcast, with your host Nadia Levett, where truth is reclaimed, stories are given a voice, and silence is broken. Today, we are privileged to hear from Shane Bouel, a man whose life was shaped by adoption—not as an act of love, but as a theft of identity. In his own words, he recounts the journey of a life unwoven and stitched together again, through pain, reunion, and ultimately, sovereignty. Through his recorded poetic piece, Shane ...
May 31, 2025•8 min•Season 4Ep. 37
Send us a text Welcome to Season 3 of the Australian Adoption Podcast , with your host, Nadia Levett. In today’s episode I’m joined by the inspiring Emily Hikaiti. Emily is an Australian-born Māori woman with a powerful story and a deep commitment to youth advocacy. Drawing from her lived experience in Australia’s out-of-home care system, Emily has become a passionate voice for change, working both nationally and internationally to shape policies and improve outcomes for young people in care. Fr...
May 05, 2025•58 min•Season 3Ep. 36
Send us a text "Welcome to the Australian Adoption Podcast, where we explore stories that inspire, challenge, and broaden our perspectives. In this episode, we're honoured to introduce Peter, an 81-year-old adoptee from New Zealand and brother of Jan Peart, who shared her journey in Episode 16. Peter’s story is one of love, resilience, and the transformative power of family. As both an adoptee and an adoptive parent of two, alongside two biological children, Peter’s unique experiences shine a li...
Mar 21, 2025•1 hr•Season 3Ep. 35
Send us a text Hi listeners, today I am speaking with Barton. A former Surf Life Saver, Australian barefoot water ski champion and an educator, Barton is also a published writer, an actor in film, tv, and theatre. He is also a Vietnamese war adoptee. In April 1975, President Ford initiated the largest-ever humanitarian child evacuation. Thousands of babies were "lifted" from war-torn Vietnam to Western countries to begin a new life. Barton C Williams (aka Huynh van Cuong) was one of these childr...
Feb 21, 2025•46 min•Season 3Ep. 34
Send us a text Hi everyone, today I will be speaking to Renee Carter, CEO of Adopt Change Australia. Adopt Change is a non-profit organisation with its purpose to support children in need, focussing on government care, foster care, orphans, or children without families, and their carers, families and guardians. They have continued to achieve this by providing resources such as my packs to support at-risk children and also providing support and resources to carers, families and guardians. They pl...
Jan 07, 2025•44 min•Season 3Ep. 33
Send us a text Hi everyone, today I speak with Kura. Kura Perkins is a Perth-based adoptee. Born in 1975 and was adopted in Western Australia at 6 weeks of age to newly arrived immigrants from New Zealand. They decided to give her a Māori, name and although she wasn’t Māori, her adoptive parents had heard of this incredible name Kura and loved it, her name would soon have coincidental significance, becoming clear 25 years later. Growing up, Kura always knew she was adopted., She has met both of ...
Nov 05, 2024•53 min•Season 3Ep. 32
Send us a text Hi Listeners, In this episode I sit down with Jim Moginie. We had an amazing conversation over zoom from his home in Ireland and I was fortunate to meet him for the launch of his new book earlier this year. For 50 years, Jim was a driving force behind one of Australia’s most iconic bands Midnight Oil. He grew up in Sydney’s northern suburbs and attended high school in the city, where he befriended drummer Rob Hirst. Together with another friend, Andrew James, they formed the band ...
Sep 29, 2024•47 min•Season 3Ep. 31
Send us a text Hey guys, Today I’m speaking with Denna. Denna is an intercountry adopted person, born in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 1979. She grew up in Mclaren Vale, South Australia, and an organisation, formerly known as ASIAC organised her adoption from Yayasan Ibu Sayap. At 4 months of age, Denna took her first international plane trip, and since then has travelled extensively around the globe in both career and personal life. Denna views her adoption experience as being a positive one, she ha...
Sep 04, 2024•32 min•Season 3Ep. 30
Send us a text Welcome to today's podcast. My guest is Alyson, an Australian adoptee from the Baby Scoop Era of the 1970s. Alyson holds a Bachelor's degree in Naturopathy and is certified in a wide array of modalities through her business, “Your Authentic Self.” Her expertise includes Homeopathy, Sanum Therapy, Herbal Medicine, Nutrition, Nutrigenomics, Applied Kinesiology, Touch for Health, Brain Gym, the Biology of Trauma, Somatic Healing and Creatrix transformology. Alyson's journey of healin...
Jul 26, 2024•45 min•Season 3Ep. 29
Send us a text Today I will be speaking to an international adoptee from Chicago, Julie who is also a author–memoirist, essayist, and columnist– who writes about finding out who you are, where you come from, and making sense of it. At 48, julie was sent for a breast biopsy. This incident highlighted what closed adoption prevented her from knowing: her birth circumstances, family medical history, and genealogy. The subsequent search for her “personal story” that consumed five years. She chronicle...
Jun 07, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 3Ep. 28
Send us a text Today’s guest, Lisa was born in England in 1970 and was adopted at six weeks of age into a family who had already adopted a son. Lisa’s family moved to Australia when she was two years old and the family grew to include a biological daughter. Lisa’s story of reunion spans decades, two continents and is a testament to her determination, resilience and courage. And having the belief and hope that a NO would not always stay a no. Here is Lisa's story. Support the show Thanks for list...
Apr 27, 2024•52 min•Season 3Ep. 27
Send us a text Jo is a late discovery adoptee who discovered at the age of 46 that everything that she had known to be true about her identity and family was no longer, it was like a sudden and tragic death. The information that blew her world apart was a diary kept by her recently deceased maternal grandmother “Nanny” that spanned the years 1960-1965. Jo immediately filed for her paperwork with DoCS to obtain her original birth certificate and find her birth mother. The story that unfolded was ...
Mar 24, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Season 3Ep. 26
Send us a text When Brendan was eight years old, his parents told him he was adopted. In his late twenties, he found out the identity of his birth mother – but she wanted nothing to do with him. For thirty years there was only limited communication with his birth mother, and he knew nothing about his birth father. It wasn’t until 2018, a DNA test led him to the truth: 'After decades of searching, Brendan discovered that his birth parents were a Catholic priest and a nun. His ‘Memoir which was re...
Feb 16, 2024•56 min•Season 3Ep. 25
Send us a text Jo is an adopted person, born in Adelaide in 1969. She lives with her family in Sydney’s Northern Beaches. Creativity has been a constant in her life and she worked in advertising, marketing and design for many years, but is now quietly forging a new path as a yoga teacher after feeling its transformative effects in her own life. I first met Jo at a yoga training retreat in Bali earlier this year. Jo was forcibly removed from her mother immediately after her birth at Queen Victori...
Dec 01, 2023•52 min•Season 2Ep. 24
Send us a text Today I am interviewing a gentleman by the name of Rowan Dent in Sydney’s Northern Beaches. Rowan is a father of one who has been impacted by adoption and has seen first hand, the joy and love adoption has played in his life. Rowan attributes his successes in business and sport to the fundamental values that were given to him by his adopted mother and uncle. This is a story of love, sacrifice, and loyalty that has impacted the current generation and will likely impact generations ...
Oct 30, 2023•45 min•Season 2Ep. 23
Send us a text Hi everyone, Today I will be speaking with Toni Moon. Toni Moon is a bird nerd, word nerd and adopted person breaking out of the fog. She is a journalist who writes about her own adoption journey amongst other things. Her personal writing reflects a desire for self determination as she uncovers her own past and builds the road ahead for her and her family’s future. Here is her story. Support the show Thanks for listening! Follow me on Instagram or find me on Facebook or Twitter. T...
Sep 22, 2023•45 min•Season 2Ep. 22
Send us a text Hi everyone, today I am talking with Layne Beachley. Layne is regarded as one of the world’s most successful athletes. She spent 19 years on the surfing pro tour. Won 7 world titles and is the only surfer in history, to win 6 consecutive world titles. 5 however were won in a state of fear. The other 2 that bookends her career were in a state of love. How did she get there? Well first of all, Layne’s mother died when she was 6 years old, this would have been devastating, to say the...
Aug 24, 2023•39 min•Season 2Ep. 21
Send us a text Hey everyone, today I sit down and talk with another podcaster Jonah. Jonah was Born in Cairns and immediately placed in foster care, Jonah grew up with his adoptive family in Brisbane and Growing up in a Caucasian Australian family, Jonah felt disconnected from his Papua New Guinea heritage and culture. In 2020, at the age of 22, Jonah embarked on a journey to reunite with his birth family, to reconnect with his heritage and unearth his self-identity. He launched an award-winning...
Aug 05, 2023•47 min•Season 2Ep. 20
Send us a text Tammy Richie is an extraordinary woman who has overcome numerous obstacles in her life. Her journey began with a challenging start, as she was abandoned as a baby, losing everything she knew, including an identical twin. This early experience of grief built up her strength and resilience, which she has carried with her throughout her life. Tammy learned to be resourceful and curious from a young age, and these qualities has served her well as she has become the influential leader ...
Jun 28, 2023•1 hr 19 min•Season 2Ep. 19
Send us a text Hey everyone, Today I am speaking with Monique from the Sunshine Coast. I had a perfect opportunity on my travel around Australia and in January this year I visited her in her home. We comfortably sat on the floor of her upstairs office surround by a large sand tray full of sand, water and figurines. Not long after getting set up did I then notice the two story bookshelf with about 1000 figurines all neatly on display. I was intrigued; but more about this later. Monique is an adop...
May 24, 2023•51 min•Season 2Ep. 18
Send us a text In this episode I speak with Karin. Karin is a mother to two boys adopted from the Philippines and President of the Adoptive, Kinship and Fostering Families Association of the ACT known as AKKFFA. Karin believes it is important to find your community of people when it comes to adoption, fostering and kinship care. Karin was previously a Member of the ACT Legislative Assembly, and uses her experience to work towards a better system for all families involved. She is passionately lea...
Apr 14, 2023•47 min•Season 2Ep. 17
Send us a text Hey everyone, I am excited to be sharing with you all today an interview I did recently with another fellow adoptee. This is my first international interview from our neighbouring country New Zealand. I will be speaking with Jan, Jan is a 69 Yr old wife, mother and step mother. So she has 6 children and 11 grandchildren and lives in a quiet seaside village. Her adoption experience with her adoptive family has been very positive however she has always been curious about her birth f...
Mar 09, 2023•44 min•Season 2Ep. 16
Send us a text In this episode I chat with Elizabeth. Liz is a mother to children through both adoption and foster care. Her background is in social work and training where Liz has trained and assessed foster carers in preparation for children joining their families through ACT child and Youth protection services. She has also taught and assessed students when studying to become youth, mental health and drug alcohol workers. A former Vice President of the Canberra based Adoptive Families Associa...
Feb 01, 2023•40 min•Season 2Ep. 15
Send us a text In this episode I speak with Sandra. Sandra is a baby boomer, born in 1949, grew up with her parents and brother and surrounded by her fathers English family in a small town. Sandra left school at age 15, became a shorthand typist and fell in love. Soon after the relationship blossomed, Sandra fell pregnant at 15 which was disapproved of by her family. Sandra and Kevin went on to face enormous challenges and struggles, being a young unmarried pregnant teen in a conservative family...
Jan 03, 2023•41 min•Season 2Ep. 14
Send us a text Margaret holds a Bachelor of Arts ( Welfare Studies) and a Certificate of Somatic Psychotherapy. Margaret has worked in community justice, social welfare ,human rights advocacy, disability and health services, as a Tribunal Member on NSW and Qld disability Tribunals. During the past 10 years, Margaret continues to work as a Counsellor, Advanced Practitioner for Post Adoption Resource Centre in NSW, Australia. Margaret learned for the first time of her adoption at age 40. This was ...
Nov 18, 2022•16 min•Season 2Ep. 13
Send us a text Today I will be talking with Kate. A Gestalt and Family Constellations Psychotherapist, Shamanic Bodyworker, Yoga Teacher, Sacred Ceremony Facilitator and has an online learning academy called, The Black Cockatoo School. Gestalt is a non-pathologizing and humanistic modality that pays regard to a person in their wider field. It utilises the body in the present moment to process any unfinished traumas, emotions and narratives that may be hindering one's life. Her work is about brid...
Sep 27, 2022•36 min•Season 1Ep. 12
