[A] state Senate measure signed into law this year makes open adoption agreements like theirs official in Pennsylvania.

An informal review of agencies in some of the 23 other states with open adoption laws found that few parties ever complained to the courts, requesting enforcement of the agreements, said Todd Lloyd, child welfare director of Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children. Rather, the contracts have served more as an official acknowledgement to adopted children that it’s all right to maintain some contact with their birth families, whether that means access to medical records, an occasional holiday card or a yearly visit to a birth relative’s house.

The goal is to encourage adoption, especially of older children from foster care, said Mr. Lloyd, who is helping to craft guidelines for parties and judges involved in future adoptions. Statewide, approximately 900 teenagers “aged out” of foster care at 18 last year without the support of an adoptive family as they entered adulthood.

“A lot of children fear being adopted because they fear losing contact with their birth relatives,” Mr. Lloyd said.

State-sanctioned open adoptions will make it possible for children to have permanent homes without any additional trauma from severing ties to their birth parents or to aunts, uncles, grandparents and siblings.

…

“Kids need to know their stories and have a connection. It’s important to their well-being and their sense of self,” said Sherry Anderson, a therapist and program director at the Three Rivers Adoption Council, who has raised nine adopted children.

“As children mature, they can handle the information in a more complex and emotional way,” she said. “If we don’t give them the information, they may think, ‘It must have been something wrong with me.’ ”

Ms. Anderson believes adoption provides “safety for the soul, body and mind of a child.” However, she also thinks that foster children placed in adoptive families “have a real potential for difficulty because they don’t have those genetic ties and have some level of trauma in their lives.”

“The new law honors those old relationships and makes it possible for children to maintain healthy relationships from their pasts. … It’s really developmentally sound,” she said.

via Breaking down open adoptions.

Related posts:

1. Do most open adoptions eventually close?

Each episode of ADOPTION DIARIES follows a different compelling story from the beginning stages, as a birth mother is faced with the daunting task of choosing her baby’s future family. Viewers follow along as a couple is selected and hear their own unique story, many of which include years of roller coaster emotions surrounding their infertility, the decision to adopt and the overall process itself. Each set of adoptive parents works closely with Jennifer Bliss to develop what will be a lifelong relationship with the birth mother. Together they share in the experience of creating a family, from pregnancy through birth, and the child’s future. Open adoption is a unique process, filled with overwhelming emotions as life is gifted from one mother to another, and families are brought together for the sake of a child’s future.

Like many open adoption advocates, I (Dawn) have concerns about the show and the impact that rolling cameras have as a woman or couple struggle to make a lifelong decision about what is best for their baby. I am concerned about the use of the term “birth mother” before the woman has signed surrenders. Further, how does being filmed for an open adoption television show impact a woman’s decision making process? Once her baby is born and she is revisiting her choices, how will the pressures of camera and a crew (and the unseen television audience) influence her decision?

Television cameras have no place in an adoption plan, period.

It would be one thing to see realistic stories about open adoptions already in place but in a continued search for sensationalized stories to serve to a jaded audience, WE tv is going too far.

Related posts:

1. How do I know if my child's first mom is content with our open adoption?
2. Should adoptive parents be given more info before the adoption?
3. Two Open Adoption Court Cases

Thursday, August 13 — JJ Hitch, Maurice Webb, Wendy Wiegmann, and Lisa Wilson: “Brothers and Sisters in Foster Care: An Unbreakable Bond”

During this panel presentation, JJ Hitch, Maurice Webb, and Lisa Wilson will discuss their experiences with siblings in foster care. Some stayed together while others were painfully separated. After the panel, Utah Court of Appeals Judge William Thorne will highlight the need for policy and practice reforms to keep brothers and sisters together and connected.

The conference runs from Wednesday, August 12 until Saturday, August 15th and the current schedule can be found here. Early registration has been extended to this Friday, July 17th.

Related posts:

1. Openness when adopting older kids from foster care?
2. What do I call my child's older birth siblings?
3. How can we get our son's birthfather to accept the adoption?

The Court of Appeals of Ohio, Second Appellate District, reversed the juvenile court’s order that granted continued visitation rights to appellee adoptive mother’s ex-husband, holding that the juvenile court erred when it denied appellant adoptive parents’ motion to terminate appellee’s right of visitation. The appellate court found that under In re Adoption of Ridenour, 574 N.E.2d 1055, following a child’s adoption by strangers, a juvenile court cannot order that visitation with a relative or other person continue. In addition, the court held that former relatives and other persons do not have standing to seek visitation with an adopted child under O.R.C. § 3109.051(B), which allows relatives and others to seek visitation with a child during a divorce or child support case, as this statute only applies in domestic relations proceedings, not adoption. In this case, appellant adoptive parents moved to terminate appellee’s right to visitation with the child after the adoption was finalized, but the juvenile court ordered the prior visitation to continue as appellee had lived with and acted as a father figure to the child for a period of time prior to the adoption. Because the juvenile court did not have the ability to grant the order and appellee did not have standing to seek continued visitation, the judgment was reversed.

Link to the full opinion is here (in pdf).

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Related posts:

1. Two Open Adoption Court Cases

Indeed it was quite an extraordinary thing to bring this group of providers together to explore, over two days, the myriad commonalities in the services that we all provide to women facing unplanned pregnancy. These commonalities persist whether our clients ultimately choose to terminate, place for adoption or parent. It occurred to me that our discussions mirrored the experience of pregnancy the world over—at turns brilliant, muddled, inspired, messy and emotional. Nothing but blurred lines and questions with lots of equally compelling answers. This was real “Common Ground” country.

–source, When Options Counseling Starts Where Each Option Ends

It’s a thought provoking article.

Related posts:

1. How can we get our son's birthfather to accept the adoption?

Story:

Documentary follows an African-American girl’s search for her birth mother within an adoptive family comprising a melting pot of race, culture and sexuality. Avery Klein-Cloud is a happy New York teenager who lives with her family and hopes to get a track scholarship to college. But as the documentary “Off and Running” reveals, Avery’s family is not your average American household.

“I’m adopted by two white mothers, one who was born in Israel and she’s Jewish and they other was born in Illinois. I have an older brother who’s three months older than me, who’s a mix of black and Puerto Rican, and he’s currently at Princeton and I have a younger brother that’s Korean, from Queens,” said Klein-Cloud.
It’s within this melting pot of culture, race and sexuality that Avery feels a strong desire to find her birth mother and her curiosity about her biological African-American roots grows. This creates an emotionally charged situation at home and Avery becomes more distant from her family.

“I think it was really hard on myself and my parents and I think it was just partially because of the point I was in in my life, it made it more difficult for everybody to deal with. But they were always supportive,” she said. Klein-Cloud’s displacement and questioning is captured by director Nicole Opper. Opper, who was Klein-Cloud’s film teacher at school. Opper said she became drawn to Avery’s story because her household is reflective of the world children are growing up in today; one that is mixed and where race and gender lines blur. Klein-Cloud says she hopes that the film helps parents to understand that their children will experience challenges and even if they push their parents away at times, they still love them. She also thinks it holds a strong message for children.

“I definitely feel like this film has let me open up and talk. I was able to finally talk and that helps, it gets it all out of your mind. And I think, you know, it should for all high school students, just show, you’re not alone, it happens to the best of us and you can get through it,” she said.

“Off and Running” premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival on Sunday (April 26) and it will also be broadcast in the U.S. on the PBS program “P.O.V.” in 2010.

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From New Hampshire:
The Supreme Court of New Hampshire reversed the superior court’s order dismissing appellant grandmother’s petition for grandparent visitation, holding that although the grandmother had relinquished her parental rights to the grandchildren’s mother when the mother was an infant, appellant still maintained the ability to seek visitation with her grandchildren because she was the grandchildren’s “natural” grandparent. The court held that under RSA 461-A:13, “grandparents, whether adoptive or natural, may petition the court for reasonable rights of visitation with the minor child.” Here, the court found the even though appellant, for adoption purposes, is not the grandmother of her relinquished child’s children, she is the “natural” or biological grandparent for purposes of the visitation statute and therefore had standing to bring the visitation petition. In addition, the court found that the adoption decree had not “severed the child from its own family tree” as appellant and mother had a very close relationship after the mother had reached the age of majority.
From California:
In an unpublished opinion, the Court of Appeal of California, First Appellate District, Division One affirmed the juvenile court’s denial of appellant father’s request for court ordered mediation between himself and the prospective adoptive parents of his child, T.H., for a post-adoption contact agreement (PCA), holding that a court-mandated referral to mediation for a PCA is only applicable in adoptions involving Indian children. Under the California Family Code § 8616.5(k), a court may not set aside a decree of adoption or modify an order to terminate parental rights based upon failure to comply with a PCA; however, the court may, upon petition of the birth parent or an Indian tribe, order the parties to engage in mediation regarding a PCA if the child is an Indian child and the prospective adoptive parents have agreed to enter into negotiations and subsequently fail to negotiate in good faith. Here, the court found no abuse of discretion by the juvenile court in refusing to require PCA mediation because the adoption involved a child who was not of Indian heritage and because there was no prior agreement by the prospective adoptive parents to enter into negotiations for a PCA. In addition, the court noted that a PCA is not required for post-adoption contact, where the prospective adoptive parents agree to maintain contact and facilitate means for such contact.
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Our membership has grown via word of mouth to include adoptees, adoption professionals, and other persons interested in meaningful ethical adoption reform from the adoptive parent point of view.

We believe that the existing system needs strong reforms because it does not represent the best interest of the people most impacted by the system:the children and their families.

We are tired of being ignored.
We are through with being laughed at.
We are ready to fight.

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