Date : May 5, 2001

Location : 305 Founders College, York University

Programme

8:00-9:00am     Coffee, Registration and Welcome 9:00-10:30am Opening keynote speaker

KEYNOTE ADDRESS Miriam Edelson (Disability Rights Activist) “Talking about My Journey With Jake: A Memoir of Parenting and Disability”

10:30-10:45am Break 10:45-12:30pm Session 1

INCARCERATION/INVOLUNTARY CONFINEMENT Gordana Eldjupovic-Guzia (Carleton University) “Mothering During Incarceration: Connecting the Past and the Present” Susan Boyd (Saint Mary’s University) “The Demonization of Women Suspected of Using Illegal Drugs” Jacqeline Gibbons (York University) “Forced Maternal Separation? Issues Addressing Mothers Behind Bars” Kris Kissman (Norfolk State University) “Incarcerated Mothers: Factors Associated with Substance Abuse Relapse and Recidivism”

12:30-1:30pm    Lunch (on your own) 1:30-2:30pm  Session 2

ADOPTION Karen Lynn (President, Canadian Council of Birthmothers) “Mothers Who Have Lost Their Children to Adoption in Canada from the Nineteenth Century to the Present” Debbie Rolfe (Social Worker, Markham-Stouffville Hospital) “Adoption: Solution or Sentence?”

2:30-2:45pm Break 2:45-4:00pm    Session 3

MATERNAL LOSSES: DEATH, MISCARRIAGE AND INVOLUNTARY CHILDLESSNESS Deborah Whatley Davidson (York University) “Birth Mother-Death Mother” Katharine Childs (Concordia University) “Standing Against the Wind: Looking Into the Abyss” Alma Norman (Ottawa Raging Grannies) “Sharing My Experience of the Emotional Costs of a Nonbiological Mother”

4:00-4:15pm Break 4:15-6:15pm    Session 4

LIVING APART AND MOTHERS WHO LEAVE Julie Thacker (University of Northern British Columbia) “Loving From a Distance” Petra Bueskens (University of Melbourne) “A Home of One’s Own: Mothers Who Leave Opening up New Parenting Possibilities” Gill Wright Miller (Denison University) “Leaving / Inspiration / to Grow” Annette Pagano (Rivier College) “Journeys of Women Without Custody: From Ambivalence to a Renewed Sense of Self” Morgan Gardner (OISE, University of Toronto) “Mothering and the Dilemma of Leaving When One’s Partner is Unwell”

6:30-9:30pm Reception and Creative Evening

Readings: Tasha Henry, E. Angela Henry, Julie Thacker, Debbie Rolfe, Rishma Dunlop