The National Council for Adoption (NCFA) a national advocacy, training and resource center recently published a new report entitled, “Profiles in Adoption: Adult Adoptee Experiences.” NCFA’s new research report examined the multifaceted experiences and perspectives of over 1,200 adult adoptees. The report is intended to contribute to the growing body of research that seeks to better understand adoptees from their own perspectives and to provide improved practices and policies in the adoption community. Although the study states that this is a very small fraction of the adult adoptees in the U.S., this study may help contribute to the growing research. The report included data on the type of adoption (from foster care, private, international, etc.), demographics such as gender/ethnicity, the type of family they were adopted into, current marital status and more. The report breaks down responses by the types of adoption, and from that information, general takeaways were summarized.
Some of the questions the study sought to answer included:
- What are the demographic characteristics of today’s adult adoptees?
- What are the adoptee’s experiences with post-adoption supports and services?
- How do adoptee’s experiences vary by the type of adoption?
- What advice would adoptees give future adoptive parents?
The following are some of the report highlights:
- The majority of adoptees surveyed were satisfied with their adoption and re-ported overall life satisfaction.
- Adoptees who were adopted by parents of a different race/ethnicity overall did not report a reduced life satisfaction.
- The majority of the adoptees believed adoption can work in the best interests of adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents.
- A large majority of the adoptees reported lack of information about their birth family and family health history.
- Adoptees stressed the importance of open and honest communications about adoption-related issues.
- Adoptees emphasized the importance of birth family connections/engagement.
In addition, NCFA has also created reports entitled: “Profiles in Adoption: Birth Parent Experiences” as well as “Profiles in Adoption: Adoptive Parent Experiences.” For more information on the above reports please visit https://adoptioncouncil.org/research/profiles-in-adoption/