Openness

Adoptees are four times more likely to attempt suicide than non-adoptees. There’s no easy way to talk about this topic, but talk about it we must.

A growing number of grandparents in BC are living with and raising their grandchildren. In this story, a grandmother shares her very personal experience with becoming the legal guardian of her daughter’s child. To protect the privacy of her daughter and grandchild, names have been redacted.

Stuck in the system

I remember getting the call from MCFD like it was yesterday. It was Friday, December 30^, 2016 at 9 am. A clear, cool day.

Lori Holden literally wrote the book on open adoption (The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow Up Whole). In this article, she presents a new way of thinking about openness.

Bif Naked is a member of a lot of communities. Rock and roller, vegan, Canadian, animal lover, breast cancer survivor, humanitarian, adoptee, and author (her memoir, I, Bificus, came out in 2016 and is available from AFABC’s library). Yes, Bif Naked, also known as Beth, is an adoptee and proud of it.  In this article, she shares her story with Ronda Payne.

Janet was abandoned at birth outside a hospital in northern BC. In 2017, she found four half-siblings who were also abandoned as babies by the same mother. Through DNA testing, she learned the identity of her deceased biological mother and her biological father, Emil Weinreich. Janet met Emil for the first time just over a year ago. In this article, Janet reflects on how their shared love for her led her biological and adoptive fathers to become family to each other, too.

In this series Marion Crook, author and adoptive mom, takes us on a journey through changes in adoption in BC. Here, in part three, she focuses on adoption from foster care.

Fostering and adoption: then and now

The Adoptive Families Association of BC is celebrating its 40th anniversary. This is the third in a series exploring adoption and fostering over those last 40 years. It focuses on the evolution in foster care practice since 1977.

In the last few decades, openness in adoption has become the norm. Professional research and the personal experiences of adoptees and birth parents support the idea that some degree of openness is usually best for everyone, even in adoptions from foster care. That doesn't mean it's always easy, though. In this article, Sarah, an adoptive mom, explains how her family navigated an unexpectedly rough patch in their open adoption journey.

Adoption and assisted reproduction have a lot in common!