Open Adoption — Practice & Policy Guidelines
By Deborah H. Siegel, PhD, LICSW, DCSW, ACSW
Social Work Today
Vol. 6 No. 6 P. 24

Read this comprehensive overview of open adoption from an expert educator, consultant, researcher, and adoptive parent.

Alice and Brenda, adoptive parents of 9-year-old Carl, sit facing Don, their new clinical social worker.

“We’re lost. We need guidance,” begins Alice.

Brenda continues, “Alice and I have been together as a committed couple for 11 years. We decided two years ago to adopt a child; it’s been a long process finding an agency that would work with a same-sex couple, and finally, six months ago, we brought Carl home. The state’s public child welfare agency told us that if we wanted to adopt Carl, we had to agree to bring him to visits with his birth parents, Susan and Sam, every six months until Carl turns 18. Susan and Sam terminated their parental rights voluntarily, in exchange for the promise of these ongoing visits with Carl.

“We understand that Carl has feelings for his birth parents, even though he was taken from them at birth because he was born with cocaine and methamphetamines in his body. He’s been in and out of foster care all of his life. From time to time, he’d be reunited with Susan and Sam, but each time he’d be neglected and had to return to foster care. Susan and Sam both have lifelong substance abuse issues, Susan has bipolar disorder, and Sam has ADHD [attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder], and they’ve both sold drugs from time to time to get money for their own addictions. They’ve tried valiantly to get off of drugs so they can parent Carl, but it just hasn’t worked. They want Carl to have a stable, secure family life.

“We recognize that Carl needs to stay connected to his Hispanic and African American origins, especially since we’re both Irish. But won’t it be confusing and upsetting for him to be forced to see Susan and Sam every six months? And Carl’s birth mother is pregnant again. She and Sam plan to parent their new baby. Won’t knowing this upset Sam? And what if Susan and Sam aren’t OK with us being lesbian? Should we honor the promises the agency made to them about visitation?”

Don, who does family therapy, sits nervously in his chair, listening with growing anxiety to his new clients’ story. “What am I to say to them? How can I help them figure this out?” he ponders. “I’ve only attended one continuing education workshop on adoption, and it didn’t cover this kind of situation. I don’t know the answers to their questions.” Don’s instinct is to say, “Carl is your child now. You’re the parents. Trust your gut. The agency may have promised visits, but you don’t have to honor that promise.” But he’s unsure about the ethics and clinical consequences of that stance.

Don is in good company. Few MSW, BSW, staff development, and continuing education programs provide extensive content on adoption, not to mention issues in transcultural, transracial, lesbian, or gay adoption. Don never had training on working with open adoptions, not to mention those involving people who have mental health, substance abuse, or criminal behavior issues. While openness in adoption is widespread, most clinicians lack training in the normal, predictable issues that come with open adoption, leaving practitioners to rely on their own beliefs, misconceptions, and inaccurate media portrayals of the adoption experience (Pertman, 2000).

What Is Open Adoption?
Open adoption is not shared parenting; the adoptive parents have full legal rights and responsibilities regarding the child. Open adoptions vary widely along a continuum; some birth and adoptive families share minimal information about themselves and barely have contact, perhaps only through infrequent letters and photographs exchanged via a post office box because they do not feel safe exchanging last names and addresses. Other birth and adoptive families communicate frequently via phone, e-mail, or visits in each other’s homes or out in the community. Some form meaningful friendships based on mutual respect, empathy, and trust that develop over time. Contact varies in terms of frequency (eg, a one time only meeting, a once-per-year exchange of letters, an annual joint vacation trip), type (eg, phone calls, e-mails, sharing holiday meals), and participants (eg, only the adoptive and birth mothers stay in touch, or the child also participates in the contact, or the birth grandmother maintains the contact). The variety and permutations are virtually endless.

How Open Adoption Started
Before the 1940s in the United States, most adoptions involved contact between the child’s birth and adoptive families. But in the 1940s, in an effort to protect children from the stigma of “illegitimate” birth, and women from the shame of out-of-wedlock pregnancy, social workers promoted total confidentiality in adoption, keeping birth and adoptive families’ identities secret from one another and sealing the child’s original birth certificate in perpetuity. During the 1960s, adoptees and birth parents stepped out of their shadows of shame to explain how the secretive practices intended to protect them hurt them instead. Adoptees spoke of their pain, frustration, and bewilderment over being denied information about themselves that is everyone else’s birth right. Birth parents described feeling scorned and punished for having the courage to bear the pain of choosing adoption as the best option available at the time to ensure proper care for their child. Many adoptive parents explained that they too craved information from and contact with birth parents, who were psychologically present in the adoptive family whether or not the reality of their existence was denied (Siegel, 1993).

By the late 1980s, the movement toward open adoption took hold. Today, the first children of open adoption are entering adulthood. Most adoptions today involve some form of openness. Different adoption agencies have different beliefs and practices about the types of contact and how much contact adoptive and birth families should have, but most agree that some kind of openness is necessary for the well-being of adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents.

Research on Open Adoption
Studies show that open adoptions generally work well. Adoptive parents, adoptees, and birth parents tend to prefer some form of openness over traditional confidential adoption practices (Berry, Dylla, Barth, & Needell, 1998; Siegel, 1993 & 2003; Grotevant, Perry, & McRoy, 2005). The dire projections some forecast in the early days of open adoption typically do not materialize. Children of open adoption do not have more identity confusion, divided loyalties, or emotional conflicts; birth parents generally do not intrude or reclaim their child; and adoptive parents’ autonomy and authority are not undermined. Of course, challenging issues do arise in some cases.

Not surprisingly, each open adoption changes over time in different ways and presents unique issues and challenges for each family to manage. Not every open adoption is comfortable and satisfying. Hence, drawing definitive conclusions and making accurate generalizations that apply to all open adoptions is difficult, if not impossible. Nonetheless, consensus is growing about principles and guidelines that may be useful to clinicians such as Don in his work with Alice and Brenda.

Guidelines for Successful Open Adoption
1. The child’s needs come first. Open adoption is for the good of the child, and the child’s interests and needs should shape the nature of the contact between the birth and adoptive families. Humans have a legitimate need for connection with and information about their origin, ethnicity, race, medical, and families’ psychosocial histories. Crucial health information may not be known to a birth family at the time of adoption, so it’s valuable medically to have access to the birth family throughout life. Children in transracial and transcultural adoptions need to sustain their links with their racial, ethnic, and cultural origin.

For these reasons, Don, Alice, and Brenda may be wise to figure out safe, mutually agreed upon ways to maintain connections between their new family and the family into which Carl was born because they are part of his identity and roots whether or not the adoption is open. Given the racial, ethnic, and cultural issues in the newly formed family, Alice and Brenda have a special responsibility to make African American and Hispanic heritage a part of their daily life, perhaps by living in a mixed neighborhood, participating in a multiethnic religious community, befriending African American and Hispanic families, or sending Carl to a multiethnic school.

2. Remember that one size does not fit all. This is as true in open adoption as in any other human relationship. The social worker’s role, then, is not to prescribe the kinds of contact people should have, but rather to help birth and adoptive family members figure out for themselves what they need and want, and then help them reach their own agreement with each other. When the birth and adoptive parents are unable to reach their own agreement about ongoing contact, they are not the right match for each other. Coercing either party into an open adoption agreement is a setup for trouble, with the child caught in the middle of adults who are at odds with each other.

Hence, the public child welfare agency may have done Carl’s family a disservice in promising the birth parents a visit twice per year, instead of helping the two sets of parents get to know and trust each other and over time negotiate an open adoption plan with one another. Alice and Brenda understood that if they wanted to adopt Carl, they had to accept the biannual visits. The birth parents recognized that if they did not agree to the two visits per year, the agency would pursue an involuntary termination of their parental rights, which meant there would be no visits at all. Thus, the agency crafted a corrupt, coercive open adoption “agreement”: a recipe for distress.

Don’s best bet is twofold. One, he should seek changes in policy and practice through collaboration with the public child welfare agency. Two, since these changes will come too late for this family, he must begin a slow process of bringing the birth and adoptive parents together so they can begin to know one another.

3. Respect, empathy, and truthfulness are necessary. A successful open adoption, like any extended family relationship, is built on respect, empathy, honesty, and trust. These qualities develop slowly over time. Hence, an initial open adoption agreement should include a statement that it is for the first year only and may be revised as the child grows. The plan should be clear about how the parents will renegotiate their plan each year. It’s preferable to plan on less rather than more contact initially because it’s usually less painful to nudge the door more open rather than more closed. As trust and comfort grow, so may the contact. Promises are to be kept. Manipulation, deceit, and betrayal have no place in successful open adoption. For this reason, open adoption agreements should be made in writing so any discrepancies can be clarified and processed. No one should ever be coerced into a false “agreement” they are not sure they will honor.

This means Don needs to get Brenda and Alice’s permission to begin doing “shuttle diplomacy,” through which he meets separately as often as needed with them, then with the birth parents, to educate each about adoptees’ developmental needs and what makes open adoption work. He must then help them find within their hearts compassion for one another, process their fears and pain, and reach a shared plan for the first year.

4. Expect changing needs. While every child is different, there are also common, predictable developmental themes in adoption. For instance, as the child grows, he or she needs to have a voice in decisions about contact. It is not uncommon for children, as they mature, to want less or more contact with birth family members. Children may go through phases when they wish they were not adopted and do not want to acknowledge the birth parents. At these times, visits may best be postponed. Similarly, children may have phases when they yearn for the birth parents and need more contact and reassurance. The final decision about contact, however, is the adoptive parent’s choice. Adoptive parents must, therefore, be able to separate their own needs and feelings from their children’s needs and feelings so they can act in their children’s best interests.

This requires skilled clinical work on Don’s part. His job is to keep his countertransference in check; empower the adoptive parents as they seek to assess Carl’s changing feelings and needs; reassess their own, individually and as a couple; and find honest yet diplomatic words for communicating these with Carl’s birth parents.

If a planned visit does not make sense for Carl, Alice and Brenda might, for instance, tell his birth parents, “We treasure our connection with you. We want it to continue. Right now, Carl doesn’t want a visit. So we’d like to get together, just us adults. Will you do that with us?”

5. Make visits with extended family fun. An open adoption forms a new extended family, just like marriage or lifetime commitment between two adults of the same gender. The child who is adopted is likely to feel safest when visits include the adoptive parent(s) along with birth family members. It reassures the child to see firsthand that the birth and adoptive parents collaborate cooperatively in shared love for the child.

This again is where Don comes in. The public child welfare workers presented an open adoption plan that follows the structure used in the foster care system: a one-hour visit at an agency every February and August. If the parents proceed with this plan, they may feel stiff, tense, wary, and ill-at-ease during these formal encounters. Perhaps Don can find ways to help the parents move from this prescribed scenario into a more naturalistic one, encouraging them to meet at a zoo, park, beach, swimming pool, museum, mall, or playground instead.

6. Stay committed to contact. Birth family members who have mental health issues, such as substance abuse, impulse control disorders, mood disorders, and psychoses often can handle visits appropriately despite their disabilities. If the birth parent’s behavior upsets the child during a visit, the contact may need to include a trained clinician who can mediate interactions during the visit. And there are circumstances in which visits should cease until the birth or adoptive parent who is misbehaving can behave appropriately. In these situations, contact may continue by mail only for a while instead.

For example, during a supervised visit, a birth father said to his newly adopted 3-year-old son, “Don’t worry, son. When you’re 13, the adoption will end and you can come live with me.” The adoptive parents, who were present, were outraged. The social worker gently put his hand on the birth father’s arm, led him out of the room, and said, “I know that’s how you’d like it to be. Let’s schedule a time together to talk about that some more. For now, you need to know that making that kind of remark means visits will end. If you say things that scare the adoptive parents, they’ll feel scared for their son. As the parents, they have to protect their child. Let’s go back into the room. If you’d like, you may explain to your son that you wish you could have parented a child, but your alcoholism got in the way of your parenting anyone. Tell him you’re glad he has a forever family now, and you give his family your blessing.” The birth father felt the social worker’s compassion, followed the advice, corrected his mistake, and prepared with the worker for each subsequent visit, rehearsing what he wanted to say. The visits continued uneventfully, although the adoptive parents remained uneasy about what the birth father may say or do.

7. Expect bumps in the road. It is not uncommon for a child to act out before and after visits. After all, visits may evoke powerful feelings a child cannot express in words. This in itself is not reason to stop the visits; it’s an opportunity for the child to express and work through a normal, predictable developmental crisis. When parents want guidance addressing this, they need access to a properly trained adoption professional. Finding one can be a challenge.

So if Carl starts wetting his bed, having nightmares, becomes noncompliant in anticipation of or after contact with his birth family, Don may help Brenda and Alice understand the behaviors as normal indirect expressions of feelings. Don could help them use art and play activities at home as vehicles for Carl indirectly expressing himself. He could refer Carl to an adoptees’ support group and link Brenda and Alice with organizations that provide education and support for adoptive parents.

8. Educate. Naturally, parents want to shield their children from pain. It’s important to recognize that there is no adoption without loss, and no loss without pain. Alice and Brenda are worried that Carl will feel hurt, rejected, abandoned, confused, angry, and sad when he learns that his birth mother is parenting another child.

Don can educate the new adoptive parents about how children who are adopted typically feel. He can help Alice and Brenda express and process their own feelings and teach them reflective listening skills and scripts to use in conversations with Carl about adoption (for some suggested scripts to use in different adoption scenarios, consult Melina & Roszia, 1993). He can help them understand that keeping children away from birth parents may drive feelings underground but not away. Children who feel free to share all feelings with their adoptive parents have greater intimacy with them. Children who never talk about adoption, ask questions, or express feelings may fear their parents’ reactions. It’s unlikely that someone who is adopted never thinks or feels anything about it.

9. Share difficult information constructively. Withholding information and lying to children is an understandable impulse in parents who want to protect their child from facts that may be overwhelming and hurtful. Alice and Brenda may be nervous about the kinds of information that contact with birth parents unearths. However, lies and partial truths erode intimacy in adoptive families. Clinical social workers need adoption education on how to help adoptive and birth parents find constructive ways to share difficult information. One guideline is always to speak of biological relatives nonjudgmentally and with compassion. Another is always to avoid racist, sexist, homophobic, and pejorative language about people from other countries, people who have mental health and substance abuse struggles, and so on. The adoptee may hear these condemning words and think, “I am one of those people, so I, too, am worthy of scorn.”

Thus, Don can help Alice and Brenda find the words to use with Carl when talking about his adoption. This includes teaching them how to remain silently receptive when Carl emotes.

When Carl asks difficult questions such as, “Why is my birth mother keeping the new baby instead of me?” parents can say, “It’s hard to understand this sort of thing. Your birth parents are handling their drug addictions well now, but when you were born, they both had drug problems that made them unable to take care of any child. You, like any child, need and deserve parents who can take good care of you forever. It’s hard for a child to move from one family to another; that’s why you’re with your forever family. It’s sad that you had to leave your birth parents’ home when you were little. We know you’re glad you have us. It’s confusing to feel sad and glad at the same time. We know you need your birth parents in your life. That’s why we stay in touch with them.”

Adoption issues evoke primal emotions and powerful opinions that render wise, informed clinical decision making difficult. The open adoption landscape is expanding in scope and complexity. For these reasons, clinical social workers need advanced education about adoption issues in general and open adoption issues in particular. Separating firmly held beliefs from empirically validated facts is an on-going challenge.

— Deborah H. Siegel, PhD, LICSW, DCSW, ACSW, is a professor in the graduate program of the School of Social Work at Rhode Island College in Providence. She does clinical work with people whose lives are touched by adoption, consultation and training with adoption agencies, research on families living with open adoptions, and is an adoptive parent.

References
Berry, M., Dylla, D. J. C., Barth, R. P., & Needell, B. (1998). “The role of open adoption in the adjustment of adopted children and their families.” Children and Youth Services Review, 20(1/2), 151-171.

Grotevant, H. D., Perry, Y., & McRoy, R. G. (2005). “Openness in adoption: Outcomes for adolescents within their adoptive kinship networks.” In Brodzinsky, D., & Palacios, J. (Eds.). Psychological Issues in Adoption: Research and Practice. Westport, CT: Praeger, 167-186.

Melina, L. R. (1989). Making Sense of Adoption: A Parent’s Guide. New York: HarperCollins.

Melina, L. R. & Roszia S. K. (1993). The Open Adoption Experience: A Complete Guide for Adoptive and Birth Families—from Making the Decision Through the Child’s Growing Years. New York: HarperCollins.

Pertman, A. (2000). Adoption Nation: How the Adoption Revolution is Transforming America. New York: Basic Books.

Siegel, D. H. (2006). “Family boundaries and open adoption,” In Wegar, K. Adoptive Families in a Diverse Society. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers.

Siegel, D. H. (1993). “Open adoption of infants: Adoptive parents’ perceptions of advantages and disadvantages.” Social Work, 38(1), 15-25.

Siegel, D. H. (2003). “Open adoption of infants: Adoptive parents’ perceptions seven years later.” Social Work, 48(3), 409-410.

Resources
Adoption.com, www.adoption.com

Adoptive Families magazine, www.adoptivefamilies.com

American Adoption Congress, www.americanadoptioncongress.org

Child Welfare Information Gateway, www.childwelfare.gov

Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, www.adoptioninstitute.org