symposium
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
Family Values and Openness: Confronting
and Accepting Differences
With the assumption that every non-kinship adoption is a transcultural one, the presenter discusses the
small and large conflicts that can arise in open adoptions due to the differing values between birth and adoptive family members. She discusses the
ways families can successfully confront these challenges and makes recommendations for ways
professionals can better support families in their care
OpenAdoptionSupport.com
• We honor the connection adoptees have to both of their families.
• We recognize the love and joy as well as the losses and grief of adoption.
• We do not diminish one family in favor of another.
• We are flexible, understanding that needs and circumstances change.
• We set boundaries on the basis of what is best for our children.
• We understand that open adoption looks like different things for different families.
OpenAdoptionSupport.com
... every non-kinship adoption is a
transcultural one
Values: How we define the “Good
Life”
Values: How we reach for the “Good Life”
Listen for understanding
Values have close ties to morals; we use one to inform the other
Listen for understanding
Values drive decision-making (whether we know it or not, whether we can name our values or not).
Listen for understanding
Values are not static. They shift as we grow, as we have new experiences and as we meet new people.
• What are the values of the agency?
• What are the values of the individual adoption workers?
• What are the values of the expectant parents?
• What are the values of the prospective adoptive parents?
Values around adoption & surrender
Communicative Openness: How we talk about adoptionStructural Openness:How we do adoption
Do we segregate our child’s adoption history and
experiences? Or do we integrate them?
Openness is an attitude.
There are as many ways to feel about the adoption as there are
people involved.
Help Families Remember:
Surrender & Adoption
• Adoption is not co-parenting
• Birth parents are usually not legally recognized after surrender
Divorce & Blended Families
≠
Surrender & Adoption
• Outside our social ideal
• Dependent on the law
• Decisions impact kids but are made by adults
• Adult narrative may not reflect child’s
Divorce & Blended Families
=
Barriers to connection
Incongruent Life Cycles
Grief (and Guilt and Insecurity and Fear)
Family Practices: What we do as a family
Displaying Family:These family practices create our family
• Visits
• Holidays/Birthdays
• Gifts
• Language
• Extended Family
• Bringing New People into the Relationship
• Facebook (Sharing)
1. Offer a Values Inventory
Life Values Inventory
• www.LifeValuesInventory.org
• www.artapp.net/LIFE-VALUES-INVENTORY.html
Duane Brown & R. Kelly Crace
2. Educate clients about cross-cultural adoption
3. Teach birth and adoptive parents about grief and
how that can impact birth family choices
4. Offer Mediation
• The National Institute for Advanced Conflict Resolution (NIACR) www.NIACR.og
• Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution www.usip.org/programs/centers/center-mediation-and-conflict-resolution
• Association for Conflict Resolution www.ACRNET.org
• Mediate.com www.mediate.com
