Openness in Adoption
- The agency providing adoption services should recognize the value of openness to all members of the adoption triad, but should allow determinations concerning the degree of openness in an adoption to be made by the parties to the adoption on an individualized basis.
Child Welfare League of America Standards of Excellence for Adoption Services, 2000. Section 1.17, p.17.
- The prevailing legal practice in the United States prohibits adults who were adopted as children from obtaining access to their original birth certificates or to identifying information contained in their adoption records.
- The practice of sealing records has come under scrutiny as the benefits of openness in adoption for the adopted individual, birth parents, and adoptive parents have come to be understood. The interests of adopted adults in having information about their origins have come to be recognized as having critical psychological importance as well as importance in understanding their health and genetic status. Because such information is essential to adopted adults' identity and health needs, the agency should promote policies that provide adopted adults with direct access to identifying information.
- This trend toward openness has already been recognized by the Indian Child Welfare Act (P.L. 95-608). Under that Act, courts must unseal records for American Indian children, on request, and provide information necessary for the adopted individual to ascertain his or her tribal affiliation and membership. Such information may include the names of the adopted child's birth parents.
Child Welfare League of America Standards of Excellence for Adoption Services, 2000. Section 6.22, p. 87.
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