Preparation and planning for face‐to‐face contact after adoption: the experience of adoptive parents in a UK study

Abstract

Whilst there is a general international trend towards more open adoption, there is considerable variation between agencies in the extent to which they are prepared to support different forms of contact arrangements. Agencies have a pivotal role to play in decisions about contact and early planning that is integrated into the assessment and preparation of prospective adopters is fundamental to its success. This paper reports on adoptive parents' experiences of the process of preparation and planning for direct, face‐to‐face contact. During preparation, agencies were clearly getting the message across to prospective adopters about the importance of contact for the child's well being. However, insufficient attention was directed at helping adopters to anticipate their feelings towards birth relatives and their responses to the kinds of management issues that might arise after adoption. There was considerable variation in the extent to which adopters were involved in the process of planning detailed contact arrangements, and this seemed to bear relevance on the success or otherwise of subsequent contact arrangements.

Open Adoption: Adoptive Parents' Experiences of Birth Family Contact and Talking to Their Child about Adoption

“…The level and nature of post-adoption contact was established at a very early stage of the placement, and is broadly reflective of other studies (Logan and Smith, 2004;Neil, 2004a,b;Logan, 2010). The agreement for contact appeared to be influenced by the opinions of the social worker and guardian ad litem, as well as the birth parent and adoptive parent.…”

“…Adopters have reported agreeing to contact to which they were opposed, for fear of jeopardising their chances of approval (Neil, 2002;Smith and Logan, 2004;Logan, 2010), or mistakenly believing that contact plans were nonnegotiable (Selwyn, 2004). Whether reluctant adoptive parents should be constrained to maintain birth family contact for the benefit of the child is the subject of ongoing debate (Luckock and Hart, 2005).…”

Contact Between Birth and Adoptive Families During the First Year Post-Placement: Perspectives of Lesbian, Gay, and Heterosexual Parents

“…Goldberg et al (2011) found that in some cases, LG and heterosexual adoptive parents who had less contact with the birth mother than they expected or hoped attributed this to her substance use. Perhaps adoptive parents have a difficult time relating to or developing a strong relationship with birth parents whom they see as having made choices that negatively affect the health and development of their children (Jones & Hackett, 2012; Logan, 2010). Future qualitative work can explicitly probe for this possibility.…”

“…Adoptive parents’ satisfaction with birth relative contact (regardless of the amount of contact taking place) has been linked to adoptive parents’ feelings of control over the relationship (Dunbar et al, 2006), and another potential benefit of openness appears to be that adoptive parents express less fear of birth parents reclaiming their child in open adoptions as compared to closed adoptions (Grotevant, McRoy, Elde, & Fravel, 1994). Thus, research evidence points to satisfaction among those involved in more open adoption arrangements, even in the most complex of cases, where difficult life circumstances face birth family members, such as homelessness, domestic violence, or substance use (Logan, 2010; Siegel, 2012). …”

Retos y dificultades para la implantación de la adopción abierta en España. El papel de la mediación

“…Las adopciones abiertas son experiencias complejas en las que los participantes van a necesitar apoyo adicional durante todo el proceso para ayudarles a comprenderlo y hacer frente a los cambios en las estructuras y límites de la familia, abordar sus propios sentimientos y preocupaciones y establecer medios confiables de comunicación entre sí (Logan, 2010;Maynard, 2005;Siegel, 2012).…”