The issue of open or closed
adoption is such a significant one, that we have chosen to reprint material
from the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse for your use. This section
on the question of open or closed adoption is from that source.
You can find
additional information at http://naic.acf.hhs.gov/pubs/f_openadopt.cfm
Open, or fully disclosed, adoptions
allow adoptive parents, and often the adopted child, to interact directly with
birth parents. Family members interact in ways that feel most comfortable to
them. Communication may include letters, e-mails, telephone calls, or visits.
The frequency of contact is negotiated and can range from every few years to
several times a month or more. Contact often changes as a child grows and has
more questions about his or her adoption or as families' needs change. It is
important to note that even in an open adoption, the legal relationship between
a birth parent and child is severed. The adoptive parents are the legal
parents of an adopted child.
The goals of open adoption are:
- To minimize the child's loss of relationships.
- To maintain and celebrate the adopted child's
connections with all the important people in his or her life.
- To allow the child to resolve losses with truth,
rather than the fantasy adopted children often create when no information
or contact with their birth family is available.
Open adoption is just one of
several openness options available to families, ranging from confidential, to
semi-open (or mediated), to fully open adoption. In semi-open or mediated
adoptions, contact between birth and adoptive families is made through a
mediator (e.g., an agency caseworker or attorney) rather than directly. In
confidential adoptions no contact takes place and no identifying information is
exchanged.
Making an open adoption work
requires flexibility and a commitment to ongoing relationships, despite their
ups and downs. While this type of adoption is not right for every family, open
adoption can work well if everyone wants it and if there is good communication,
flexibility, commitment to the process, respect for all parties involved, and
commitment to the child's needs above all.
