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Openness in adoption: what we know so far--a critical review of the literature.

Article Excerpt
As many as 100 million people in the United States have adoption within their immediate families--a third of the nation (Pertman, 2000).Adam Pertman, author of Adoption Nation (2000), explained how adoption was once a clandestine process shrouded in shame and secrecy but is rapidly metamorphosing into a radically new process, accelerating our transformation into a more multicultural and multiethnic society. Adoption is helping us redefine our understanding of "family." Increasing numbers of new adoptions in the United States today do not require the unsealing of records or reunions for everyone to know the truth about them. Birth mothers and birth fathers, when involved, are choosing their children's adoptive parents and insisting on greater and greater levels of communication and interaction: open adoption. Pertman (2001) maintained that growing numbers of adoptive parents are overcoming their insecurities and realizing that this remarkable new family structure is best for everyone involved--especially their children. The empirical evidence on the effects of openness in adoption is only now being introduced to the debate (Berry, Barth, & Needell, 1998).

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF TRENDS IN OPEN ADOPTION

Open adoption is not a new phenomenon in the United States. It is a time-dependent social phenomenon and parallels social changes in society. Adoptions in the United States in the early 1900s had characteristics of openness (Goodman, Emery, & Haugaard, 1998). An extended family model was common in rural communities and in immigrant communities in the urban areas. A child would most often be cared for through an informal arrangement with next of kin or kith, people with whom one has a family-like relationship but who are not related by blood. In the African American community, families have for decades looked after children who are not their own, a trend that continues (Dutt & Sanyal, 1991). The family belief system is such that when birth families are experiencing difficulty in caring for their children, then those children are expected to be cared for by someone else in the extended kin/kith network. This open process is based on shared understanding, equal partnership, and commitment, not unlike the values that have emerged from this critical review of the literature. The children are "adopted" in a social, not a legal sense. White European Americans could benefit by investing time in learning from other cultures about cooperation between kinship network members in the open adoption of children.

Beliefs changed in the 1940s when secrecy emerged through sealed adoption records. Secrecy was believed to reduce the chance that the adopted child would be considered a second-class citizen and also would allow the birth mother to have closure on her involvement with the child and be able to move on with her life. It was also believed that the adopted child would have a better chance of integrating into the adoptive family if there was no knowledge of the birth family (Goodman et al., 1998). In the 1970s, birth mothers challenged the secrecy of adoptions through several court cases, but none was successful (Haugaard, West, & Moed, 2000). Their efforts were then refocused to changing state adoption laws, which lead to the unsealing of adoption records in many states as well as collaborative open adoption agreements between birth and adoptive parents. Legal controversy abounds about the extent to which openness agreements are enforceable by the courts (Haugaard et al., 2000).

The 1980s ushered in an era of family preservation, and adoption policy was profoundly affected. The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (P.L. 96-272) put into place a system of prioritized outcomes for children served by child welfare agencies (Berry, 1998). These priorities were based on offering children permanency of placement while maintaining family connections. Social policy and adoption practices were moving away from secrecy. The discourse in child welfare shifted to a focus on the healthy development of individuals. This healthy development was understood to be dependent in many ways on a child welfare worker's success or efficacy in negotiating care and supports within the relationships that surround children in placement, including access to key relationships in the child's life (Berry, 1998). Family preservation became the focus, but what does that mean when adoption is the alternative? The first priority under the new federal legislation was for child welfare workers, when at all possible, to work at strengthening the family relationships and keeping the child in the home with the birth or extended family. The second priority was adoption, the third was guardianship, and the fourth was long-term foster care. How would the concept of "family preservation" extend to adoption in terms of contact with the birth relatives? The debate has been furious. What is in the best interest of the child? What about the dangers of trying to preserve families and extend contact to adopted children with parents who have abused or neglected them? What about the battles between birth parents and adoptive parents, fears of reclaiming--battles between birth parents and grandparents? What about the dangers of open adoption? What about the dangers of not moving toward open adoption?

The 1980s were a difficult and stressful decade for families; these stressors and other changes continued to transform the dynamics of adoption. Communities and families had experienced substantial economic and social changes: poverty, homelessness, substance abuse, violence and teenage parenting were on the rise (Berry, 1998). Other societal changes affected the number of prospective adoptive parents, such as delayed childbearing and evidence of environmental toxicity related to increasing infertility rates in the United States (Holbrook, 1990). Some birth mothers who were caught in these societal pressures had extended family to care for their children; others chose adoption. Another factor affecting adoption was a decrease in the availability of healthy white infants given the more prevalent societal acceptance of single parenthood as well as the availability of abortion. A move toward openness in adoption arrangements was in the making. Birth mothers began to...

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