For 39 years, Adoption Network Cleveland has been more than an organization—it has been a lifeline, a refuge, and a place where people discover they are not alone. It is where stories once held in silence are finally spoken, where questions that lingered for decades find understanding, and where connection becomes a pathway to healing.
Founded on the belief that every voice matters, Adoption Network Cleveland honors lived experience, amplifies the perspectives of those most directly impacted, and creates space for the often-unspoken realities of adoption—the grief alongside the joy, the questions alongside the answers, and the lifelong journey of identity, connection, and belonging.
In this special anniversary presentation, Executive Director Betsie Norris shares her personal search and reunion story that inspired her to recognize an unmet need leading her to found Adoption Network Cleveland. She traces the organization's 39-year evolution into a nationally recognized leader in advocacy, support, and education for the populations that it serves.
Through stories of resilience, growth, and impact, attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the complex realities surrounding adoption and the transformative power of community, connection, and belonging.

Betsie Norris is the Founder and Executive Director of Adoption Network Cleveland. An adoptee herself, she searched for and was reunited with her birth parents and siblings in 1986 and emerged from that experience with strong convictions about the lifelong journey of adoption for all involved, and the need for systemic change.
She founded Adoption Network Cleveland in 1988, served as a volunteer for its first seven years, and has led the organization as Executive Director since 1995.
With a wide array of programs and services, Adoption Network Cleveland has been recognized nationally as a successful model for effective service and advocacy for members of the adoption community including adoptees, adoptive, foster and kinship families, birth parents and siblings, people facing DNA discoveries, youth in foster care and related professionals.
Betsie has become a frequent spokesperson in the media and has led the organization to long-term success, building innovative programs and playing a strong advocacy role. Major advocacy achievements include changing laws about access to records resulting in Ohio adoptees gaining access to their original birth certificate, leading successful efforts to decrease barriers to permanency for youth in foster care, and outlawing fertility fraud in Ohio.
Adoption Network Cleveland served as the lead agency of the Adopt Cuyahoga’s Kids Initiative, a public-private-philanthropic partnership which was responsible for reducing the number of youth lingering in foster care in Cuyahoga County from 1,700 in 2004 to approximately 500 in 2018. The organization has supported and assisted in thousands of successful adoptee/birth family and DNA searches and reunions and has been a leader in supporting families to enhance trauma-informed parenting and permanency for children and youth.
Over a 25+ year period, Betsie took the lead on legislation to reform Ohio’s adoption laws, and as a result all Ohio-born adult adoptees adopted have access to their original birth certificates, including 400,000 adoptees adopted in Ohio's formerly "closed" period (1964-1996) starting in March 2015. The story of her involvement is highlighted in the short documentary An Adoptee ROARed in Ohio: The Betsie Norris Story by Jean Strauss, which debuted at the Cleveland International Film Festival in 2014. Betsie is co-author of Journeys After Adoption: Understanding the Lifelong Process (Bergin & Garvey, 2002) and her story is featured in several books. Prior to her work in adoption and child welfare, Betsie worked as an RN in child and adolescent psychiatry.