Open Adoption

• In Ohio, adoption placement agencies and attorneys are required to tell birth parents and perspective adoptive families about the availability of open adoption. Each placement agency or attorney has the right to deny the arrangement of an open adoption, but in that case is required by law to provide a referral to an agency that will make it available. An open-adoption agreement can include not just the birth parents but any birth family member, such as a grandparent, sibling or anyone related to the child by birth.
  
  

Advantages

• Although the child will continue to have a relationship with their birth parents, the birth parents will have no parental control over the child. An open adoption not only allows the child to maintain contact with birth parents but can also help to ease the transition to an adoptive family and potential feelings of abandonment. An open adoption is also a great way to retain important medical or genetic information of the child that often is difficult to gain in a closed adoption. It also eliminates the child's desire in the future to search for their birth parents and the rejection they might feel from that process.
  
  

Disadvantages

• One of the most important disadvantages to open adoption is the adoptive parent's feelings on agreeing to the openness of the process and the child's life. It could also be difficult with birth parents interfering with parental choices and could cause strain on the relationship with the child and his adoptive parents.
  
  

Court System

• An open adoption in Ohio is always voluntary and must be agreed to by both the birth and the adoptive parents. The agreement must be approved by a probate court and the court cannot refuse an open adoption unless the feel it is not in the best interest of the child.
  
  

When Open Adoption Is not an Option

• Ohio law states that open adoption is not an option when the parental rights of the birth parents have been terminated by the court system, including cases of abuse or neglect. In this case, the court will allow the birth parent to enter into a post-adoption contact agreement that that details how and when contact can be made between the child and the birth family after the finalization of the adoption.