Permanency mediation: a path to open adoption for children in out-of-home care.

This research study examined the experiences of birthparents, permanent parents, and mediators in permanency mediation following a state child welfare agency's recommendation for termination of parental rights. Permanency mediation provides participants with the opportunity to collaborate in an agreement that entails a voluntary surrender of parental rights by the birthparents and the placement of children with permanent parents in open adoption or guardianship. Findings suggested that permanency mediation has the potential to be a successful practice. Participants, however, need additional support during and after mediation to help them understand open adoption and deal with the changes in family structures and boundaries, address their own feelings and concerns, and establish reliable means of communication with each other. Due to such circumstances as poverty, substance abuse, physical abuse, neglect, illness, and mental retardation, growing numbers of children are spending long periods of time in temporary placement away from their families (Pecora, Whittaker, Maluccio, Barth, & Plotnick, 2000). They struggle with the uncertainties of such placement while their futures are contended in the courts by their parents and the child welfare agencies that have intervened on their behalf. Permanency mediation is a relatively new practice that provides an alternative to adversarial court proceedings when a state child welfare agency seeks the termination of parental rights of birthparents whose children have been removed because of abuse or neglect. This article is based on a larger exploratory study of permanency mediation, which enables birthparents and "permanent parents"* to create an agreement leading to the voluntary surrender of parental rights by birthparents and the placement of children in open adoption or guardianship with permanent parents. It examines the experiences of birthparents, permanent parents, and permanency mediators and explores how the reciprocal rights and responsibilities of open adoption are understood by birthparents and permanent parents in permanency mediation; whether both groups are able to cooperate during the mediation, and whether both groups felt they could cooperate to implement permanency mediation agreements in the future. Mediation in Child Welfare Several applications of mediation in child welfare have developed in recent years. Child protection mediation (Palmer, 1989; Marcesa, 1995; Savoury, Beals, & Parks, 1995; Barsky 2000) refers to a process in which third party professionals assist child protection workers, family members and others involved in child protection proceedings to resolve conflicts (Barsky, 1997: 117). Etter (1988) pioneered an application of mediation to promote open adoption; in her model (1993), birthparents and adoptive parents plan an open adoption and arrange for channels of communication and contact as the child grows up. They receive education and counseling that prepares them to work out an agreement. Therapeutic models of family mediation (Irving & Benjamin, 2002; Kruk, 1997) bring the background and training of family therapy into the mediation, as clinical theories and practices are adapted to the format required by family mediation. Practice recommendations of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (Adoption and Permanency Guidelines, 2000) include using mediation and other pretrial negotiations to assess the viability of adoption, with such negotiations beginning when a termination of parental rights petition is filed. The recommendations call for mediators to be highly skilled professionals who are perceived as credible by the courts and as neutral by the families. Overview of Permanency Mediation Although permanency mediation incorporates aspects of the models mentioned above, it also involves the following essential circumstances: * The mediation is between birthparents and potential permanent parents, with a neutral third party permanency mediator. …