Adult Adoptee Survey Talking Points: Their Perceptions of Benefits of Open Adoption

Heart of the Matter Seminars' co-owners Julie Drew, BA and Katie Prigel Sharp, LMSW conducted a survey of 218 adult adoptees on the topic of open adoption.  A full report, Adult Adoptees' Views on Open Adoption, will be released soon.  This short article  provides a brief summary of one of the key topics in the survey, followed by a series of Talking Points meant to spark further thought and discussion.  Results from our survey will be used in our upcoming online course on open adoption entitled.Opening Up About Adoption: What is it and is it right for you? scheduled for release early 2013!

Learn more about the participants here.

Talking Points

• "Having access to medical information"  was most often reported as "very important".  With medical advances in genetic testing do you think this will become less important over time?

• Does an open adoption always guarantee accurate and complete medical information?

• What does the phrase "knowing where I came from" mean to you?  How is it different than "knowing why I was placed for adoption"?

• With all the focus on identity and adoption, does it surprise you to see that so many adult adoptees reported it as not a benefit or of little importance?

• Do you think some of these would have been more important or less important to these individuals when they were children?

• Do you think there is a connection between identity and self esteem?

• Consider the how evenly distributed the responses are to "having ongoing contact with birth family members".  Why do you think there is such a wide range of responses?  Do you think this speaks to the individual nature of open adoptions?

• Do you think the responses to "knowing who I look like" would be different if we had asked children?  Adoptees who are part of a transracial family?