We are delighted to feature the work and personal story of Schai Schairer, LMSW, at our Activism in Adoption session in September 2026. Schai is a dynamic speaker, adoption consultant, and the founder of F.I.S.T. LLC (Fighting Injustice Standing Together). Born in Haiti and adopted into a multiracial family, her lived experience as an adoptee directly informs her work as a licensed therapist and recognized expert on adoption, identity, and systemic harm. With a background in social work, criminal justice, nonprofit leadership, and adoption consulting, Schai is known for her trauma informed, outcomes driven approach to supporting individuals, families, and institutions. She is the creator of award winning programs including the Prison to Poetry Pipeline and ARTExpress, which leverage arts and education as tools for healing, self expression, and reentry.
I'm excited you'll be doing our next Activism and Adoption session and I'm really excited to hear more about your story. You titled your talk "Speaking to the Younger Me." Could you explain that title?
I think the title came from me realizing that the younger me would've idolized and really been drawn to the person I am today. The younger me was in so much turmoil and operating in survival mode. And the people around me were operating in survival mode. We just didn't have the adoption resources that we have today and being LGBTQ wasn't as accepted then as it is today. So I was this young child who was adopted in a white home, masculine presenting, a tomboy, and not feeling connected to anything. I had a lot of people who took me in and were trying to mentor me and guide me, but I also had a lot of teachers and other adults who ostracized me and turned their backs. It was like they stamped this label on me that I wasn't.
“Speaking to the Younger Me” is affirming to myself that I’m going to be okay. That little me would be proud of who I am today. And there's another little person out there now who could benefit from this message.
What helped to get you from that young person who was looking for specific kinds of connections that were missing to the person you are today?
I had these two teachers in high school who got me into writing. That's how I became a poet. They saw that I had this particular skill, and it was very easy for me. I could have a moment where I was really upset; I would lash out and I wouldn't be able to contain my emotions or handle my emotions. But if they gave me a piece of paper and a pen, I could write it down in a way that most people wouldn't be able to and express myself with metaphors and similes and things like that.
Because they saw something in me, then I also was able to see something in myself. That was the turning point. I realized that I'm more than what people are saying that I am.
Were you able to find other people in your community that had some of the same challenges that you were feeling?
One thing that I always give my mom credit for is that I was surrounded with adoptees from day one. I don't remember a time where I wasn't around another adopted person. My mom was able to form this group of white single adoptive mothers who had adopted Black and Brown children. And we basically were brought up together. I know, for me, had I not had that foundation, I don't think I would be as confident in my adoption as I am today.
What was different with those kids and those families compared to other friends you might have had?
I didn't have to explain my family to them. My mom never really had those conversations with me on how to attack the questions people would ask, like, the inappropriate questions, whether they be from adults or children. My mom also didn't have the language at the time, and so she wasn't able to prepare me for it. But with these peers, these other adoptees, I didn't have to explain it. I could just be shy, right? We all saw ourselves in one another. And we just didn't have to fake the funk.
Thinking back to the title of your talk, would you say that although you had peers, and that was really affirming, there wasn't an adult in your life where you could say, “oh, that's where I'm going”?
Yeah. I didn't have anyone that looked like me. The other adoptees, they were great. Don't get me wrong. But within that, I was still the only Black person outside of my younger brother. We had Peruvians and we had Indians, but I was only Haitian. And I was the only masculine presenting one. There were no masculine presenting adults where I could be like, Oh, I wanna be like them. I couldn't find myself in anyone. I really didn't know where I'd fit. When you don't know where you fit, it's hard to have an outlook on your future and make plans for your future. We were in such survival mode when I was a kid – we weren't having college conversations, we weren't talking about doing a semester abroad – I think I derailed a little bit.
I was looking at some of your Instagram posts, and you had one that talked about love and loss. There's so much self-awareness in that idea – the beauty and the pain that goes along with adoption. How did you get to that place?
It was a long road, don't get me wrong. It took a lot of work. But I came to the point where I was able to accept that it's okay to live in two worlds. I can miss and love my birth family and still love my adoptive family. I think about my birthmother every day. I think about my birthfather every day. I wouldn't be here without them. And so it's important for me to always pay homage to them. And I don't know the story of how my adoption was initiated. But I do know that whatever they did, it was a huge sacrifice on their part. And that can't be denied.
Growing up, because adoption wasn't necessarily talked about as much, birthparents weren't respected at all. And so I had a lot of angst about my birthparents, a lot of anger and frustration.
But as a Haitian, I also felt very revolutionary, in a sense. People were always telling me, you have to read up on the Haitian Revolution, you have to educate yourself, this is part of your history, yada yada yada. I wasn't ready to do that because it was going to attach me too closely to my birthparents.
But my adoptive mom, she always had Haitian things in the house, Haitian artifacts and things like that, so those were available to me when I was ready. I always appreciated her for that. And so I think when it comes to love and loss, you're able to acknowledge there's this pain that's never going to go away. It's grief, and you're going to be forever grieving. But that doesn't mean you can't love what's in front of you, and love what's coming, and look forward to the future, and be appreciative of the blessings coming your way.
You have also posted about the difference between race and culture. Can you talk more about that?
Like I said, my mom had a lot of Haitian artifacts in the house. But growing up, I wanted nothing to do with Haitian culture because of the way the media portray people from Haiti and things of that nature. I wanted to stay away from it. I didn't want anything to do with it. Instead I wanted to immerse myself in what I thought was Black culture, which, if you're not around the right people, can be very negative. I started not necessarily making the right decisions. And one of the teachers I was telling you about earlier, he pulled me in, he was a Black man, and he pulled me in and he goes, Schai, [what you’re doing] doesn't mean you're Black, right? You're Black because you're Black, but you behaving like this doesn't make you extra Black.
He began educating me about Black history and the beauty of Black history, things I never even knew.
What were some surprising things for you?
I remember one day, I came into the classroom, and he goes, Schai, who's your favorite Black history person? I said, Rosa Parks. And he goes, why? And I answered, because she sat in front of the bus. And he closed the door, shut the blinds, he said, Sit down. She was not the first person to sit in front of the bus. Look into it and then come back and tell me. He didn't just give me the information. He told me to go find it for myself. And when I did, I was gobsmacked.
And I thought, wow, yes, it's important for you to take in what your teachers tell you, but it's also important for you to do your own research. From there, I was like, okay, being Black is actually beautiful. I love being Black. And then I was able to slowly and progressively start learning about Haitian culture. From there, I was like, oh, there are multiple different cultures within Blackness.
My “cousins,” the adoptive community I grew up with, they're Peruvian, but I also have friends that are Mexican. Completely different cultures, right? I remember us constantly going to get Chinese food, but my Korean “cousins” eat completely differently, and I was able to connect these dots. We may look similar and have similar ties, but the way we celebrate, the way we grieve, the way we do things in life are completely different, and that's okay.
Your education and your training is as a social worker/therapist, is that right? How did you begin working in the adoption space? And have you always worked in prisons?
All of this kind of happened as a fluke. Initially, I wanted to be a police officer, so I went to school for criminal justice. But a lot of things happened that made me realize, I can't do this. By the time I had made that decision, I was already deep into my studies for a degree in criminal justice. One of my professors for a class on women in criminal justice happened to be the former warden at the women's prison. She took us on a prison tour there. I was actually extremely late to that tour, because I went to the wrong address. I almost turned around and didn't go. But when I finally got there, we're given this whole tour, and at the end, we witness this panel with a bunch of women who are incarcerated. One of my classmates asked, What programs do you feel are missing within the institution? Every last woman said rehabilitative services.
And that got me thinking. I asked my professor if I could start teaching poetry in the prison, because poetry basically saved me. I wrote a proposal and my professors backed me. They sent it over to the warden, and the warden had it for maybe 3, 4 weeks. And then they threw these 11 women into my class.
No one thought it was gonna be a success. I just wanted to do something cool.
The warden was probably thinking, I’ll have 11 women out of my hair for a little bit. And it makes me look good on paper. No one really cared if the class was a success, which was okay.
When I went into this prison, I'm shaking in my boots, because this is my first time in a prison by myself. I started interacting with the women, and my guard dropped. As the days progress, and sessions keep going, I begin to realize, I'm not saving them, they're saving me.Then I began to realize how many of them were actually touched by adoption.
About 2 months after the class ended, the warden calls me and says, You need to come back. The women won't stop talking about your program. You have a waitlist of over 250 women.
And so that's how I started working in prisons.
Can you talk more about the classes and the adoption connection that you were beginning to realize?
One of the women in my first class, she had mentioned subtly that she was adopted. I had shared some of my poetry that says that I'm adopted, and so she was just like, I'm adopted. Then another one of the women was talking to me about a child that she had to give up for adoption because of her incarceration.
At that moment, I was like, holy crud! I wanted to be so far away from adoption, which is another reason why I came into the prison, and instead I'm right smack in the middle of everything I was trying to escape from. I started asking the women how many of you actually are impacted by adoption? It was about 80% to 85% of them. I started remembering my “cousins” that I grew up with. There's 10 of us. Only two of us haven't been in a psychiatric facility or incarcerated.
I know we talk a lot about foster care and the foster care to prison pipeline, but we don't talk a lot about the adoption to prison pipeline. And I think it's because once adoption happens, people think it's the happily ever after. And that's not necessarily true.
Was that the beginning of your work in the adoption space?
I don't necessarily remember exactly where the work started, but I think I was beginning to become more comfortable in it and find who I was, my identity, and my voice. I began feeling like I can project my voice now. I think I was always doing the work on the back end, even though I didn't want to acknowledge it. But now I am able to be confident in it and stand in it.
Why do you think you didn't want to work on adoption issues at first?
I think it was just too hard. It brought up so much stuff that I wasn't in a position to navigate. I didn't have the tools.
You going into the prison to teach and then having such an amazing response is a really cool story.
Yeah, it was life altering.
Are you still doing a program like that?
Not right now. I do have a program that we started as a result of COVID, called Art Express. We partner with the community college here, Montgomery College, and the incarcerated women complete these mail-in packets that they get, they get a micro-credential through the college. Then they can enroll in the college once they're released. Through this program, 10 or maybe 12 women are now eligible to be college students once they are released.
Why do you think there's disproportionate representation within prisons of people who have been placed for adoption or people who have relinquished children?
I think a lot of times, particularly with birthparents, they're not necessarily given the resources they need. So that's one thing that we know about. And then with adoptees, I think it's pretty much the same thing. They're not necessarily given the resources on how to navigate the trauma that they've endured. At the end of the day, adoption's a trauma – a very heavy trauma. I think a lot of people don't necessarily realize how traumatic it actually is, and how it really just alters your… your brain chemistry. When you're not provided the tools to help you navigate your trauma, people can divert to criminal activity as a survival mechanism, as a survival tool.
What do you think would make that better?
I think we need to keep talking about it. I have this saying: Talking about adoption trauma is like talking about racism and sex. Everybody knows it's happening, but no one wants to talk about it.
If we just talk about it, it makes the conversation so much easier, right? Yes, they're difficult conversations, but difficult conversations can unite people all the time. We can have complex conversations and be okay, you know? And it's not about us agreeing with one another, it's about respecting each other and honoring somebody's story and position.
And as long as we can do that and have authentic conversations, there's just so much healing that can happen.
Have you had any of those kinds of conversations with your family? How did they go?
Yeah, so my mom has done a lot of work. We had a pretty rough maybe 5 years where we were on rocky ground. And it was a moment where we both either needed to do our own internal work or our relationship was going to remain fractured and we weren't going to be able to come back together. So, we both were doing our own work, and we also went through a lot of family deaths, because it was around COVID. I think it was a culmination of that, and also us doing our own work, we were just like, This isn't worth it. Let's come back together. And now we're as close as ever. And there's still certain things where I realize my mom just doesn't have the tools to navigate, particularly in regards to racial stuff. She has done a lot of work pertaining to the racial things, so I don't think I'm ever gonna get what I truly, truly need from her, but I have enough where it's just like, alright, I can have you in close proximity, and I don't feel like you're dangerous.
What's something that you'd like people to take away from your talk?
Oh my gosh, there's so much. I think a big thing for me would be we need to understand behavior before we punish it. I don't believe there's really such a thing as a bad child, right? Children just don't come out just being bad, right? I think we need to be willing to tap into that child. The child who is acting out the most needs the most love, period. If you take your time and sit with a child and just hold a child, they'll open up.
I also think that people are affected by systems that should help shape them. Adoptees, most of the time we don't have the choice to be adopted. There's this massive decision that's being made on our behalf that we have absolutely no say in. And that comes with a lot of feelings. We can have those feelings and even be angry at our adoptive parents about certain things, but that doesn't mean we don't love them.
Adopted people have no control a lot of the time. And so when adoptees have control issues and things like that, it's 'cause they wanna have control over something and they didn't have control over this massive decision that impacted their entire life and their entire future.
It's not a rejection of the adoptive family. I promise you, it's not.
What do you think would help the prison system be better for first parents or for adopted people?
I think there are a lot of things, but I think one of the biggest things is being better equipped in assisting in reunification. And not being so quick to strip a parent of their rights. I know it's multi-layered, and it's multifaceted, but, I think that a lot of times when a woman is under-resourced sometimes an adoptive parent can swoop in saying “we can take care of this baby,” instead of, like, providing the birthmother with the necessary resources so she can take care of the baby.
I think it takes a village to raise a child. We can be a village, right? And it doesn't necessarily mean that we have to strip the child from the initial parent. And I think if we focus more so on reunification and really hone in on rehabilitation It will see a dramatic decrease in adopted people and birthparents in prison.
Registration for Shae's talk is now open. To learn more about Shai, visit her online on Instagram.
