The participants of this survey were certainly a specialized group as evidenced by how respondents answered the question "who initiates contact?".

Here's how the results broke down:

78% of the first families responding say they do. (66% say the adoptive family does.)
84% of the adoptive families responding say they do. (59% say the first family does.)

Clearly the people who chose to respond to the survey and who are likely to participate on the board are people who are proactive about building and maintaining their open adoption relationships.

The next question was whether or not respondents felt satisfied with their level of contact. Here are the results:

As you can see, many of the respondents want more contact. Exact numbers: First parents 41% and adoptive parents 39%.

When asked if they felt their child's other family was satisfied with the level of contact the results looked like this:

Yes.  43% (first parents: 55% adoptive parents: 42%)
No, they want more contact. 14% (first parents: 9% adoptive parents: 14%)
No, they want less contact.  2%  (first parents: 7% adoptive parents: >1%)
I don't know. 40% (first parents: 29% adoptive parents: 43%)

The number appears to be higher in adoptive parents because there were a higher number of adoptive parents answering whose children have no contact with their first families, including parents who adopted internationally.

What struck me is that people generally assume that their child's other family is content although a large number of respondents on both sides who answered this survey want more contact.

Of course, people who answered aren't representative of the adoption community. They are people who are identifying themselves as wanting some measure of support around openness, which means they value those relationships on some level -- even if they are frustrated or struggling. But this does give me hope that as families learn why openness is a good thing for adoptees (as the research is showing), they will look to make more contact.

The lesson I'm learning here is that it may be worth it for families to reach out to their children's other family members, especially with information about why openness matters.