Mediation and Post-Adoption Contact: The Early Experience of the Post-Adoption Centre Contact Mediation Service

Abstract

Post-adoption contact, whether through letterbox arrangements or direct links between the adoptive child and family and the birth parents and relatives, is becoming a common practice aspiration. However, adoption law remains rooted in assumptions of severance and the courts are extremely reluctant to order such contact and thereby interfere with the right of adoptive parents to make their own decisions. In this situation agreements have to be voluntarily negotiated and mediation has been proposed as a method of helping birth and adoptive parents to come to joint decisions about the nature and extent of post-adoption contact. Carol Kedward, Barry Luckock and Hilary Lawson report and discuss the results of a small-scale, evaluative study of the service outcomes and experiences of parents who were in touch with the Post-Adoption Centre Contact Mediation Service during the first two years of its operation.