Voices of Adoption
Voices of Adoption
Is your adoption group looking for a way to present the triad viewpoint to people in the media or simply to non-triad members? Or, perhaps you’d like to make triad members aware of your existence so they can take advantage of the programs and/or support you offer. If so, the Green Ribbon Campaign has an idea for you. GRC’s program, Voices of Adoption, literally gives voice to the triad experience.
The program grew out of an awareness of some basic facts about the adoption journey from the standpoint of an adoptee. In 2000, GRC’s national coordinator, Ann Wilmer, organized a conference with a colleague from the social work department at Salisbury University where she teaches media studies and communications. It was very well-received by practicing social workers, as well as students in social work training, who got a chance to hear directly from persons whose lives were impacted by adoption. Triad members who participated also thought the forum for an exchange of ideas was a good idea.
Publicity surrounding the event made Wilmer the “go-to” person on campus for student adoptees with questions. “Other professors, and even the head of student counseling referred students searching for their biological families to me,” she said.
Psychologists tell us that we all begin to come to terms with aspects of our self-concept as separate from our parents as we emerge into adulthood, usually between the ages of 16 and 19. For adoptees, it is a time to question everything about their own experience that they don’t understand and to come to terms with what it means and how it affects both their self-concept and their self-esteem. These are also concepts that Wilmer discusses with her students in “fundamentals” classes.
Meanwhile, on-going discussions among triad participants suggested that there was a need for a forum to speak their minds directly to others and an opportunity to learn from each other’s experiences. As Wilmer shared with colleagues the questions she often got from students, “several of the birth mothers who participated expressed a willingness to talk to adoptees one-on-one, or to any student with questions about adoption.”
Since the major purpose of GRC is public education about the need for adoption reform, the Voices of Adoption program was launched in 2002. It is co-hosted by Wilmer and another colleague at the college with personal experience of adoption. And they recruited their triad friends to speak about their personal experience or read an appropriate short selection from the literature as a point of departure for discussion. Once the speakers have all presented, they take questions from the audience. To recruit an audience, most professors in the department as well as some in psychology, social work or education encourage their students to attend; some even give extra credit.
In class, the day following the first presentation, students besieged Wilmer with questions. It turned out that three-fourths of Wilmer’s mass media class had personal knowledge of adoption through a close friend or family member and they had many comments and questions. The power of the spoken word, whether in-person or mediated, is tremendous.
The program varies with interest and availability of speakers. Speakers who discussed positive aspects of their adoption experience, either because they found or received “family” as a result, prompted a group of trans-racial adoptees – all Pan Pacific in origin – to approach organizers for a chance to discuss the negative aspects of adoption from their perspective.
Over the four years that the group has mounted the program at Salisbury University, it has also dealt with search, open adoption and adoptee rights. This year’s program is “From the Book” and will return to the original idea of readings as a starting point for discussion. A crop of new books, most notably The Girls Who Went Away by Anne Fessler, has inspired organizers to share some of their favorites with participants.
Wilmer encourages groups who are looking for a community outreach opportunity to consider this as a way of opening a dialogue, which will benefit triad members most of all. The fifth annual VOA program will have a community sponsor, members of Post-Adoption Search & Support of Delmarva, a local group with both monthly meetings and an Internet presence.
Not surprisingly, college students were intrigued by the opportunity to meet and hear from birth mothers. While open adoption is now considered a “best management” practice, and legal in 17 states, many adoptees still have limited information about their personal history. Mothers who are now discovering the courage to speak in public about their personal pain are almost always without knowledge of what became of their progeny or have searched and found.
Speaking in a public forum makes maintaining privacy difficult. Both student and commercial news media representatives have been very sensitive about protecting participants who wished to remain unnamed in the newspaper or not shown clearly on television but it’s not always a realistic expectation. Wilmer recommends forewarning potential speakers that by going public, they are likely to become identifiable. That is a consideration for birth parents still wrestling with guilt or fear disapproval. Others say that speaking out is therapeutic.
Adoptees, generally, feel no shame in revealing that they are adopted but many are reluctant to share very personal feelings about their experience. Interestingly, one who has participated in almost every VOA program since it began started by sharing with the audience that she did not wish to search but came back to tell the group that she has searched, found and was glad she did.
One particularly poignant experience occurred when a student whose girlfriend was pregnant and considering adoption came to the presentation and stayed to question one birth mother about how the child she found felt about her decision.
“Talking about our feelings sometimes helps to clarify them,” Wilmer said. “And making persons who will never share our experience first-hand understand it better may go a long way to changing the laws that mandate secrecy. What we see at these forums is that society is ready for openness, even if those who profit from adoption secrecy are not.”
Article appeared originally on http://birthfamily-search.adoptionblogs.com
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