Letterbox

[MissFenella]

Is it usual/typical for letters from parents to include 'when you are 18 and we meet again....' type stuff.

Letter from birth mum included a few 'wonderful future together' type references.

Putting aside the heart crushing 'she thinks I am babysitting' element (because that is about me not the girls) how would you couch the tone to your children?

Obviously when you become an adoptive parent you meet a lot of other adopters through various ways, prep groups, stay and play sessions, events run by the LA for adopted children etc. I have to say of all the adopters I have met every single one of them is a parent to a child removed by social services because of neglect or abuse. I only know of 1 adopted person who was relinquished as a baby and she's 45. I think adoption today is very very very different from even 20 years ago sadly.

Absolutely, MrsDV. There is not one poster in the whole of MN who would let dd's birth parents look after their gerbil, let alone their child. And this is not unusual. I only know one person in RL who has adopted a voluntarily relinquished child.

If a child has been relinquished then I would assume the birth parent put the needs of the child above theirs hence THEIR decision to place the child for adoption. An open adoption therefore seems possible as all involved have been proven capable of putting the child first and therefore LIKELY will where all contact is concerned.

In a case of a child being removed, this decision has been made because the birth parent has proven they haven't been able to put the child's needs before their own, so open adoptions would not protect children from that, closed contact/letterbox does, as it can be vetted first to ensure it is in the child's best interest.

The two are polar opposites. The UK is mainly children removed, not relinquished and that is why open adoptions are not common.

Of all the people I've met, only one child has been relinquished. If you were an adopter and had access to Adoption Link etc. adopted you'd see hundreds of children removed from their parents care, none relinquished.

I found loads of research on open adoption in the US though I doubt there's much in Aus just given the relative numbers. All the research I found around open adoption was based on relinquished children.

MrsDV it seems the single biggest problem is with birth parents who are unable to maintain effective contact.

It looks like there are only 60-70 domestic adoptions in Australia each year. I don't see how they can have done any convincing research into open adoption with such low numbers

Were - indeed... ConsuelaBananaHammock type names must be quite typical...

I know of one child who was voluntarily relinquished - and even then she was 11 months old before she was placed with her now-adoptive parents and had had two sets of FC in the interim, with all the difficulties that this can cause.

What a thread, indeed. Anyway as I said on another thread I am an adoptee and birth parent. And though relinquishments that are truly unforced are vanishingly rare I am a little ambivalent about open adoptions. I absolutely think generalising for such a small group is often going to be wrong individually but certainty has much to recommend it for young adoptees. Interestingly I 'know' online of another adoptee/ birth parent who also thinks along similar lines. I know info on contact suggests post 30 and post 40 gives better results. I don't know why but can't help thinking that many successful adoptions navigate early teens years and come through the storm with family pretty bonded, contact then can naturally then become an issue in response to death of parents or parenthood and as the parents are a little less central to day to day life.
I wanted my child to have a family not a contrasting set of options. What a pressure, I wouldn't have wanted that in the context of a good adoption.

As for children who needed to be removed, they more than any need to be safe and secure as do the parents. Many nice people can't truly conceive of how dangerous some parent figures are even at a distance.

littlebluecar Do you mean contact with birth family post age 30/40 seems to be better? (sorry to be dim).

If so then I would assume that its because people generally don't fully develop their emotional maturity until (from memory) their mid 20's so after that are more able to negotiate the complex emotions involved.

I would say that the USA is in the forefront of open adoption and has the longest experience of it - and I've only ever seen it discussed with relinquished children. I saw an inference that the Australian definition of "open" includes letterbox contact - if that true then I'd take with a pinch of salt just how pioneering their approach is.

I wanted my child to have a family not a contrasting set of options. - well quite

I should also add that adoptive parents who are wary of letterbox contact and/or face to face contact are because of good established reasons. In my case I would welcome contact and think it would be helpful to DS but we are in a very different situation to most other people here and unlike even Maryz birth parents are in a different country so contact would not be threatening to DS's sense of permanency (in my opinion).

I read a bit about Australia and adoption last night. So they have 40,000 in care and less than 200 adoptions, we have 50,000ish in care and 5000ish adoptions. Their adoption rate has fallen by 97% since the 70s and has been continously falling during that time, ie no rise in recent times like in UK (excluding this year for UK). They have shown children would do better in an adoptive home than in care but most Australians avoid adopting from their own country, if at all.

They have a country with a lot of guilt around previous forced adoptions and therefore a nation reluctant to support adoption even when evidence shows children would be better off in certain circumstances, it seems the encouragement of open adoptions is to try to reverse this.

Is it possible that they've found 200 cases where open adoption would work? If we were to look at the 5000 cases of adoption in UK maybe we could assess and find 200 cases where birth parents are on board etc and pose less risk that it was at least possible? I also saw reference to open including letters and/or face to face contact. If they are trying to push open adoptions, to increase the number of adoptions in a country where they are limited, it is possible they will emphasise the face to face part of that and play down those that are just letters/phone calls.

I'm not saying it's all a myth, I'm just questioning it. I would like to see research on much larger numbers than they have, with children removed not relinquished to sway my opinion. I'm not saying it can't be swayed, just that I want it to be a matched group with statistical significance.

As for SGO'S if there are family and friends available and willing, fabulous. Will they get the support post SGO though? If we struggle as adopters I worry more for them tbh.

I know one of the aboriginal mixed race "children" who was forceably removed. In his case he wasn't adopted but grew up in care. I agree that Aus has a pretty grim adoption past. It doesn't surprise me that they'd try anything to promote it now.

Yes I think you could easily find 200 cases in the UK where there is face to face contact. Just based on this board where there are a couple - how successful they are is another matter entirely.

I am also sceptical about support - every bit of research I've seen recommends post adoption support for all parties, not too difficult to do if you only have 70 a year, totally impractical if you have 5000. As can be seen from OPs situation where they're not even providing simple letterbox support

I'd love to see a thread where someone is insisting their child has contact with say a father who sexually abused them and broke their arm aged 2. They get ripped to shreds on here!