Few children nowadays are placed for adoption with no form of contact planned with birth relatives and it has become common professional practice to advocate direct rather than indirect contact. Practice has outstripped evidence in this respect and not enough is known about how contact arrangements actually work out, particularly for older children adopted from state care. Such children have often experienced neglect, and sometimes abuse, and have frequently been adopted without parental agreement.
Based on research with a large number of adoptive parents, children and birth relatives,...