“My word for 2012 was write, and my word for 2013 is speak. I aim to talk with people about the benefits of openness in adoption (which is not necessarily the same as “open adoption,” as you’ll see below) to anyone involved in adoption who will listen.”

Below is a guest post that originally appeared on the site of the organization that is sponsoring Lori’s attendance at the Gala where she will receive the award for Commitment to Excellence for 2013. The post was prompted by a question put to me.

What is open adoption — and is it a spectrum?

 

I bet if you asked a bunch of people who know about adoption what open adoption is, you would get variations on the theme of contact, that there is a continuum of contact, and that each adoption will find its way on to a point on the continuum. On one end might be a fully closed adoption, meaning no contact and no identifying information. At the other end people might place full openness — adoptive and birth parents treating each other as extended families.

Seems kinda flat, no?

But as we move into the third decade of the movement toward open adoptions, I submit that we should stop using contact as our measure. Why?

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