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Foster Adoption is in the news big time this week! 
See my previous post on the ABC NEWS blitz on foster care and foster adoption.
Now, this breaking news from New Jersey:
A judge will consider if the state should enforce visitations with a newly adopted three year old girl and her adopted elsewhere siblings. Usually after adoption, the new parents judge who their child associates with, but in this case, the judge will decide. Five other states currently allow judges to order such visitations after adoption, even if adoptive parents object, according to the Child Welfare league.
Forcing visitation against the parents wishes?
This should be interesting.
I think contact is possibly okay to order – phone calls, exchange of letters and photos, optional meetings. But ordering visitation poses many issues – like does the adoptive family have restrictions on moving out of the area? It seems like there is open adoption, closed adoption and the courts in Jersey trying to figure out a third path.
I hope and pray they will give serious consideration to the circumstances that brought the kids into foster care in the first place. For example, if older siblings were sexual predators (learned behavior, but still), for example, I can’t see how continued exposure — at least in the short term — will benefit the abused sibling. Perhaps later, when they are old enough and healed enough to move past the past. But initially, it would be terribly traumatic.
Heidi Saxton
heidihesssaxton.blogspot.com
I agree, I think open adoption is best when it makes sense, but forcing visitations doesn’t make sense…I hope the judge looks at all the facts in the specific case and takes the new family into consideration.. Whew!