The Impact of Openness on Adoption Agency Practices

ABSTRACT

This article reports the results of a longitudinal study of the changing openness-related practices of private U.S. adoption agencies. Staff from private adoption agencies were interviewed at three points in time, in 1987–89, 1993, and 1999, about their current practices and attitudes regarding openness in adoption and any changes that may have taken place since the previous interview. From 1993 to 1999 agencies continued a trend toward offering and encouraging more open adoptions. During this period fully disclosed arrangements became more common and had the greatest growth since 1987, while confidential adoptions continued to decrease in frequency. Mediated adoptions remain the predominant arrangements. Changes in the adoption options offered by the agencies at all three time periods have been driven primarily by the demands of the birthmother for greater openness. However, by final data collection in 1999, most agencies in this sample changed from viewing the birthmother as their primary client to viewing the adopted child as their primary client. Implications for agency practices are discussed.     

A Comparison of Biological and Adoptive Mothers and Fathers

ABSTRACT

While poverty is suspected to be the major reason for birth families relinquishing their children for international adoptions, little is known of the impact of the interplay among the economic, familial, and cultural aspects of a particular sending country which culminates in the adoption decision. In this study, the authors studied 73 birthmothers in the Republic of Marshall Islands, a small Western Pacific island nation with a total population of 68,000, to explore the influences that led to their adoption decision. Their findings reflect an environment of extreme poverty, the breakdown of traditional family support systems, and the exploitation of the cultural understanding of adoptions.     

The Changing Face of Public Adoption Practice

ABSTRACT

A study analyzing the workload of California's public adoption workers revealed how much adoption practice in the public sector has changed in recent years. Using focused discussion groups, this study found that compared to practice of an earlier time, (1) children available for placement come from more problematic families and are more difficult to place; (2) some decisions traditionally with the domain of adoptions are now being made by other social workers; and (3) increased oversight by the judicial system has had several unanticipated consequences, including adoption work taking on a “paralegal” quality and judges making traditional casework decisions.     

Developmental,Familial, and Peer Deterrents to Adoption Placement

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the developmental, familial and peer deterrents that form barriers to adoption placement among teen mothers in a residential facility. An Eriksonian developmental model is used to explore developmental issues of identity, projective identification, and industry among teens. The findings suggest that family “cutoffs” and “re-admissions” also serve as deterrents to adoption placement. Additionally, peer pressure from residents of the facility form barriers to adoption placement. Teen mothers express how they were deterred from adoption placement and constrained into child-rearing as pregnancy resolution strategies. This qualitative study gives family therapy interventions as suggestions to facilitate adoption placement through addressing the constraints teen mothers face.     

The effects of adoption openness and type on the mental health,delinquency, and family relationships of adopted youth

ABSTRACT

Analyzing the 2007 National Survey of Adoptive Parents, this study examines the impact of open adoption, demographics, and other factors on adopted children’s mental health, delinquent behavior, and family relationships. Specifically, we compare findings for youth in private and public (i.e., foster care) adoptions and identify key similarities and differences between predictors of children’s well-being across these two types of adoption. We find that youth in open foster care adoptions are more likely to receive an attachment disorder diagnosis than those in closed foster care adoptions but are also more likely to have family relationships characterized by trust and adoptive parents’ willingness to recommend adoption to others. Further, we find children in both public and private adoptions who are older at placement are more likely to have posttraumatic stress disorder diagnoses. For children in private adoptions, no statistically significant predictors affected youths’ delinquency outcomes or family relationships, with the exception of parents of private adoptees in households characterized by lower levels of poverty indicating they would be more likely to recommend adoption to others. The implications of the key findings are discussed with regard to service provision for multiple types of adoptive families.     

Some theoretical considerations on confidential adoptions part III: The adopted child

In all cases of newborn adoption where placement is made directly into the permanent adoptive home, the adoptive parents become the psychological parents for that child. While adopted children do have separate psychological and genetic parents, the capacity for intimacy, identity, and a cohesive sense of self develops through the consistent empathic attachment between the adoptive parents and the child. We discuss the adopted child's psychological development through infancy, pre-oedipal, oedipal, latency, and adolescence and focus on the child's intrapsychic tasks at each developmental phase. We note how development is different for the adopted child and how this development would be diminished or enhanced by the direct or subtle indirect involvement in an open or confidential adoption. Open adoptions appear to have the risk of serious interference at each developmental phase. Confidential adoptions appear to provide the child with the psychological protection for the unfolding of development. There is a new trend in the field of child welfare toward openness in adoption, which purports to change traditional confidential adoptions. We discuss the crucial aspects of the intrapsychic difference for an adopted child experiencing an open or confidential adoption.And so they wrangled before the King... Kings II, Ch. VThis paper was presented to the National Committee for Adoption Convention, October, 1982; the First International Conference on Pediatric Social Work, August, 1982; and to the Child Care Association of Illinois Convention, April, 1982. All authors have the M.A. degree     

Becoming Lesbian Adoptive Parents

ABSTRACT

Legal, public policy, and social biases make the process of becoming a family difficult for lesbian and gay parents. Currently Massachusetts prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation against individuals who apply to become adoptive parents, and allows second parent adoptions enabling adults to adopt a partner's child. We surveyed lesbian adoptive parents, heterosexual adoptive parents, and lesbian parents who used assisted fertilization to determine if the adoption process is similar for lesbian and heterosexual couples, and if lesbian adoptive parents are similar to lesbian parents who use assisted fertilization. The adoption process was similar for both lesbian and heterosexual parents, but lesbian adoptive parents perceived more discrimination and were more inclined to omit information during the home study. Lesbian biological parents found conception, pregnancy and birth “easy.”     

Setting Performance Goals for Adoption Services

ABSTRACT

Adoption is one of the several goals for child welfare services when children cannot remain at home. Adoption does not, however, become a goal of child welfare services unless family reunification cannot occur. Further, adoption is also not always the appropriate goal when children are living with relatives available to reunify. Yet, President Clinton's Adoption 2002 initiative offers incentives for adoptions that only depend on the number of adoptions, not on their relationship to reunifications. California's adoption initiative takes a different but also oversimplified approach to setting adoption standards by basing them on the number of adoptions per adoption worker. Under these approaches, agencies that increase their reunifications and keep their adoptions constant are not rewarded and agencies that decrease their reunifications and increase their adoptions are rewarded. This can create a misunderstanding of the program as antifamily and resentment toward adoptions. Agencies' adoption rates should be rewarded only after estimating the pool of adoptable children and taking the likelihood of reunification into account. A model for estimating these factors is presented.     

Some theoretical considerations on confidential adoption part IV: Countertransference

Psychological self-awareness is as essential to the maturation of one's professional self as is the development of theoretical and clinical expertise in child placement. This paper represents a first published attempt at examining countertransference in adoption. The focus is within the context of confidential adoptions, which the authors believe is more child-focused and intrapsychically based than the current experimentation with open adoptions. A distinction is made between countertransference and non-countertransference issues. Countertransference responses are divided into Racker's three categories: the concordant; the complementary; and the disjunctive. Clinical data illustrates these responses in actual practice from the perspective of confidential adoptions.This paper was presented in 1985 before the Illinois Infant Mental Health Association, National Society of Clinical Social Workers, and the National Association of Social Workers National Professional Symposium.This is the last of a series. Parts I, II, and III were published in Vol. 2, Nos. 1, 2, and 3.     

Adoption in the Media

Abstract

This article reviews four print pieces from national magazines and newspapers. They cover the subjects of adoption of older children from foster care, importing pregnant women from foreign countries to facilitate American adoptions of their babies, the death of a child with reactive attachment disorder, and the adoption of Chinese girls in New York City.     

Examining rates and risk factors for post-order adoption disruption in England and Wales through survival analyses

PurposeThis paper reports findings from two research studies that set out to calculate the rate and predictors of post-order adoption disruption in England and Wales.MethodsAll available national level administrative data on adopted children in England and Wales were analysed, supplemented by national surveys adoption managers. Complete national datasets were available 12 years in England and for 11 years in Wales.ResultsOf the 36,749 and 2,317 adoptions considered, 565 in England and 35 in Wales had disrupted over the follow up period. Kaplan-Meier analyses indicate that cumulative post-order adoption disruption rates were 3.2% and 2.6% respectively for England and Wales. Cox regression models indicate that being older than four years adoptive placement, adoptive parents taking longer than a year to legalise the adoption, being a teenager and previous multiple placements in care were risk factors for post-order adoption disruption.ConclusionThe post order adoption disruption rate is low. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

Adoptions, 2000–2001

ABSTRACT

The number of domestic adoptions has remained relatively constant over the past 15 years, varying between 121,000 and 127,000, but placements have increasingly been completed by public agencies. Adoption of foreign-born children in the United States has nearly tripled in the past 20 years. Despite the increased national interest in adoption in the past decade and the efforts of many dedicated individuals and agencies, it is still difficult to determine the total number of adoptions in the United States. No one agency is charged with compiling adoption information on all adoptions in the United States, and the agencies that do have access to some types of adoption information have no mandate or incentive to compile that information so that it could be integrated with other sources of adoption information.     

Why Are So Many U.S. Families Adopting Internationally?

Abstract

This paper uses social exchange theory to explain the increase by which U.S. families are adopting internationally, compared to domestically. Benefits of adopting internationally appear associated with a preference for infants, confidential adoptions, race/ethnic similarity and shorter waits. Costs are related to generally higher expenses and a greater likelihood of developmental and other health risks among the children. While international adoptions can be expected to increase on this basis, trends may be slowed as a result of social context factors (for example, recent policies governing international adoptions) and greater awareness of inequity in power relations within the adoptive family triad. Implications for practice related to policy advocacy are discussed.     

Factors Influencing African American Adoptive Parents' Attitudes Toward Open Adoption

Abstract

This study explores the attitudes toward open adoption among 83 African American families adopting children through two private California agencies. Independent t-tests compared families who would and would not consider some level of open adoption. Findings reveal that the majority of families were quite hesitant about open adoptions, based primarily on the fear that birth parents would want the child back. Those with attitudes that are more positive were more likely to be in two-parent families and to have had personal experience with informal adoption.     

Descriptive Analysis of Foster Care Adoptions in New South Wales,Australia

This paper describes the population of children in care in New South Wales, Australia, who were adopted by their foster families (N?=?372) from 2003 to 2014. Data pertaining to 370 of these adoptees were available and obtained from administrative records accompanying adoption applications. Most of these children had been placed with their subsequent adoptive family during infancy. However, adoption orders occurred much later in their lives. According to the available information at the time of adoption, these children did not suffer the high levels of mental health problems typically identified in populations of children in foster care. Though the data do not include follow-up to determine if the contact agreed upon at the time of adoption orders translated into practice, the most frequently postadoption arrangement recorded was face-to-face contact, four times a year with mother and siblings. The high levels of openness and face-to-face contact in Australian adoptions from care are a significant point of difference with other adoption models, and presents a need for research in the area.

IMPLICATIONS

• Following the change of legislation in New South Wales, Australia, that prioritises open adoption over foster care, social workers in the field of child protection are well placed to assist in this process.

• Social workers can assess children entering care to identify those who will benefit from adoption in a timely manner; undertake casework and administrative aspects of the adoption process; work closely with the child, and birth and adoptive families by delivering pre- and post-adoption supports; and conduct longitudinal research on the outcomes for children adopted from care.

     

Some theoretical considerations on confidential adoptions,part I: The birth mother

In all cases of newborn adoption where placement is made directly into the permanent adoptive home, the adoptive parents become the psychological parents for that child. While birth parents give the gift of birth, they do not experience the developmental process of being a parent because in reality they are emotionally unprepared for this responsibility. We discuss the clinical meaning of a voluntary termination of parental rights, the appropriate grieving of the real narcissistic loss of the baby, and the meaning of adoption for a birth parent.There is a new trend in the field of child welfare toward openness in adoption which purports to change traditional confidential adoptions. We discuss the crucial aspects of the intrapsychic difference for a birth parent experiencing an open or confidential adoption.This paper was presented to the National Committee for Adoption, Convention, October, 1982: the First International Conference on Pediatric Social Work, August, 1982 and to the Child Care Association of Illinois Convention, April, 1982. All authors have the M.A. degreeThis paper is the first of a four-part series to appear in this journal     

Recent Data on the Number of Adoptions of Foster Children

ABSTRACT

Public agency adoption programs require accurate and current data to identify trends, project caseloads and costs, revise practice and develop financial incentive systems. The federal government and advocacy groups also need accurate and current statistics on adoption to formulate and implement major policy initiatives. Collection of data to establish baselines for the federal Adoption Incentive Program resulted in a re-examination of recent underestimates of the number of adoptions. The underestimates were produced by a convergence of factors including under-reporting by states, use of inappropriate data as the basis for the estimates, and real increases in the number of adoptions.     

Abstracts of the Scientific Programs of the American College Health Association Fifty-Seventh Annual Meeting May 22-25, 1979, Washington,D.C.

Abstract

This article focuses on a therapeutic approach to help women deal with the feelings of grief and guilt they may feel as a result of a voluntary termination of a pregnancy. Available medical and psychological literature indicates that, from a public health perspective, significant psychological problems related to an abortion are “minuscule.” Several women the author saw during the 1992/93 academic year who considered themselves to be extremely religious and prolife had undergone elective abortion. They experienced tremendous guilt and grief 4 to 6 months after the procedure. The author recommends that college health center medical and counseling providers who must deal with this issue help the woman validate her loss by revisiting the site of her abortion to reflect upon the experience and to hold a Gestalt dialogue with the fetus to end the relationship. The provider or someone else should accompany the woman to the site because of the increasing potentiality for violence on the part of prolife protesters.