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Open Adoption Literature Review

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Both Open Adoption: Adoptive Parents’ Reactions Two Decades Later by Deborah Siegel and Open adoption Adoptive parents’ experiences of birth family contact and talking to their child about adoption by Mandi MacDonald and Dominic McSherry, provide a great amount of information and detail regarding both adoptive and birth parents experiences with open adoption – especially in the origin of the option for an open adoption. The articles going into each author’s study to see how the adoptive parents feel about the openness of open adoption. Both authors show the differences in the amount of contact between adoptive and biological parents. In Siegel’s study she went more in depth with the relationships between birth and adoptive parents as well as …show more content…

There is two dimensions to the openness in adoption: structural openness which is contact between members of the adoptive and birth families; and communication openness which involves discussion about the child’s birth family and history, as well as adoption issues generally (MacDonald & McSherry, 2011, p. 4). Open adoption has grown over the years but both dimensions still present challenges. MacDonald (2011) stated “the main purpose of post-adoption contact is to help meet the adopted child’s identity and developmental needs,” (p. 4). In the study the found no clear association between contact with birth parents and the outcome of the child. MacDonald believed that having contact or not having contact did not affect the child, it was neither good nor bad for the child, but both adoptive parents and birth parents need to work together for the best of the child’s best …show more content…

5). The lines of the family have expanded when in an open adoption agreement, family now includes the child but the birth family as well, but that does not necessarily include them in the kin. The managing of a kinship relationship is the need of a large amount of collaboration, “in this context, contact can be seen as the mechanism through which relationships in the adoptive kinship network are developed and maintained,” (MacDonald et al, 2011, p. 5). Though it has been acknowledged that stress has been a result of the contact due to an open

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