Post-adoption Contact Research Articles

“Siblings must stick together”: Chilean parents’ perspectives on sibling group adoption and post-adoption contact

ABSTRACT The inseparability of siblings is a key child rights principle, however, many children adopted from care are separated from siblings. Through a self-administered survey, we examined Chilean adoptive parents’ perspectives on sibling group adoption and post-adoption sibling contact. We examined types and frequency of contact and a thematic analysis approach was used to analyze open-ended responses. Although most adoptive parents favored keeping siblings together, few had initiated post-adoption sibling contact. Barriers included misinformation, professional discouragement, questioning developmental appropriateness, and hesitancy to contact birth families. The implications for research and practice are explored.

Post-Adoption Contact Experiences of Birth Mothers

This research examines the post-adoption experiences of 223 birth mothers who relinquished a child for adoption in the United States post-1989. This analysis relied on quantitative data collected for a larger mixed-methods study that sought to understand the pre- and post-adoption experiences of birth mothers. Results of the current analysis found that more than two-thirds (n = 155, 69.5%) of birth mothers in the study reported current contact with their child. Birth mothers who had continuing contact expressed greater satisfaction with their decision to relinquish their child for adoption than those who had contact in the past but no longer (n = 38; 17%) or those who never had contact (n = 30; 13.5%). More than two-thirds of the birth mothers (n = 156; n = 70.9%) indicated they would like to have increased contact with their child. Practice and policy recommendations include increased education for expectant mothers about post-adoption contact and the enforceability of contact agreements.

‘Something to just be ticked off on a care plan’: organisational professionalism and procedure-based decision-making in practice with children who go on to be adopted

Over the last decade, at a time when funding for services intended to support families has been dramatically curtailed, successive governments in England and Wales have sought to increase the numbers of children being adopted from care. In light of the central role that children’s social workers play in progressing plans for adoption, this research seeks to investigate 15 practitioners’ experiences of operating within the current context. Evidence of significant tensions in social workers’ accounts of planning for adoption and post-adoption contact under austerity is presented, and Evetts’ distinction between organisational and occupational professionalism is drawn upon to understand the influence of the wider political context on decisions made by practitioners in working with children who go on to be adopted.

Reordering family practices in an unequal and disorderly world: contemporary adoption and contact in the UK

Using findings from The Role of the Social Worker in Adoption – Ethics and Human Rights: An Enquiry, commissioned by the British Association of Social Workers, the following article presents a number of emerging themes regarding post-adoption contact and support in the UK. Three hundred individuals and 13 organisations across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland contributed to the enquiry and the data were analysed thematically. Within this article we will address some of the challenges regarding post-adoption contact and locate these within broader, often unexamined, concerns about poverty and inequalities. Drawing on sociological literature on ‘family practices’ and ‘displaying family’, we will consider both the status of adoption and the realities of carrying out post-adoption contact in an age of ever-increasing complexities in relationships. In doing so, we will explore how those involved in adoption carry out such practices, as well as the implications for professionals tasked with facilitating contact.

How adopters’ and foster carers’ perceptions of ‘family’ affect communicative openness in post-adoption contact interactions

This article explores the constructions of communicative openness following adoption. Data from three waves of interviews with six adoptive mothers and four foster carers were collected, transcribed verbatim and analysed in keeping with a social constructivist grounded theory methodology. The results show that the way ‘family’ is constructed can both facilitate and impede communicative openness. Those who hold a fluid, child-centred concept of family, are willing to construct it as different and can accept the ebb and flow of family membership intuitively and view such openness as a natural part of caring for children. Those with a more traditional, nuclear construction of family may associate adoption with fear, a sense of biological related competition and the need to control the controllable, all of which act as barriers to communicative openness. The study demonstrates that communicative openness is person and context sensitive and emphasises the need to think creatively and flexibly about the very nature of family.

Sibling networks of children adopted from out-of-home care in New South Wales, Australia

Abstract For children in care, sibling relationships can be one of their most important life-long relationships. This study describes the nature and complexity of the sibling networks of children adopted from out-of-home care in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. A case file analysis was undertaken of 89 case files for the adoption of 117 children from care, representing all such adoptions that were finalised by the NSW Supreme Court in 2017. In nine in ten cases, children in the adoption application had at least one sibling who lived elsewhere and who was not part of the application. De-identified information about children and siblings’ characteristics living situations, contact arrangements, and relationships were extracted and coded using thematic analysis. Sibling networks were generally large and diverse. Frequency of face-to-face contact between children and their siblings varied based on degree of relatedness, living arrangements, and caregiver type. Importantly, contact arrangements that are in place prior to an adoption order are pivotal to decisions made about proposed post-adoption contact. The results of this study suggest that when siblings are separated in care, efforts are needed to help children, siblings and their caregivers initiate and maintain connections. Such findings highlight the need for adequate post-adoption resources to support sibling connections over time.

Supporting Face-to-Face Birth Family Contact after Adoption from Care: Learning for Trauma-Sensitive Practice

Abstract There are recent calls to consider face-to-face birth family contact for more children adopted from care. Given that the threshold for this authoritative intervention is significant harm, post-adoption contact should be sensitive to the possible impact of early childhood trauma, and be adequately supported. This article draws on adopters’ reports of face-to-face contact with birth relatives, and their evaluation of social work support to suggest an approach to practice informed by principles of trauma-informed care. Twenty-six adoptive parents participated in focus groups, and seventy-three completed a web-based questionnaire, all from Northern Ireland where face-to-face post-adoption contact is expected. Findings are structured thematically around principles of trauma-informed care: trusting relationships; physical and emotional safety; choice and control; and narrative coherence. Most families had a social worker attending contact, and help with practical arrangements. Less common but important practices included: deliberate consideration of children’s perspectives; safeguarding their emotional well-being; and facilitating communication outside of visits. Findings suggest that visits are a context in which trauma-effects may surface, and social workers supporting contact should be sensitive to this possibility. This article suggests a systemic approach to helping all parties prepare for, manage and de-brief after contact, attending to both adult-to-adult and adult–child interactions.

Searching for contact with birth relatives: Search angels and search facilitators

SummaryReunification or post-adoption contact between adoptees, birth families, and other adoption stakeholders has become a normalized developmental trajectory, yet the process of seeking contact after adoption placement varies greatly depending on numerous factors including access to original birth certificates, openness of the adoption, and systemic and institutional challenges that may aid or hinder contact. In this study, 101 post-adoption search facilitators responded to an online survey comprised of scale items and open-ended responses.FindingsRespondents reported that most had no formal education or training to prepare them to assist with searches, they were primarily self-taught and utilized workshops and conferences as a secondary source of preparation, and only about one-quarter required counseling as part of the search process. Findings also indicated that formal education was rated as not helpful and office training (for those who had it) as neutral in its helpfulness. The primary theme identified in the data was that search facilitators must recognize emotions, particularly the grief and loss, associated with the search process to be effective.ApplicationsSocial work educators can prepare social work practitioners to effectively assist with post-adoption searches and reunions for adoptees and first/birth parents. Best practice will include training social workers to anticipate both the logistical and emotional needs of searchers.

From Contract Rights to Contact Rights: Rethinking the Paradigm for Post-Adoption Contact Agreements

This Article considers the issue of post-adoption contact agreements (PACAs). PACAs are agreements between birth parents and adoptive parents, negotiated pre-adoption, that define the types and frequency of contacts that the birth parents will have with a child after the adoption is final. Most private adoptions of infants in the United States are now open, and birth parents choose the adoptive parents in most of these open adoptions. About two-thirds of these adoptions include the negotiation and execution of a PACA. PACAs are generally treated by the courts as simple contracts. But treating a PACA as a straightforward contract ignores the fact that about half of the states hold PACAs to be unenforceable if the adoptive parents refuse to perform, negating the rights that should be enforced to promote the well-being of birth parents and adopted children. Indeed, studies of the adoption triad (birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoptee) show that open adoption with ongoing contact benefits all three parties emotionally and psychologically. However, because many courts and legislatures view public policy in favor of the adoptive parents, who acquire all parental rights when an adoption is complete, the interests of the birth parents – who almost always hold a lower socioeconomic status than the adoptive parents – are not given equal weight. The best interests of the child are similarly ignored. This Article argues that viewing PACAs through a contractual lens fails to take into account the market conditions that govern adoption and the power differential separating birth parents and adoptive parents. Drawing on feminist theory and applying principles of legal realism, it further argues that, when a PACA is viewed as a contract, breach becomes an available and even tempting choice for adoptive parents, especially because there is no easy remedy for promise breach even in states that purport to honor PACAs. When adoptive parents fail to honor the PACA, birth parents and children suffer. Therefore, this Article argues for a shift in the PACA paradigm by looking to the law of child custody and visitation for a model of enforcement. The Article does not argue for a reinterpretation of the constitutional liberty interests of parents to raise and make decisions regarding their children; under the proposed scheme, all parental rights remain vested in the adoptive parents. But this Article suggests the creation of a new kind of right for birth parents: contact rights. Because contact and communication with adoptees would become rights for birth parents, courts would have to treat adoptive parents’ withholding of communication and contact as violative of the birth parents’ rights, much as they do in the custody and visitation context. In the best interests of the child and in furtherance of the birth parents’ contact rights, therefore, the court would start from a presumption of enforcing the contact agreement and would work to maintain relationships between birth parents and adoptees. In turn, this presumption would allow birth parents to make educated decisions when choosing adoptive parents, and adoptive parents would give serious consideration to just how much contact they are willing to provide. Adopted children would benefit from contact with both sets of parents. This article is timely and important because it recognizes and addresses a real inequity in a highly prevalent form of family formation: open adoption. Today’s national conversation includes a sense of urgency about the role of courts and private actors in protecting children and their best interests, and today’s intersectional feminism requires us to consider how poor women and women of color may be disadvantaged – even exploited – by wealthier white women who can use legal loopholes to become parents without honoring commitments to those who bear their children. Finally, courts and legislatures are in the process of developing legal strategies to deal with new types of family formation; as they do so, this article offers original ideas and important guidance on how to honor the rights and needs of birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoptees.

Contact and Adoption Plans for Children Adopted from Out-of-home Care in New South Wales

ABSTRACTIn New South Wales (NSW), legislation prioritises open adoption over long-term foster care when restoration is not possible, and suitable kin or guardians cannot be found. The adoption application includes an adoption plan that outlines the nature of a child’s post-adoption contact with his or her birth family. There are efforts to include the views of the child, birth family, and prospective adoptive parents when developing this plan. This paper reports on the analysis of 89 adoption court files for 117 children from out-of-home care, finalised in 2017 by the Supreme Court of NSW. It focuses on the views of birth parents with respect to contact arrangements specified in the adoption plan. Three researchers independently coded the data, using an inductive approach based on grounded theory. The findings highlight the complexities in the changing relationship structures associated with adoption. Patterns of contact prior to adoption proceedings are highly predictive of plans for post-adoption contact. There are implications for social workers supporting positive contact experiences for children prior to an adoption order as well as the relationships between children’s prospective adoptive families and birth families.

Post-adoption contact arrangements

In light of a recent Court of Appeal judgment, Kamena Dorling, head of policy and public affairs at Coram Children's Legal Centre, examines provision for post-adoption contact arrangements

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).

Rights and Relationships of Children who are Adopted from Care

The rights of children who are adopted in England and Wales, their birth parents, siblings and extended family, and their adoptive parents are considered in this article. This includes the rights of parents and children regarding consent to adoption; their rights to post-adoption contact; children’s rights to develop an understanding of their identity as an adopted person; and adopters’ rights to support in helping their children – in the framework of domestic law and human rights conventions. The article draws on findings from the Wales Adoption Cohort Study to inform the discussion. This study included a case file study of 374 children’s adoption records, surveys of newly adoptive parents (96) and interviews with them (40). These findings included that, generally, adoptive parents had respect for the child’s previous family ties. Adopters had a positive attitude toward helping their children with contact (especially with siblings) and making sense of their identity, but often struggled with a lack of professional support. There was a tendency amongst agencies towards a blanket policy on indirect contact, rather than planning more flexible individual arrangements.

An exploratory study on open adoptions from foster care in NSW, Australia: Adoptees’ psychosocial functioning, adoptive relationships, post-adoption contact and supports

This is an exploratory study focused on open adoptions from foster care conducted through the public child protection agency in New South Wales, Australia. The results from an online survey completed by 23 respondents indicated that most of the adoptees were reportedly in the normative range of adjustment, had positive relationships with their adoptive parents and had ongoing contact with their birth families. Most of the adoptive parents had received pre-adoption supports to encourage post-adoption contact. These preliminary results are encouraging, but larger and preferably longitudinal studies are needed to guide decision-making regarding adoptions from foster care. The new challenge for the child welfare system is how to collect reliable data about the well-being of children already living in this permanent type of care and how best to support them.

Open Adoptions of Children From Foster Care in New South Wales Australia: Adoption Process and Post-Adoption Contact

ABSTRACTIn Australia, adoptions from care are infrequent and mostly conducted in New South Wales (NSW) despite being legislated in other states. This qualitative study explored the experiences of the adoption process and post-adoption contact of eight foster parents adopting children in their care through the public welfare agency in NSW. The interviews were analyzed following a structured approach, by means of thematic networks. The study revealed that adoption processes and maintenance of birth family relationships depend on a number of factors (e.g., the behavior of the professionals, adoptive and birth parents, children's reactions, policy and practice contexts). However, the adoptive parents' experience of the adoption process was largely determined by the system, and in most cases this appeared to subsequently influence post-adoption connection in the families. The findings and the adoptive parents' recommendations are likely to apply beyond specific geographical jurisdictions. In addition, the reported complexities regarding connections through open adoptions at times resemble those tensions faced by children living in other family types such as those referred to in the foster care literature. Further research on some of these commonalities may expand in some countries the debate regarding adoption as an inherently contestable practice.

Issues Surrounding Post-Adoption Contact in Foster Adoption: The Perspective of Foster-to-Adopt Families and Child Welfare Workers

ABSTRACTCurrent research on open adoption gives less consideration to issues surrounding post-adoption contact with birth parents for children adopted from care. Yet, it is widely recognized that the profile of the children and their birth parents, as well as the quality of post-adoption contacts, vary considerably depending on the context in which the adoption takes place. This article is based on interviews with 32 child welfare workers and 16 foster-to-adopt families. It focuses specifically on aspects and conditions that should be taken into consideration when determining whether or how contact between the adopted child and the birth family should be maintained. Our results show that there are distinctive challenges and dilemmas for open adoption in situations where the adopted child comes from a maltreating family, under the responsibility of child welfare services.

Paramountcy, Family Rights and Contested Adoption: Does Contact with Birth Relatives Balance the Scales?

ABSTRACTThis article combines practitioner insight and research evidence to chart how principles of partnership and paramountcy have led to birth family contact becoming the expected norm following contested adoption from care in Northern Ireland. The article highlights how practice has adapted to the delay in proposed reforms to adoption legislation resulting in the evolution of increasingly open adoption practices. Adoption represents an irrevocable transfer of parental responsibility from birth to adoptive parents and achieves permanence and legal security for children in care who cannot return to their birth family. Its enduring effect, however, makes public adoption a contentious field of child welfare practice, particularly when contested by birth parents. This article explores how post-adoption contact may be viewed as reconciling the uneasy interface between paramountcy principles and parental rights to respect for family life. The article highlights the complexity of adoptive kinship relationships following contested adoption from care, and how contact presents unique challenges that mitigate against meaningful and sustainable connections between the child and their birth relatives. In conclusion, a call is made for sensitive negotiation and support of contact arrangements, and the development of practice models that are informed by an understanding of the workings of adoptive kinship.

POST-ADOPTION CONTACT REFORM: COMPOUNDING THE STATE-ORDERED TERMINATION OF PARENTHOOD?

AbstractThe Children and Families Act 2014 pursues the twin policies of increasing the number of children adopted out of compulsory state care and reducing the scope for court-ordered contact between such children and their birth families. Building upon previous work by Dr. Kirsty Hughes and me, this paper critically evaluates these reforms to post-adoption contact in view of the fact that adoption terminates the legal relationship of parent and child. Aspects of the analysis include the impact of the proposals on “open adoption” and child welfare in the light of the available empirical evidence, and their compatibility with both the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Post-Adoption Contact Reform: Compounding the State-Ordered Termination of Parenthood?

The Children and Families Act 2014 pursues the twin policies of increasing the number of children adopted out of compulsory state care and reducing the scope for court-ordered contact between such children and their birth families. Building upon previous work by Dr. Kirsty Hughes and myself, this paper critically evaluates these reforms to post-adoption contact in view of the fact that terminates the legal relationship of parent and child. Aspects of the analysis include the impact of the proposals on open adoption and child welfare in the light of the available empirical evidence, and their compatibility with both the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Open Adoption and Post-Adoption Birth Family Contact: A Comparison of Non-Relative Foster and Private Adoptions

This study used data from the National Survey of Adoptive Parents (NSAP) to compare post-adoption contact in families with non-relative private domestic and foster care adoptions. This study is the first to use a nationally representative sample to examine and compare the extent of post-adoption contact in both private and foster adoptions. The results suggest that children adopted from foster care were less likely to experience post-adoption contact with their birth families than children adopted privately despite the fact that they were more likely to have lived with their birth families.