We reviewed this question with staff from the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information. (This link will open a new window. To return to NAIC's Web site, close the new window.) Our initial searches of the databases of both Clearinghouses failed to locate research specific to outcomes of openness with this population. Most studies or publications regarding open adoption have concerned either infant adoptions or private/independent placements. We were successful, however, in locating some potentially interesting work being done by Jeanne Etter, Ph.D., at Teamwork for Children in Eugene, Oregon, and Richard P. Barth, Ph.D. at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

We contacted Teamwork for Children, which is a private organization that focuses on child welfare mediation, and confirmed that Dr. Etter's Cooperative Adoption Mediation Project (CAMP) pilot study concerned children in custody, with termination of parental rights pending. The CAMP approach is intended to guide the consideration of permanency options, including openness in adoption. It illustrates the importance to successful, timely planning of involving birthparents in a thoughtful, informed process. This approach contrasts with the trend some have described of using open adoption to expedite legal intervention. It is our understanding that Dr. Etter does not yet have information about outcomes for the children in her study.

Dr. Barth worked on a study at UC-Berkeley on the rate of disruption among older child adoptions in placements in the early 1980's, and contributors to stable and disrupted adoptions. An abstract of this study is available in our bibliographic database (Search by Dr. Barth's name.). We contacted him and learned that he and his colleagues have been following children for 8 years who were adopted from foster care, with openness. The researchers are currently finishing papers from this study and although they have not yet completed a final draft of the results, he shared some findings in which they have confidence:

* Many of the children studied have experienced openness that involved minimal contact, i.e. by mail every year or two.
* Seventy percent still had contact after 8 years, but not a lot of face-to-face contact. When contact stops, it is often due to an inability to locate the birthparents.
* Not a lot is known regarding the impact of openness on these children, but the researchers have some idea that when foster/adoptive parents say they had no choice regarding contact, the children are not doing that well. It is not known if the contact is responsible for this or if the children were not doing well before the open arrangement began.

We also checked with Dr. Ruth McRoy at the University of Texas Austin, The Center for Social Work Research; Peter Gibbs at the University of Massachusetts - Worchester, Center for Adoption Research and Policy; and the National Resource Center for Permanency Planning at Hunter College. No one was aware of current research on outcomes for this population of children.

This material has been taken from the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse Web site as reviewed and approved for addition to this site on January 15, 2004.

The National Adoption Information Clearinghouse http://naic.acf.hhs.gov, can be reached toll free at 1-888-251-0075,or by e-mail at: naic@calib.com.