Open Special Needs Adoptions
Open adoption exists when adoptive and birth families meet, exchange information, and establish ongoing contact. There are many degrees of "openness," ranging from meeting once, to exchanging letters through a third party, to full integration of birth and adoptive families into an extended kinship system. We define "open" literally. A truly open adoption is one in which birth and adoptive families have full and ongoing access to one another. Such adoption is undertaken always in the best interests of the child.
There are several reasons why openness may be established in a special needs adoption. Since many waiting children are adopted by their foster parents, many special needs adoptions begin with openness. Foster parents are required by the agency to support ongoing parent-child contact. Adoption is considered only when it is clear that the original family cannot be preserved. Rosenthal and Groze found that ongoing openness between birth and adoptive families was positive for most special needs adopters (Special-Needs Adoption, 1992).
Sometimes a birth family decides from the beginning that they cannot raise a disabled child. They arrange openness with an adoptive family that feels equipped to raise a child with special needs. Joanne Finnegan writes about her experience of choosing adoption for her son in Shattered Dreams, Lonely Choices: Birthparents of Babies with Disabilities Talk about Adoption (1995, Bergin & Garvey).
Families may also open their adoption some time after it has been finalized. We know many families who maintain varying degrees of contact with the birth parents of their adopted children, including birth parents with mental illness and some who are incarcerated. When a child benefits from contact and the adoptive family and child can be kept safe, openness can be wonderful.
More and more adoptive parents are opening their formerly closed adoptions of infants and toddlers with special needs. Independent special needs open adoptions involve the same risk of denied benefits to the child as do closed adoptions, and for that reason the most experts recommend that all special needs or at-risk adoptions occur with the assistance of a licensed adoption agency.
The benefits of open adoption are found in the relationships that result, the answers that are available to the adoptee, and the absence of myths and fears about the birth families. Although research on open adoption has indicated high levels of success among triad members, the problems that can occur in open adoptions are that adoptive parents may agree to a degree of openness that they are not comfortable with because a placement is imminent; birth parents may discontinue contact due to post-placement grief or other adoption issues; or birth parents may become intrusive or too needy for the adoptive parents' comfort, and in the adoptive parents' opinions. Finally, some research on open adoption has resulted in findings that ongoing contact increases the grief of birth parents. Prospective adoptive parents and expectant parents considering open adoptions should become informed about the potential pitfalls. James Gritter's book, The Spirit of Open Adoption, is one of the best on the market about open adoption; another good book is Lois Melina and Sharon Kaplan Roszia's book, The Open Adoption Experience.
Advantages. Birth and adoptive parents experience more self-determination and have more choice than in any other type of adoption. The birth family history is usually passed intact to the adoptee, the original birth certificate can be obtained and retained for the adoptee; the birth family need not wonder for a lifetime how the child is doing. In many open adoptions, contact is ongoing, allowing adoptees to have their questions answered as they recur. Research has indicated that birth and adoptive parents in ongoing-contact adoptions have a high level of satisfaction.
Disadvantages. Just as in older child adoptions, on occasion a poor "match" may occur, and birth parents may find themselves abandoned by the adoptive parents who promised ongoing contact, only to change their minds once the adoption was finalized. Adoptive parents may experience a failed placement when a birth parent reclaims the child, as most such adoptions involve legal risk. As well, a rare adoptive couple may discover that the birth parents either want more contact than they had first anticipated, or want less contact than the adoptive parents and adoptee would like. Many people misunderstand the principles of identified or open adoption and its benefits to those involved, and thus may be negative about the arrangement.
The North American Council on Adoptable Children issued a policy statement on openness in adoption in March, 1998:
Open adoptions are a way to reduce the complications that adopted children face. By definition, adopted children are connected to both the family into which they were born and the family into which they have been adopted. Since those two families now belong to an extended family kinship network, open adoptions provide a greater potential for families to work as allies on behalf of the well-being of the children. Recognizing that openness in adoption is in the best interest of adopted children, NACAC encourages all agencies to actively move toward open adoption.
Sites to See
R-Squared Press, an open adoption publisher and bookseller operated by an open adoption birth mother.
