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Old 11-05-2004, 01:25 AM
Richard Justin Richard Justin is offline
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I like your basic premise of getting the reactions of adoptive parents. They are not nearly as well represented in the literature as adoptees and birth parents. You could do a preliminary survey of a smaller sample to find out what the adoptive parents see as the issues- there may be more than the two you mentioned. I'd be intereseted to know what adoptive parents were told at the time of adoption about the possibility and legal processes related to reunions. While open adoptions are more common now, they were still relatively rare 18 to 30 years ago, but those are the people now in the "zone" for reunions. With some initial information in hand, you could approach the state or county about using their data base. A large enough random sample from various time intervals would be important, and perhaps you could find out from the agency what information would be valuable to them. If an agency will colaborate with you, you could probably find resources for a grant to cover printing and postage costs. By thinking big, you just might find yourself performing a valuable service for both the agency and the adoptive parent demographic.

By the way, I am an adoptive parent of two siblings who are now in their mid thirtys. They came to us as foster children at 9 and 6 years old when their father died and their mother was ruled mentally incompetent. Therefore we haven't faced any reunion issues with them. But I am also a birth father. I searched for and found my son almost four years ago. When I met his adoptive mom, one of the things she said was "The more people to love my son, the better!" Her support, even though the reunion was a shock to her, has helped both my son and me as we developed our relationship.

Rich
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