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The Value of Adoptive Parent Groups
The Value of Adoptive
Parent Groups
Parent Groups
By National Adoption Information Clearinghouse
The first formal adoptive parent group started in the New York City metropolitan area in 1955. The group was called Adoptive Parents Committee, and it is still active today. Not long after, in 1957, some families involved in intercountry and transracial adoption in Montreal, Canada, started a group. The adoptive parents felt they needed a support group to help them deal with special issues that accompanied these kinds of adoptions. This type of networking rapidly became popular throughout Canada and the United States. By the late 1960s, parents in several cities in both countries began to form similar organizations.
Until then, adoption in the United States was almost exclusively restricted to healthy Caucasian infants. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, when adoption expanded to other kinds of children – those who were older, had developmental disabilities and were from other countries or of mixed race – it became evident that parents needed help beyond that provided by agencies.
Even families who had adopted healthy infants found themselves needing support for several reasons. More adopted children insisted on knowing who their birth parents were, and some actively searched for them. Many adoptive parents were stunned, having never imagined they would one day face a possible reunion of their adopted child and his or her birth parents. They needed help to cope – and it was parent groups to which they often turned.
Also, adoptive parents found children needing support on other fronts. In some cases, the expression of the normal adolescent need for autonomy and independence seemed more intense for adopted children. Some parents wanted to know how other families told their children they were adopted, or they wondered what happened when children were not told early and learned of their adoptive status later in life. Information and experiences exchanged by the parents were invaluable.