Advisory Sessions:

Why Our Paid Consultations Are Worth It.

Clarifying Misconceptions About Paid Consultations for Birth Family Search.

There’s a persistent misconception amongst some Korean Adoptees that everything related to birth family search should be completely free. This belief is not only unrealistic but can be actively harmful to other Adoptees who are navigating this complex journey.

Let’s be clear: we offer an abundance of free resources and advice on our website — a literal cornucopia of information. No one is being forced to pay for anything. In fact, we regularly hear from those who choose to book a paid consultation with us that the information we share on Paperslip is the most comprehensive and up-to-date available anywhere online. Many Adoptees express deep appreciation that we are a one-stop-shop for information related to birth family search.

We’ve noticed that Adoptees who loudly discourage others from ever paying for search-related services often volunteer little to no real or meaningful support themselves. Worse, their blanket advice to never pay for help can actually derail someone else’s chance at reunion. Anyone who believes that a volunteer can afford to give an hour’s worth of individual advice to every Adoptee who asks us is out of their mind. We should note that in our own searches, we’ve used a combination of free and paid services — and we’ve never had an issue with paying a fair price for quality assistance. We believe that a fair service is worth a fair price.

Unlike a few nagging critics who have never volunteered themselves nor ever helped any Adoptees have a reunion with birth family, we’ve spent years volunteering our time to help Adoptees around the world. Since launching Paperslip in 2020, we’ve made almost all of our knowledge freely available. That said, not everything we know is published online — and for good reason. Some search avenues are sensitive and can be closed off or overwhelmed if shared too widely. A paid consultation gives Adoptees access to those protected insights, tailored specifically to their case.

The reality is this: you get what you pay for. Adoptees who refuse to invest in proper guidance often spend years — and thousands of dollars — making repeated trips to Korea, chasing bad or incomplete advice they have found scattered across the internet. We’ve seen it time and again: Adoptees wasting precious time and resources because no one told them the steps that matter most, or the sequence of steps that they need to take in order to maximize their search efforts. There are many things an Adoptee needs to do months before a trip to Korea that they often do not know about. We can help Adoptees maximize their trips by helping to prepare them in advance.

Our one-on-one consultations offer a personalized roadmap based on your documents, your background, and your goals. We don’t promise miracles — no one can — but we can help you avoid years of running around cluelessly by giving you a clear and strategic understanding of the search process.

And let’s be brutally honest: if $65 for a consultation is out of reach, it’s unlikely that someone will be able to afford a serious birth family search in Korea. Birth family search isn’t a customer service experience — it’s more like The Hunger Games, with Adoptees unfortunately having to compete for a very limited number of resources. It’s emotionally demanding, bureaucratically complex, and not for the faint of heart. We’re here to help guide you through it — but only if you’re ready.

Good luck out there! If you’re ready, we’re happy to help you. Please read below for more information.

Section 1:
FREE General Advice for Fellow KSS (Korea Social Service) Adoptees ONLY:

FREE general advice for fellow KSS (Korea Social Service) Adoptees:

IF you are a KSS (Korea Social Service) Adoptee, please email us at paperslipadoptee@gmail.com for FREE general advice.

*Please note that if your Korean Adoption Agency was Holt, Eastern (ECWS / ESWS) or Korea Welfare Society (KWS) / formerly Social Welfare Society (SWS) / CPS, then you are NOT a KSS Adoptee.

As we have always done, we are still happy to help fellow KSS (Korea Social Service) Adoptees who have questions about starting or continuing in their birth family search for FREE.

If you are a KSS (Korea Social Service) Adoptee, please be sure to join the KSS Adoptee ONLY Facebook group KSS Cribmates. We do not have a mailing list, so being part of KSS Cribmates is the best way of keeping up to date with important information related to KSS birth family search.

If you are a KSS (Korea Social Service) Adoptee, please READ the information below CAREFULLY.

*Note: Please do NOT contact KSS if KSS was NOT your Korean Adoption Agency!

For KSS (Korea Social Service) Adoptees ONLY, please see:

NEW! Step By Step KSS (Korea Social Service) Adoptee Birth Family Search

IMPORTANT Info For KSS (Korea Social Service) Adoptees With Interest In Search After July 19th, 2025

IF you are a KSS (Korea Social Service) Adoptee, contact us at paperslipadoptee@gmail.com with any questions!

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*PLEASE NOTE: DEEPER DIVES INTO KSS (Korea Social Service) ADOPTEE CASES REQUIRE A PAID CONSULTATION:

*PLEASE NOTE: While we are always happy to offer KSS Adoptees FREE general advice, if you have deeper questions which you wish to discuss with us one-on-one, we have to charge for a one hour consultation. We have been advising KSS Adoptees for FREE since 2020, and can no longer afford to do one hour Zooms with KSS Adoptees without charging for our time. Our one hour Zoom sessions are highly informative and cost just $65 for one hour of time, which is plenty of time for us to provide you with resources which we do not make available publicly.

A one hour Zoom session can save you years of wasted time and repeated trips to Korea, particularly if you have never been before. Please do not think of us as travel agents—we are not going to advise you on hotels and restaurants, or sights to see. What we CAN advise you about is how to make the most of your time in Korea doing a birth family search, how to find resources in Korea in advance of your trip, and how you should best prepare before you go. So often we hear that KSS Adoptees come back from Korea and did not know what to do while they were there. This wastes precious time and thousands of dollars.

KSS Cribmates On Facebook

KSS Adoptees are highly encouraged to join our private KSS Adoptee ONLY forum KSS Cribmates. Please note that ONLY KSS Adoptees may join—no spouses, children, or adoptive parents of KSS Adoptees may join. Please be sure to answer the membership questions or your request may be declined.

Questions posted to the forum will always be answered—however, deeper dives may still be addressed in a PAID consultation with us.

Thank you!

Section 2:
PAID 1-Hour Sessions for Non-KSS Adoptees.
(For Holt, Eastern, and KWS / SWS / CPS Adoptees).

Recommendation by Korean Adoptee -

“I can’t thank you enough for your assistance and thoughts before and after our call. You helped me with a big part of my journey that would have gone differently if it weren’t for you. Thanks again.”

-Emily Jee Yung 

While we have taken great pains to make as much information as possible available for FREE on Paperslip, in our experience many Adoptees simply get overwhelmed by the amount of the information here and / or simply do not read.

To meet the needs of NON-KSS Adoptees, we now offer PAID 1 hour individual Zoom Sessions for Adoptees who were adopted through Holt, Eastern (ECWS / ESWS) or Korea Welfare Society (KWS) / formerly Social Welfare Society (SWS) / CPS.

To be clear, we do not do “on the ground” birth family search in Korea. What we do is to advise Korean Adoptees on their options regarding birth family search. Oftentimes Adoptees simply get overwhelmed with the amount of information out there, and need a guiding hand to walk them through their options. This is what we can do in a one hour Zoom with Adoptees.

Unfortunately we cannot do FREE deep dives for NON-KSS (Korea Social Service) Adoptee cases. Due to our limited resources, we only offer FREE help to KSS Adoptees.

If you are NOT a KSS Adoptee, we would be happy to do a PAID one hour Zoom with you to walk you through some basics of birth family search. We charge just $65 per hour. You would need to make payment before we can provide further one-on-one assistance through email or Facebook Messenger, or schedule with you. Our schedule is flexible, and we are happy to schedule with you once payment has been made. We can send you payment details once you email us. Please understand that we receive many requests, and we simply cannot answer the same questions for everyone for free.

We can get you up to speed on what the procedures are for birth family search. Most Adoptees do not realize that there are many paths to a search, and in our experience, everyone has similar questions. We think you will greatly benefit from an hour of our time—especially now, when the landscape of birth family search is changing so much.

If you have interest, contact us at paperslipadoptee@gmail.com and we can send you payment information. Once payment, has been made, we can schedule a Zoom with you.

It will be best if you can have your adoption documents (if available) scanned in PDF format prior to our Zoom.

Please note we also have many FREE resources on Paperslip, which is a site by and mainly for KSS Adoptees. Please note carefully what information is ONLY relevant to KSS Adoptees, and what information is relevant to ALL Korean Adoptees. Please see:

The Same Questions That Korean Adoptees Ask All The Time

Frankly in our experience, Adoptees often do not want to pay for ANY services to assist them, and many waste YEARS or even decades of time pursuing the wrong avenues based on limited or incorrect information. Many Adoptees opt to pay thousands of dollars on trips to Korea, but do not have the knowledge to make the most of their trips which a mere $65 could save them. Now (early 2025) is an especially important time to get things right, since it’s the last chance to request information directly from the Korean Adoption Agencies before ALL Korean Adoption Agency files move to NCRC in July 2025.

We can lead a horse to water, but we can’t make it drink.

We wish you luck whichever path you choose!