More on the interview!
LisaV, you asked if adoptive parents are the ones who are going to have to demand help from agencies and this is just what I was going to write about today! It’s like we are tapped into each other’s brains in a beautiful symbiotic vision of blogitude! (I’m still high from the interview, folks!)
Sharon’s agency, The Kinship Center, has been offering an open adoption support group for (I think — my notes are still on my alphasmart and I haven’t uploaded them) 20 years. She says that any of us can do this in our communities — we can approach our agencies and say, “You need to help us do this.” This is not an adoption support group, it’s an OPEN adoption support group where all members of the triad are welcome. She says that in her experience, adoptions close because people don’t have help and if there’s a place they can go and ask, “What do I do now?” of people who understand, they will have the support they need to stay on track of their commitment to openness.
I think this is what we have in our bloggging world, really, don’t you? We’ve built a virtual support group and it’s damn nifty! And it works! We have really helped each other to see things in a new way, appreciate different points of view and stretch our ideas about what our kids need. Sadly, all the luddites in the world don’t get to benefit from our blogs so let’s take it to the streets!
And another thing, The Kinship Center? Their primary interest is special needs adoption through the foster system so they are a great resource if you are trying to figure out openness from the perspective as a foster parent. (Bacchus, they’re in California! And Angela — who commented — is awesome. Hit her up!)
I asked Sharon if she feels heartened by the increasing attention people are paying to open adoptins and she was quiet. Then she said she is heartened that individuals like us are talking about this (I told her about our blogs) and learning from each other but she is frustrated that so many adoption professionals are slow to move forward.
“The research [coming out of the long-term open adoption research project] says what we have known all along: Open adoption works.” (She said that one of the authors came to her at a conference recently and said that their findings echo the thoughts of professionals like Sharon, like Brenda Romanchik, like James Gritter, like Joyce Pavao. In other words, these people sometimes get tagged as fringe but they’re the ones who know what they’re talking about and we need to listen to them.)
But the adoption industry is a slow-moving behometh of an industry. Some agencies are doing the work of ethical adoption and meeting the needs of families (everyone) post-placement but others are not. And lawyers and facilitators are notoriously absent from the conferences and discussions. We need to ask more of the industry that thinks they’re serving adoptive parents by finding us babies and then sending us on our way. But we can do this. If we bitch loud enough they’ll have to listen. (You know, our blogs are a good start — I know that a lot of us get off-blog emails looking for more info and that counts for a lot.)
I still have other interviews to do but I feel hopeful. And I’ll be writing my agency about helping me get word out about a group (I need a social worker to facilitate but here in Columbus, OH — home to OSU — it shouldn’t be hard to find an adoption-smart social worker who is willing to lend a hand once a month).
(And of course I hit her up for all kinds of thoughts about our adoption because that’s why I wanted this gig: free counseling disgused as interviews! Hooray!)
The two lawyers in this area who are usually used for adoption, will not work with open adoption. I do my best to discourage anyone from using them.
This sounds like a really cool idea. Now get one of these bigwigs to put on a conference and bring the speakers and authors and that would be great.
Hi, Dawn. I think your idea of starting a local support group is a great idea.
You know what I wish, though? I wish there was more support for first parents, specifically, in open adoption. Because I think we might have more contact (as we’d like) if Rose had more help from the agency on her side of things. There must be lots of first parents in situations where they may not have a phone, may not have transportation, and may need some help getting to visits discretely. I’d like to see agencies be more proactive about finding out what material and practical things could be needed to maintain openness–and working with first parents to provide them.
Sad sigh.
I attempted to put my bdaughter’s adoptive mom in touch with the Kinship Center some years back (when I discovered my bdaughter was dealing with “adoption related abandonment” after the adoption’s second closure).
They are within minutes of the center, so I had Brenda email her with the info with a nice note. Unfortunately, the response was fury.
Gosh, I never knew these educators were considered fringe … maybe I read that wrong. I’ll reread it.
Open adoption support groups are a much needed idea … all the triad members need it. It would be great if the kids could get support, as well … those who were adopted, and their siblings … both in the adoptive family and those raised in the birthfamily.
open adoption is not considered fringe — it’s the very much the mainstream of adoption. - both domestic and internation, frankly. I am hard pressed to think of an expert who doesn’t validate open adoption (and the varieties of)
In my not so humble opinion, adoption attorneys probably will be less excited about facilitating logistics of open adoption support because they are lawyers not social workers. they focus on contracts, legalities, local laws, etc.
This is why adoption agencies — in the “business” of child welfare — are so important. They have the skills, desire, and participants of the triad to set up support and education groups of all kinds. Their primary goal is to serve the pregnant woman, regardless of her plans, to parent or place, and the child after it is born.
To me, open adoption really asks for more funding for adoption agencies and move away from attorney-only adoptions.