November is National Adoption Month, a time to celebrate families formed through adoption and to recognize the homes that have provided safe, loving environments for children and adolescents in need. It’s also a time to spread awareness about the ongoing need for adoptive homes, particularly for older children currently in foster care.
In my professional experience, I have worked extensively with the foster care system, including adoption through foster care and private adoption. For nearly a decade, I have worked with foster youth, foster parents, and biological parents whose children were placed in foster care. Through this work, I have witnessed the profound benefits of maintaining a relationship with a child’s biological parents. Today, open adoption is viewed and understood much differently than in prior decades. We now recognize how vital it is for children to understand their personal history, cultural identity, and where they come from. This shift to a more child-centered approach allows a child to understand and integrate their biological and adoptive family dynamics, rather than feeling split between them.
While not all open adoptions are perfect, adoption relationships which involve both adoptive and birth parents working together in the best interest of their child greatly benefit all parties. Keeping the lines of communication open and coming together for the needs of the child eliminates the secrecy of adoption and provides the child an opportunity to learn more about themselves.
In previous years, adoptive parents often feared maintaining contact with birth families, worried that their child might prefer their birth family or that the relationship with the birth family would negatively impact their child. However, studies have shown that when adoptive parents embrace birth parents, it not only allows them to create a healthy relationship between all involved, but also strengthens and enriches the bond between adoptive parents and their child.
A successful open adoption begins with the willingness to being open– open to relationships, open to the people important to your child, open to giving and receiving information and support. Open adoption has different meanings among adoptive and biological families and not all open adoptions look the same. Open adoption can take on different forms, depending on the preferences of the those involved, but the foundation is always a shared commitment to the child’s well-being.
If you would like to learn more about open adoption as a way to grow your family, we invite you to join us for FACES of Adoption, a panel discussion featuring adoptive parents sharing their heartfelt adoption journey. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions and gain insights into the unique challenges and rewards of the adoption process. RSVP here, or visit the Adoption Options page
For additional resources about open adoption, the book The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow Up Whole, provides a great guide.
This article was written by Lauren Corvese, LMHC-A, Adoption Options Coordinator
Lauren Corvese is the Adoption Coordinator at Adoption Options, a program of Jewish Collaborative Services. She has been with JCS since May 2024, overseeing agency licensure, managing adoptive families in
Rhode Island and Massachusetts, coordinating all components of the home study process, and writing home studies. Before joining JCS, Lauren worked with DCYF-involved families, providing clinical and case management services, facilitating supervised visitation, and supporting.