International Open Adoption

While in Germany open adoption has now informally become the standard, this is not the case in international adoption. Why actually? Thinking from the perspective of the child, which should be at the centre of all placements, contact with the first family is a valuable if not integral part of their identity.

The current practice so far largely prevented contact with the first family. Sometimes it is possible to meet the family of the child, when picking it up. But even that is not a compulsory part of the programme. Adoptive parents are rather discouraged by agencies who point out that the first family could ask for money, or express their expectation that their children would provide for them from Germany. One would rather avoid these scenes by not meeting the family. This abrupt cutting of ties with the first family is compensated at a later stage when parents or the agency take them to the country and visit the orphanage. Then it is usually too late to get in touch with the family of origin: many contacts are lost, much has happened in the family, grandparents have died and children are born. Families might leave their villages and move on.

It is time to change the practice. Liaising with the first family should play a much larger role in the adoption process. The careful documentation of family relationships and face to face contact prevent corruption and child trafficking. It makes it much harder for traffickers, orphanages and agencies to cover up shady deals. In addition, a permanent contact helps to deal with identity issues of the child. This contact can take the form of regular exchanges of reports and photos - and if it is only a card for Christmas and birthdays. A search for one's roots is largely redundant, if the roots are always known. Nagging questions about the reasons of the adoption can be made easier and also answered if the addressees are tangible.

So far there is hardly any structure for this. Therefore, adoptive parents must take action themselves. The first step in the direction of open adoption is taken at the point of the pick up of the child. If the agency is unwilling to organize a meeting, parents should persist and only accept good reasons (e.g., violence and abuse in the family).

The meeting with the first family should be well prepared. If possible, it should take place in two separate parts. The first part is about getting to know each other and saying farewell to the child. It is quite appropriate to give small (not expensive, but attentive) gifts. The family can give the child their blessing and thereby facilitate a good start for the new family. The adoptive parents get an impression of the family and learn a lot about their child. The child learns that her first family has trust in her new parents.

In a separate part, there should be a meeting in a quiet atmosphere and in the absence of the child. In that meeting the family history with names, birth dates and places of residence, as well as the relationships, major events and diseases in the family are documented in detail. This is also the moment to check out inconsistencies in the social report. Conversely, adoptive parents should be prepared to pass on the own family history including address and phone number to the first family.

What to do if the child was found abandoned? Here, the search for the first family is the starting point. This is significantly more difficult but not impossible. A visit to the site of abandonment is important - for reasons documentation for the child, but also to ask questions. You can leave business cards and hire a searcher to find clues to the origin of the child. Beware, this is not easy in a country like Ethiopia but a mere attempt can show agencies and authorities that one does not lightly accept abandonement reports. Tipps for such a search in China you can find here. 

In the long term, open adoption is the only ethical way in international adoption. When children are placed in a new family, they have two families. It is time to accept this and learn how to handle it.