Adoption's Emerging Virtual Landscape
Two weeks
before her wedding day in 2010, Alicia Kuvshinikov decided to sign on to her
long-dormant MySpace account, which she hadn’t visited in more than two years. Opening
her inbox, she saw an email from a social service agency. It was a social
worker from an adoption agency, writing to notify her that a girl was looking
for her – a girl who claimed to be Kuvshinikov’s sister.
Adopted at age 2.5 by a childless couple from California, Kuvshinikov, now 27 years old, had been told that she had a half-brother, but that he had died in infancy. Other details about her birth and early life were hazy and with little knowledge of her birth family, Kuvshinikov was skeptical about this MySpace connection. “I'm thinking, ‘This is a joke, why would someone contact me through MySpace, no one has been on there for years,’” she says.
Kuvshinikov decided, however, to take a leap of faith. “I ended up getting in contact with [my sister’s] social worker, they explained her situation to me, and it turns out she lives, from where I live now, literally two minutes away,” she describes.
With the surge in Internet search tools and social media, Kuvshinikov’s story of finding her birth family is becoming increasingly common today. It’s a trend that is turning an adopted child’s search for his or her birth family from a slow and often painstaking process to one that can be accomplished within a few hours on a computer. While there is no definitive answer as to whether social media has played a positive or negative role in the adoption search and reunion process, the trend is certainly changing the adoption landscape and altering the role of adoption agencies. It’s also a change that many social workers view warily.
”I've found that the search for other pieces [of the adoptee's] identity is inevitable and now they have this tool to be able to act on that search,” says Anne Coleman, a psychologist at Adoption & Beyond.
As social media sites such as Facebook become more and more popular and Internet accessibility grows due to the wide distribution of smartphones and tablets, the process of search and reunion for adoptees and birth relatives has become very easy and commonplace. This trend is so new that there are no conclusive numbers just yet as to how many searches and reunions have been made possible by social media. However, researchers and adoption professionals say that as Internet use grows, so to does the use of this platform to find birth relatives. The Pew Research Center’s 2009 survey of teen and young adult Internet use found that “93 percent of teens ages 12‐17 go online, as do 93 percent of young adults ages 18‐29. Three quarters (74 percent) of all adults ages 18 and older go online.” The overall rise in Internet use has contributed significantly to the phenomenon of finding birth relatives online and through social media, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute’s December 2012 report concludes.
With this surge in Internet use, social worker Marla Allisan, founder and director of the Massachusetts based Full Circle Adoptions agency, says that in her 25 years working in the field, it’s only been in the past three or four years that she has seen the use of Facebook and Internet adoption search sites take off.
Although this is a new movement, Allisan already sees the consequences, both positive and negative. “The Internet is like a car. It can take us places we might not otherwise have been able to go, but if we're not ready for it, or we don't know how to steer, it can get us into trouble,” she says.
Penny Harrison, director of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, MSPCC, has witnessed first hand the trouble that Internet reunions can cause.
“I'd say for every five cases that I hear about from families, maybe one goes right, if that. The majority really don’t end up going well,” Harrison says.
She has seen cases in which teenage adoptees reach out to one or both of their birth parents on Facebook, only to find that the parent now has a family and children, yet has never mentioned the child they gave up for adoption to their new family. “The birth parent has called [the agency] in crisis, saying ‘I’m not in the position right now [to have this contact],’ and we then have to act as the intermediary to do damage control,” Harrison explains.
One reason many Internet reunions don’t go well is because it often leaves social workers and agencies out of the process. Historically, adoption agencies have been the mediator, making sure both parties — the adoptee and the birth relative — have similar expectations. However, with the advent of the Internet and websites such as Facebook, adoptees are now steering the process on their own, without necessarily knowing where it will lead them.
“Now with social media, we're not even involved, people are finding each other willy-nilly, and a lot of times they're calling us after the fact, trying to clean up a mess, that, had it been done in a different way, could've created a more positive outcome,” says Paula Wisnewski, a social worker at Wide Horizons for Children. “There's a clinical practice here, and that, now, with social media, is gone.”
Adoption agencies have, typically, been the ones to make the first connection between the birth family and the adoptee, Harrison explains. “The agency is really there for a reason, and it's to provide support and direction. The agency is the one that can be the icebreaker and ‘test the waters,’” she says.
In the past, the role of the agency was always to prepare both parties for the reunion. “[We were] trying to get people to just stop for a minute, pause, and just think clearly about what their motivation was and what their expectations were, so that the person being found had a good understanding of what that was, and whether or not they felt they could meet those expectations,” Wisnewski explains.
Regardless of the end result, adoption professionals agree that the use of social media and the Internet in the search and reunion process is only going to become more prominent, and that adoption agencies must now prepare themselves and alter their methods to adapt to these changes. Allisan sees this new way of searching as pushing the “envelope for more openness,” and hopes the practice will now focus “more on openness in adoption,” because with “more open adoptions, you're not going to have this issue [of reunions going wrong].”
Pre- and post-adoption education about the realities of search via social media will also prove to be a key element in the adoption practice. “It's really front-end loading and arming the [families] with information, that this is what will most likely happen at some point,” Allisan says.
Despite the risks of contacting a sister she never knew existed, Alicia Kuvshinikov’s story had a happy ending.
Through her sister, Kuvshinikov also found a birth aunt, and, later, her brother, who hadn’t died after all. “We all started talking on Facebook and became friends,” she describes.
The three siblings, coincidentally, all live in the same area of Southern California. They have met and, while they are not close enough to sit down for Sunday dinner every week, their story of finding each other is a happy one.
As for finding her birth mother, Kuvshinikov knows how to search the Internet and whom to contact if she ever feels the need to reach out to her mother. None of her siblings have been reunited with their mother, and they it is unlikely that they will try to find her any time soon.
Finding her birth father will prove even more difficult for Kuvshinikov and each of her siblings, as they were all fathered by different men, but Kuvshinikov is focusing on the family members she does know, for now. Moving forward, she hopes to develop a closer relationship with her sister, four years her junior, and her brother, just a year younger than herself.
Adopted at age 2.5 by a childless couple from California, Kuvshinikov, now 27 years old, had been told that she had a half-brother, but that he had died in infancy. Other details about her birth and early life were hazy and with little knowledge of her birth family, Kuvshinikov was skeptical about this MySpace connection. “I'm thinking, ‘This is a joke, why would someone contact me through MySpace, no one has been on there for years,’” she says.
Kuvshinikov decided, however, to take a leap of faith. “I ended up getting in contact with [my sister’s] social worker, they explained her situation to me, and it turns out she lives, from where I live now, literally two minutes away,” she describes.
With the surge in Internet search tools and social media, Kuvshinikov’s story of finding her birth family is becoming increasingly common today. It’s a trend that is turning an adopted child’s search for his or her birth family from a slow and often painstaking process to one that can be accomplished within a few hours on a computer. While there is no definitive answer as to whether social media has played a positive or negative role in the adoption search and reunion process, the trend is certainly changing the adoption landscape and altering the role of adoption agencies. It’s also a change that many social workers view warily.
”I've found that the search for other pieces [of the adoptee's] identity is inevitable and now they have this tool to be able to act on that search,” says Anne Coleman, a psychologist at Adoption & Beyond.
As social media sites such as Facebook become more and more popular and Internet accessibility grows due to the wide distribution of smartphones and tablets, the process of search and reunion for adoptees and birth relatives has become very easy and commonplace. This trend is so new that there are no conclusive numbers just yet as to how many searches and reunions have been made possible by social media. However, researchers and adoption professionals say that as Internet use grows, so to does the use of this platform to find birth relatives. The Pew Research Center’s 2009 survey of teen and young adult Internet use found that “93 percent of teens ages 12‐17 go online, as do 93 percent of young adults ages 18‐29. Three quarters (74 percent) of all adults ages 18 and older go online.” The overall rise in Internet use has contributed significantly to the phenomenon of finding birth relatives online and through social media, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute’s December 2012 report concludes.
With this surge in Internet use, social worker Marla Allisan, founder and director of the Massachusetts based Full Circle Adoptions agency, says that in her 25 years working in the field, it’s only been in the past three or four years that she has seen the use of Facebook and Internet adoption search sites take off.
Although this is a new movement, Allisan already sees the consequences, both positive and negative. “The Internet is like a car. It can take us places we might not otherwise have been able to go, but if we're not ready for it, or we don't know how to steer, it can get us into trouble,” she says.
Penny Harrison, director of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, MSPCC, has witnessed first hand the trouble that Internet reunions can cause.
“I'd say for every five cases that I hear about from families, maybe one goes right, if that. The majority really don’t end up going well,” Harrison says.
She has seen cases in which teenage adoptees reach out to one or both of their birth parents on Facebook, only to find that the parent now has a family and children, yet has never mentioned the child they gave up for adoption to their new family. “The birth parent has called [the agency] in crisis, saying ‘I’m not in the position right now [to have this contact],’ and we then have to act as the intermediary to do damage control,” Harrison explains.
One reason many Internet reunions don’t go well is because it often leaves social workers and agencies out of the process. Historically, adoption agencies have been the mediator, making sure both parties — the adoptee and the birth relative — have similar expectations. However, with the advent of the Internet and websites such as Facebook, adoptees are now steering the process on their own, without necessarily knowing where it will lead them.
“Now with social media, we're not even involved, people are finding each other willy-nilly, and a lot of times they're calling us after the fact, trying to clean up a mess, that, had it been done in a different way, could've created a more positive outcome,” says Paula Wisnewski, a social worker at Wide Horizons for Children. “There's a clinical practice here, and that, now, with social media, is gone.”
Adoption agencies have, typically, been the ones to make the first connection between the birth family and the adoptee, Harrison explains. “The agency is really there for a reason, and it's to provide support and direction. The agency is the one that can be the icebreaker and ‘test the waters,’” she says.
In the past, the role of the agency was always to prepare both parties for the reunion. “[We were] trying to get people to just stop for a minute, pause, and just think clearly about what their motivation was and what their expectations were, so that the person being found had a good understanding of what that was, and whether or not they felt they could meet those expectations,” Wisnewski explains.
Regardless of the end result, adoption professionals agree that the use of social media and the Internet in the search and reunion process is only going to become more prominent, and that adoption agencies must now prepare themselves and alter their methods to adapt to these changes. Allisan sees this new way of searching as pushing the “envelope for more openness,” and hopes the practice will now focus “more on openness in adoption,” because with “more open adoptions, you're not going to have this issue [of reunions going wrong].”
Pre- and post-adoption education about the realities of search via social media will also prove to be a key element in the adoption practice. “It's really front-end loading and arming the [families] with information, that this is what will most likely happen at some point,” Allisan says.
Despite the risks of contacting a sister she never knew existed, Alicia Kuvshinikov’s story had a happy ending.
Through her sister, Kuvshinikov also found a birth aunt, and, later, her brother, who hadn’t died after all. “We all started talking on Facebook and became friends,” she describes.
The three siblings, coincidentally, all live in the same area of Southern California. They have met and, while they are not close enough to sit down for Sunday dinner every week, their story of finding each other is a happy one.
As for finding her birth mother, Kuvshinikov knows how to search the Internet and whom to contact if she ever feels the need to reach out to her mother. None of her siblings have been reunited with their mother, and they it is unlikely that they will try to find her any time soon.
Finding her birth father will prove even more difficult for Kuvshinikov and each of her siblings, as they were all fathered by different men, but Kuvshinikov is focusing on the family members she does know, for now. Moving forward, she hopes to develop a closer relationship with her sister, four years her junior, and her brother, just a year younger than herself.
Meet the Experts
Paula A. Wisnewski, LICSW
Social Worker, LICSW
Paula is a licensed social worker who has been working in the adoption field for over 20 years. She is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker and expert on adoption, both the clinical and administrative sides. She currently works at Wide Horizons for Children, a welfare agency for orphaned and at-risk children. It is located in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Social Worker, LICSW
Paula is a licensed social worker who has been working in the adoption field for over 20 years. She is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker and expert on adoption, both the clinical and administrative sides. She currently works at Wide Horizons for Children, a welfare agency for orphaned and at-risk children. It is located in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Marla Ruth Allisan, JD, LICSW
Founder and Director of AAA Full Circle Adoptions & Family Building Center, Inc of Massachusetts.
Marla is an actively practicing attorney and licensed independent clinical social worker (LICSW) who has also been working in the adoption field for 25 years. She founded and directs Full Circle Adoptions, a nonprofit agency that provides both domestic adoptions and both incoming and outgoing international adoption services. The name of her agency is based on the belief that if birth and adoptive parents are treated with respect, the love will come “full circle” to benefit the child.
Founder and Director of AAA Full Circle Adoptions & Family Building Center, Inc of Massachusetts.
Marla is an actively practicing attorney and licensed independent clinical social worker (LICSW) who has also been working in the adoption field for 25 years. She founded and directs Full Circle Adoptions, a nonprofit agency that provides both domestic adoptions and both incoming and outgoing international adoption services. The name of her agency is based on the belief that if birth and adoptive parents are treated with respect, the love will come “full circle” to benefit the child.
Penny M. Harrison, MS, LSW
Director of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, MSPCC
Penny is a licensed social worker who has been working in the adoption field for almost twenty years. She has a Master's in Human Services with a concentration in Program Development and Planning. As the Director of Adoption Services, Penny oversees both pre- and post-adoptive services, including MSPCC’s AFT (Adoptive Families Together) program which offers continued support, education, training and advocacy to all members of the adoption constellation.
Director of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, MSPCC
Penny is a licensed social worker who has been working in the adoption field for almost twenty years. She has a Master's in Human Services with a concentration in Program Development and Planning. As the Director of Adoption Services, Penny oversees both pre- and post-adoptive services, including MSPCC’s AFT (Adoptive Families Together) program which offers continued support, education, training and advocacy to all members of the adoption constellation.
Anne Coleman, Ph.D., LMHC
Adoption and Beyond Counseling Services, Psychotherapist
Anne is a licensed mental health counselor who, for over 20 years, has provided individual and group counseling for adoptees, parents, and others affected by the adoption process. She is adjunct professor at Providence College teaching a graduate counseling program and is also a clinician at Adoption Rhode Island.
Adoption and Beyond Counseling Services, Psychotherapist
Anne is a licensed mental health counselor who, for over 20 years, has provided individual and group counseling for adoptees, parents, and others affected by the adoption process. She is adjunct professor at Providence College teaching a graduate counseling program and is also a clinician at Adoption Rhode Island.