Cooperative Adoption: A Handbook

Mary Jo Rillera and Sharon Kaplan, 2001

Cooperative Adoption represents possibilities. It is used by each participant differently. It adds options and extends family relationships. It knows that all children come into this life whole, with all rights and relationships intact. And it understands that no one else has the right to interrupt those rights or deprive another being of them. Cooperative adoption is the child’s access to both families, to both sets of parents, with progressive participation in the decisions that will affect his/her life.

Lifegivers: Framing the Birthparent Experience in Open Adoption

James Gritter, 2000 

The author humanizes birth parents in a way that makes many adoptive parents uncomfortable. He examines the perceptions of birth parents and makes the case that if adoption exists to benefit children, then adopted children are best served when birth parents and adoptive parents work together to ensure that birth parents remain a part of their children’s lives.

Making Room in Our Hearts: Keeping Family Ties through Open Adoption

Micky Duxbury, 2006 

Adopted persons face challenges their entire lives as they struggle to answer the most basic question: Who am I? The hope of open adoption is that adopted children will develop stronger identities if they have the opportunity to develop healthy ongoing relationships with their families of origin. This book offers an intimate look at how these relationships evolve over time, with real-life stories from families who have experienced open adoption first-hand. It helps both adoptive and birth parents address their fears and concerns, while offering them the support to put the child’s psychological and spiritual needs at the center of adoption. Based on interviews with more than one hundred adopted children, birth and adoptive parents, extended families, professionals and experts, the book is an effective and invaluable resource for those considering open adoption, those experiencing it, and professionals in the field. Openness has altered the landscape of adoption, and Making Room in Our Hearts will help us catch up to the reality that is open adoption today.

Openness in Adoption

Harold Grotevant and Ruth McRoy, 1998  

Since the mid-1970’s, adoption practices in the United States have changed dramatically and the confidentiality maintained in the past is no longer the norm. Some adoption professionals argue that openness is harmful and experimental while others argue that the secrecy of confidential adoption has been harmful to all parties involved. Perspectives of adopted children, adoptive parents and birth mothers are shared.

The Open Adoption Experience

Lois Ruskai Melina and Sharon Kaplan Roszia, 1993 

Two leading adoption experts provide this reassuring guide to the issues and concerns of adoptive and birth families through all stages of the open adoption relationship. This book covers the steps from initial preparation, through placement and the first year, to the challenges of adolescence.

The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow Up Whole

Lori Holden, 2013

Prior to 1990, fewer than 5% of domestic infant adoptions were open. In 2012, 90% or more of adoption agencies are recommending open adoption. Yet these agencies do not often or adequately prepare either adopting parents or birth parents for the road ahead of them! The adult parties in open adoptions are left floundering. Open adoption isn’t just something parents do when they exchange photos, send emails, share a visit. It’s a lifestyle that may feel intrusive at times, be difficult or inconvenient at other times. Tensions can arise even in the best of circumstances. But knowing how to handle these situations and how to continue to make arrangements work for the child involved is paramount. This book offers readers the tools and the insight to do just that. It covers common open-adoption situations and how real families have navigated typical issues successfully.

The Spirit of Open Adoption

James L. Gitter, 1997

The Spirit of Open Adoption is a candid, intensely personal, highly readable account of the experiences of one agency that switched from closed to open adoptions. It traces the reasons for the change and the resulting effects on birthparents, adoptive parents, adoption practitioners, and most importantly, the children.