Adoptive Kinship Network Research Articles

Unsettled adoptive identity: Understanding relationship challenges in adopted adolescents' identity narratives.

Adopted adolescents create identity narratives conceptualizing their connections to their families of adoption and birth. Previous work with a sample of adoptive adolescents identified a sub-group who reported negative experiences regarding adoption as part of their navigating of adoptive identity processes (the "Unsettled" group). The current study examined interviews with adolescents in the "Unsettled" group to elucidate these negative experiences, specifically through identifying the relationship challenges linked to adoption. Participants included 30 adopted adolescents (18 females, 12 males) from a longitudinal study of adoptive families. All the adolescents (M age = 15.2 years) were domestically adopted in infancy by heterosexual couples who were the same race as the adolescents (29 White, 1 Mexican American). Thematic analysis revealed six themes reflecting adolescents' relationship challenges as related to adoption, both in terms of interpersonal interactions and how relational experiences influenced adolescents' thoughts and feelings of past, present, and future selves: (a) Negative experiences in relationships with adoptive family members, (b) Negative experiences in relationships with birth family members, (c) Difficulties in the adoptive kinship network, (d) Negative thoughts and feelings toward the self as an adopted person, (e) Negative views toward adoption as a form of building a family, and (f) Negative connections between adoption and future relationships. Multiple subthemes were also identified that built upon topics within the adoption and family systems literature, such as communication among family members, navigation of birth family contact, and adopted adolescents' perceptions of loss. Also identified were four profiles across themes. Implications for mental health providers and adoption professionals are discussed.

Trajectories of birth family contact in domestic adoptions.

Emotional distance regulation theory (Broderick, 1993; Grotevant, 2009) guided this examination of the changes in family structure and process in adoptive kinship networks experiencing different arrangements of contact between birth and adoptive family members. Group-based trajectory modeling was used to reveal four trajectories of postadoption contact experienced between adoptive and birth family members in adoptive kinship networks of same-race, domestic infant adoptions. Data were drawn from the Minnesota Texas Adoption Research Project, a study of 190 adoptive families and 169 birth mothers followed across four longitudinal waves (middle childhood, adolescence, emerging adulthood, young adulthood). Three aspects of the birth family adoptive family relationship measured at four times were used to create the groups: frequency of contact between the adopted person and birth mother, satisfaction of the adopted person with the openness arrangements, and number of adoptive and birth family members involved in the contact. Four trajectory groups emerged: no contact (41.6% of sample), stopped contact (13.7%), limited contact (26.3%), and extended contact (18.4%). Group membership was validated by coders who matched interview transcripts with group descriptions at levels significantly above chance. Knowledge of trajectories will assist professionals providing postadoption services. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Beyond the Childhood Years: Openness in Adoptive Kinship Networks

Beyond the Childhood Years: Openness in Adoptive Kinship Networks

‘A picture of who we are as a family’: conceptualizing post‐adoption contact as practices of family display

AbstractSocial work has a central role in negotiating and supporting birth family contact following adoption from care. This paper argues that family display (Finch) offers a useful conceptual resource for understanding relationships in the adoptive kinship network as they are enacted through contact. It reports on an interpretative phenomenological analysis of adoptive parents' accounts of open adoption from care that revealed direct and indirect contact to be contexts in which they and birth relatives performed family display practices: communicating the meaning of their respective relationships with the adopted child and seeking recognition that this was a legitimate family relationship. The analysis explores how family display was performed, and the impact of validating or invalidating responses. It aims to illuminate these social and interpretive processes involved in adoptive kinship in order to inform social work support for contact. The findings suggest that successful contact may be promoted by helping adoptive and birth relatives validate the legitimacy of the other's kin connection with the child, and through arrangements that facilitate family‐like interactions.

Understanding the Adoptive Family within the Context of Christian Hospitality

Abstract: Adoptive families can take many forms, yet there are similarities across adoptive family types that can be studied. Relevant research regarding the adoptive kinship network, openness and contact in adoption, family communication about adoption, adoption‐related curiosity and information‐seeking, and adoptive identity is reviewed. Christian hospitality is provided as a context within which adoptive families are formed and understood.

Processes Linked to Contact Changes in Adoptive Kinship Networks

The purpose of this study was to reveal underlying processes in adoptive kinship networks that experienced increases or decreases in levels of openness during the child's adolescent years. Intensive case study analyses were conducted for 8 adoptive kinship networks (each including an adoptive mother, adoptive father, adopted adolescent, and birth mother), half of whom had experienced an increase in openness from indirect (mediated) to direct (fully disclosed) contact and half of whom had ceased indirect contact between Waves 1 and 2 of a longitudinal study. Adoptive mothers tended to be more involved in contact with the birth mother than were adoptive fathers or adopted adolescents. Members of adoptive kinship networks in which a decrease in level of contact took place had incongruent perspectives about who initiated the stop in contact and why the stop took place. Birth mothers were less satisfied with their degree of contact than were adoptive parents. Adults' satisfaction with contact was related to feelings of control over type and amount of interactions and permeability of family boundaries. In all adoptive kinship networks, responsibility for contact had shifted toward the adopted adolescent regardless of whether the adolescent was aware of this change in responsibility.

Face-to-Face Contact Post Adoption: Views from the Triangles

The importance of ongoing contact for children with members of their birth families is currently a matter of great concern to both practitioners and academics and there is ongoing debate about the merits or otherwise of the different forms of post adoption contact. Research evidence remains largely inconclusive and the Prime Minister in his review of adoption highlighted the urgent need for more research evidence to assist professionals in making decisions about adoption and contact. To date, much of the research does not adequately differentiate between types and frequency of contact, the conditions under which contact is arranged and members of birth families who are involved. Whilst the needs of the child should be at the forefront of any decision about contact, it is also important to consider the repercussions for others involved in contact arrangements. This paper reports the findings from a sample of eleven adoptive kinship networks. Adoptive parents, chil dren and birth relatives from the same kinship networks who were sharing direct, face-to-face contact were interviewed. We were able to explore the development of relationships between adults and the ways in which their interaction affected the experience of contact as reported to us by the children. By focusing on issues associated with the convergence or divergence of attitudes, feelings and percep tions we identify factors that facilitate or impede beneficial contact and contribute to its maintenance. Understanding similarities and differences between participants in the adoption triangle provides important information for adults and children involved in face-to-face contact and for those professionals attempting to facilitate the openness process.

Openness in Adoption

ABSTRACT This paper addresses two sets of issues concerning openness in adoption. First, the current research literature on outcome studies concerning openness in adoption is summarized. Second, issues involved in conducting research on openness are discussed, and methodological recommendations are offered. Examples are then provided from the author's ongoing program of research with adoptive kinship networks, which are defined as including the adopted child, siblings, his or her adoptive parents and their extended families, and his or her birthparents and their extended families. Psychological outcomes for adopted children appear to be less related to family structure (level of openness) than to the dynamics of the adoptive kinship network.

Adaptive Behavior in Adopted Children

This study examines potential links between early risk and problematic developmental outcomes in a sample of adopted children during middle childhood (mean age = 7. 8 years). No direct relation was found between prenatal, perinatal, or preplacement risk factors and problematic socioemotional adjustment. When 12 high-risk children and their families were studied more intensively, collaboration in relationships within the adoptive kinship network did account for variations in socioemotional outcomes for these children. Collaboration in relationships refers to proactive cooperation among the child’s adoptive and birth family members on behalf of the child’s best interests. The usefulness of this concept for studying other types of complex family forms is suggested.