ADOPTION OPENNESS: LAYING THE STEPPING STONES FOR SUCESSS

Why Have Openness  “Adoption creates a split in a person between his biology and his biography. Openness in adoption is an effective way to heal that split.”  Lori Holden with Crystal Hass, The Open-hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow up Whole, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2013, p. 9

How does Openness Heal and Help the Adopted Child?  Minimizes the potential for feelings of loss stemming from loss of contact with birth or foster family members with whom the child has meaningful and positive ties  Allows children to resolve losses with truth rather than fantasies  Fosters a secure sense of personal identity by offering a level of transparency and an opportunity to connect the past with the present in a way that may become increasingly important as the child grows and develops

Getting Started: Arriving at an Understanding of the Situation at Hand

Identifying the Openness Objectives The first challenge is to arrive at an understanding of the birth and other family relationships that are really important to the child and will need to be taken into consideration in the adoption planning process  Talk to Family Services and Children’s Services Workers, and Foster Parents  But most importantly make sure that you hear and understand the child’s own voice and perspective and think about the best way you will be able to do that

GETTING A READ ON THE SITUATION  It is important to meet individually with everyone involved  child  birth family members  prospective adoptive parent  examine their respective levels of readiness for adoption planning  The plan for moving forward will depend on the place where everyone is beginning from and will need to be tailored to the situation at hand

Get to Know the People Involved  Make sure that children and birth family members are fully aware that adoption planning is being contemplated – consider whether it may be possible to draw them into the process of selecting the adoptive family  Talk to children about their feelings about adoption and about their hopes and dreams for the future – inquire about whether this information can be shared with birth and prospective adoptive parents  Find out about how birth parents feel about adoption  Explore prospective adoptive parents level of familiarity and comfort with models for adoption openness

Education and Counseling  Think about whether any of the people involved might benefit from support or counseling to help them better understand how adoption will change family relationships  Do people have unrealistic expectations about what openness might look like?– Think about whether there may be opportunities to connect them with others who are living with adoption openness and can coach them and help them understand more about what adoption openness is all about

Adoption and Openness Education: Is there an understanding about:  why adoption is important to the child’s emotional health and well-being  how birth relationships will be changed by adoption  that the primary purpose of openness is to assist the child in forming secure bonds with the members of a new family  that the acceptance and support of the adoption plan by the birth family is important to the child’s happiness and well-being

Identify Education Resources Available for Your CAS  Think about resources available within your agency or your community that can offer information and support in order to help birth and adoptive parents and children understand more about adoption and openness  The Adoption Counsel of Ontario can be a helpful resource  Think about developing your own resources: Birth and Adoptive Family Members who have experienced adoption and openness and are willing to share their experience with others can be an important resource

SIBLINGS – ISSUES ARISING IN SEPARATE PLANNING SITUATIONS  Adoption Plans that will involve separate planning for siblings present special challenges that will need to be resolved  It will be important to work through the issues raised with the children involved individually  What you discover about how the children involved are feeling, will need to inform the adoption and openness planning process

SIBLING GROUPS – Being Sensitive to individual needs of siblings  Keep in mind that there may be a need for individual openness plans for children within sibling groups for a whole variety of reasons – different needs, different developmental stages, different birth parents, different attachment figures

Be Realistic and Be Prepared to Manage Expectations  Plans for Openness need to be tailored to the issues involved in each particular case  Openness is a Wide Spectrum that ranges from situations involving only the exchange of non-identifying information to situations where unsupervised face-to-face contact occurs  Be prepared to discuss and present potential models for openness that suit the circumstances of the case at hand

LET PEOPLE MEET ONE ANOTHER BEFORE ASKING THEM TO CONSIDER WORKING ON AN OPENNESS PLAN TOGHETHER

Let the People Involved Get to Know One Another  Identify an opportunity, or series of opportunities for prospective adoptive parents and birth family members to meet  Try to focus on events that will offer an environment that is comfortable for everyone involved and that will offer a genuine opportunity to connect  Give people the opportunity to talk to one another and ask questions

THINGS FOR CAS STAFF TO CONSULT AND TALK ABOUT BEFORE ENGAGING PEOPLE IN A CONVERSATION ABOUT OPENNESS

Things that Adoption, Children and Family Services need to talk about  Make sure that the case history and implications for openness with birth family members is fully understood  Sort out who will take the lead in the Adoption Openness Planning process and what roles other staff members will have

ENGAGE WITH CAS LEGAL SERVICES  Brief legal on the background, the child, the families involved, and the plan being contemplated  Talk about the openness needs being identified  Identify the Existing Crown Ward Orders  Identify the Existing Access Orders

THINGS YOU WILL WANT TO TALK OVER WITH LEGAL SERVCES:  Notice Requirements Associated with Adoption Planning  Understanding the Differences Between Openness Agreements and Orders  The ifs and whens of engaging legal advice for the child; and referring prospective adoptive parents for ILA  The Potential Merits of Engaging in Formal Mediation

Contemplating the Formal Legal Steps that will need to unfold:  Identifying who the access holders are, and who the recipients of access are  WHO will need to be served with WHICH FORM of Notice regarding the Society’s plan to place the child for adoption?  How will service of Notice on children be managed?  Role for Child’s Counsel?: If, when and how to engage a lawyer on behalf of the children involved  Independent Legal advice for prospective adoptive parents: Understanding why that’s helpful, and when and how that might best be accomplished

Consulting With Legal Services– Keeping Adoption Planning in Sync With Legal Requirements  Early consultation offers the opportunity to identify any potential issues in respect of the access order – holders of a right of access are entitled to apply for an openness order  Legal Services can assist you in working out important issues that will impact on the openness planning process:  Whether parties should have the benefit of legal advice  Whether a formal mediation process should be being considered  Timing of the service of Notices in respect of the Adoption Placement and in relation to discussions/mediation about Openness

Openness is not an Event It is a Life Long Commitment  The openness plan will need to involve enough flexibility to respond to the changing circumstances of family and the changing needs of a child  Openness Plans should not be too prescriptive  Encourage the parties to begin with modest expectations – the plan can be expanded through agreement as the parties get to know one another, and if trust develops over time through the words and actions of the people involved

Plan for the Future  Educate the participant’s about how the child’s changing developmental stages as the child grows may impact on what the child needs from the openness plan  Build in supports for the future – sources for counseling for adoptive and birth family members that will help them work through openness successfully  Build in a method for resolution of issues and disagreements