Australian Adoption Podcast - My Unknown Truth
My Unknown Truth is a podcast sharing the stories and lived experiences of Australians who have been through adoption and foster care. These stories are often complex, spanning over 50 years and touch on difficult truths, from growing up in an under-resourced system to Australia’s traumatic history of forced adoptions and Stolen Generations. But within the darkness, there is also light; stories of hope, courage, resilience, and love. Hosted by Nadia Levett, an adoptee born and raised in Australia, this podcast is a deeply personal project. It’s my wish that by sharing a range of voices and experiences, we can build greater awareness and understanding around adoption and foster care in Australia, spark informed conversations, and encourage others to share their truth, open hearts, minds, and homes to children in need.
Episodes
Today, I’m sitting down with someone whose story is layered, confronting, courageous, and deeply human.
Alison was adopted in 1965, just two weeks old, into a family that would grow to include three more adopted children. From the outside, it looked like a home built on love and opportunity. But inside those walls, Ali lived through things no child should ever have to carry — fear, silence, confusion, and trauma that shap...
In this second part of my conversation with Jo, we begin with the moment she met her birth father; a man who had known about her existence but didn’t surface until an argument broke out between them twelve years later. Jo shares the complexity of that reunion, the emotions it stirred, and how it shaped her understanding of belonging.
We also talk about the struggles she faced after the birth of her first child, what led h...
Hey everyone, welcome to The Australian Adoption Podcast: My Unknown Truth.
In this two-part episode, I’m chatting with Jo - an adoptee, advocate, and the voice behind the Adopt Perspective podcast. Jo was born in 1971, right in the middle of Australia’s closed adoption era, and her story is one of deep reflection, resilience, and truth-telling.
In Part 1, we talk about Jo’s early years - being chosen from a hospital nurse...
Hey Listeners!
In this episode, I sit down with Dana Hargus - licensed professional counsellor, founder of Restore of Ada, and passionate advocate for trauma-informed healing.
Dana shares how her journey as a mother to an adopted son led her into the world of biofeedback, attachment theory, and frequency-based care. With over 25 years of experience, she’s built a healing model that blends science, compassion, and practical...
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 ...
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 ...
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 fr...
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 eve...
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 ultim...
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...
"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, a...
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 n...
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 sup...
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.
Growin...
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. To...
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 ...
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 o...
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...
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 ...
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 certif...
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