Research

Adoptive Parent Survey

Open Adoption & Family Services (OA&FS) distributed a survey to adoptive parents in 2001. Forty-nine percent (297) of the 601 surveys were completed and returned by families that adopted from 1985 to 2001. (OA&FS was founded in 1985.) The purpose of the survey was to clarify specific challenges adoptive parents, birthparents and adoptees have experienced and resolved over the years; to determine characteristics of long-term open adoption relationships; and to measure adoptive parents' satisfaction with their adoption experience.

The major finding of the survey was: Families that had regular contact (visits, letters, email and phone calls) with the birthparents reported a higher level of satisfaction with their overall adoption experience and with the birth family.

The majority of the families that responded to the survey reside in Oregon and Washington; 8% reside in other states. Ninety-five percent of the adoptions were of newborns, and 21% of the adoptions were transracial. Fifteen percent of OA&FS families have adopted more than once through the agency.

Ongoing contact and visits

More than half of the families had three or more visits in the last two years.
More than 2/3 of the families that adopted from 1986 to 1990 are still having visits.
The amount of contact with birth families decreased over time for 36.5% of the adoptive families and stayed the same for 30% of the adoptive families.
Nearly 2/3 of the adoptive and birth families still live the same distance from one another as they did at the time of the adoption.
Less than 10% of adoptive families don't know where the birth family lives.
The geographic distance between adoptive families and birth families does not affect the adoptive parents' satisfaction with the birth family.
Almost half of the respondents who rated satisfaction with birth family very positively had six or more visits in the last two years.
All of the families that agreed to more than six visits on the open adoption agreement continue to have visits.
Fifteen percent of families did not agree to visits, but reported having between one and six visits per year.

Respondents were asked to describe their feelings on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being very positive.

Question: How would you describe your overall adoption experience?
Results: 9 out of 10 responded very positively.

Question: How would you describe your experience with OA&FS at the time of the adoption?
Results: 9 out of 10 responded very positively.

Question: How would you describe how your extended family relates to your adopted child?
Results: Nearly 100% responded very positively.

Question: How would you characterize your satisfaction with your relationship with the birth family?
Results: 6 out of 10 responded very positively.

Question: How has your child responded to their relationship with the birth family?
Results: 6 out of 10 responded very positively.

Factors influencing satisfaction

Families that had regular contact (visits, letters, email and phone calls) with the birthparents reported a higher level of satisfaction with their overall adoption experience and with the birth family.
Factors that contributed to making the relationship less satisfying were "birthmother struggling," "geographic distance" and "birthmother not in contact."
However, the majority of respondents who listed "birthmother struggling," "geographic distance" and "birthmother not in contact" still rated their overall adoption experience very positively.

Families were asked whether they agreed with the following statements

Percentage Strongly Agreeing:
1. We look forward to visits with our child's birth family.	63
2. We do not feel jealous when the birth family spends time with our child.	79
3. It is important to have photographs of the birth family in our home.	73
4. We frequently speak positively about the birthmother with our child.	73
5. We would continue to reach out to our child's birthparents even if they were unresponsive.	65
6. We are comfortable telling our open adoption story.	94
7. We do not schedule visits with our child's birth family because we feel obligated.	62
8. Our child's relationship with his/her birthparent(s) has grown over time.	34
9. It is not our birthparent's responsibility to initiate and maintain contact.	60
10. We do not continue to feel grief about not having a biological child.	91
11. We have been personally enriched by our relationship with the birth family.	59
12. Our child enjoys seeing his/her birth family.	60

Changing Practices in Adoption
R.G. McRoy, H.D. Grotevant, and S. Ayers-Lopez
Austin, Texas: Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, 1994.

This longitudinal study of openness in adoption looks at the issue from the points of view of adoptive parents (N=190), adopted children (N=171+), birthparents (N=169), and adoption agencies. The participants in this study were interviewed between 1987 and 1992, when the children were between the ages of four and twelve. Sixty-two families had confidential adoptions, 69 had mediated, and 59 families had fully disclosed adoptions.

For the adoptive parents, the concern that openness would lead to unwanted intrusions by the birthparent was found to be groundless. The majority of parents were satisfied with the level of contact between the child and the birthparents. Parents who were dissatisfied with the level of contact were those who wanted more contact with the birthparent than was possible. Fear that the birthparent would reclaim the child was lowest among the parents with fully disclosed adoptions. In confidential and mediated adoptions adoptive parents' fear was higher that the child would be reclaimed. Reasons given for the heightened fear included stereotypical views about birthparents and awareness of media portrayals and court cases dramatizing birthparents reclaiming their children.

Regardless of type of adoption they were involved in, the children expressed the desire to know more about their birthparents. Specifically, children with less knowledge about birthparents wondered about their health and what they looked like. Children with more information wondered about when they would see them again and about birthsiblings.

Most birthparents found openness to be a satisfactory arrangement. Those with fully disclosed placements were less likely to feel regret about placing the child for adoption. They also reported feeling no jealousy or competitiveness with the adoptive families.

"An Annotated Guide to Adoption Research by Deborah L. Martin, Copyright 1998, Child Welfare League of America. Reprinted by special permission of the Child Welfare League of America, Washington, DC (http://www.cwla.org)."

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