Adoption Learning Partners, founded by The Cradle, seeks to improve
adoption outcomes for all members of the adoption circle by providing a
vibrant, innovative, educational resource on the Internet.

The vision of Adoption Learning Partners is to offer highly
valuable, timely, web-based educational resources for adoptive parents,
adopted individuals, birth parents and the families that love them.

We included the word Partners in our name because we are
partnering with other major adoption resources and experts to develop
and offer course content that is meaningful for each of our users.

We will offer an array of interactive, e-learning courses that will
increase each person's understanding of the joys and challenges of
adoption.

One of the most important features of Adoption Learning Partners is
that it is there when you need it. The courses can help prepare people
for becoming an adoptive family, or help adoptive families with growing
children gain new skills to help them talk about adoption. Or, when an
adopted person or birth parent is contemplating a search, they can turn
to Adoption Learning Partners for guidance.

Access to information is a cornerstone of Adoption Learning
Partners. Our courses are designed for people who may live far away
from knowledgeable, experienced adoption resources, or for those who
time is limited because of the demands of work and family schedules.

Adoption Learning Partners will serve as a resource for social
service professionals, equipping them with the training and tools they
need to prepare adoptive families and counsel people around
post-adoption issues. Our courses will help social service
professionals to meet a variety of new and ongoing training
requirements set forth by federal and state governments and
professional licensing associations.

Free courses include:

Maintaining Connections: The goal of this course is to help child welfare professionals
recognize the benefits to older youth in care of maintaining
connections with their birth family. It also explains that youth can be
adopted and still maintain contact with birth family members.

Becoming Your Child's Best Advocate: Adoptive parents will find the resources to meet their child's needs and learn
strategies for communicating with those who provide services.

This essay by Karen Sotiropoulos (Radical History Review 2008(101):179-190) offers a rumination on the history and implications of open adoption, with a particular focus on the ways the practice grew out of the women's rights movement of the 1970s and on the ways racial inequities impacted a child aoption before and after the rise of openness movements.  It draws on a surge of recent scholarly work on child adoption to explofe connections between race, child welfare, women's righs, and transnationalism.  It also raises the question of child adoption as a human rights issue by considering together activist trends in domestic and international adoption.  Finally, it suggests that paired with the political movement for more openness in adoption, the developing field of "adoption studies" may help pave the way for making adoption a more ethical practice.

This publication, released in November 2007 for National Adoption Awareness month, represents the most comprehensive examination to date of one of the most controversial, emotional issues in the modern adoption world: whether adopted people, once they become adults, should have access to their original birth information. This report suggests that all states change their laws so that the answer is "yes."

This policy paper is the result of the broadest, most extensive examination to date of the various issues related to state laws governing adult adopted persons' access to their original birth certificates and/or adoption records. The information and recommendations in this paper are drawn from a review and analysis of past and current state laws; legislative history in states across the country; decades of experience on relevant issues; and the body of research relating to sealed and open records on the affected parties.

From the linked webpage there is access to an executive summary and the full report.

The Adoption History Project is devoted to making adoption history accessible and interesting.  This site introduces the history of child adoption in the United States by profiling people, organizations, topics, and studies that shaped adoption during the twentieth century.