About Michelle
Michelle Hester is a licensed clinical social worker who earned her graduate degree from the University of Maryland. She also graduated from The Washington School of Psychiatry’s two year program in child and adolescent psychotherapy. She worked in several clinical settings with families and children, most recently at The Center for Adoption Support and Education.
The primary part of Michelle’s career was at The Barker Foundation, a Washington, D.C. full service adoption agency, where she was the director of its international program for many years. Her special interest in those years was in parent education.
For the last three years she has been working with a practice, Covington and Hafkin, which serves as consultants to The Shady Grove Fertility Center in Washington, DC. Using a psycho-educational model, she works with prospective donors and recipients to determine their readiness and to help them in thinking through the long-term implications of their decision.
Michelle has a particular interest in the complex ethical issues which are a part of any adoption or fertility practice. She served on the board and as president of The Joint Council on International Children’s Services where she helped create a standard of practice for international adoption. She also served on a committee of The Evan Donaldson Institute which addressed similar ethical issues. In recent years she has become deeply interested in the similarities and differences between adoption and donor assistance and in the opportunity for families built through donor assistance to learn from the accumulated experience of adoptive families.
Michelle is a mother and grandmother; she lives with her husband in Washington, DC.