Adoption Services Associates' Agency Closing Leaves ASA Birthparents in the Lurch

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Elizabeth Jurenovich writes: 12:14pm Sep 14 I wanted to make you aware of a project my agency has taken on, which I think could accomplish more if we could somehow appeal to the interest of those who are invested in the need for adoption reform... because we've found ourselves in over our heads, frankly... As you may know, one of Texas' largest and most notorious adoption agencies went under this year. ASA (Adoption Services Associates), which did "semi-closed" adoptions (my words) abruptly shut its doors and claimed bankruptcy in April, leaving a reported 5k birthparents with no hope of receiving promised updates or mail forwarding services, their only means of contact with the children they placed there. Likewise, it left just as many birthparents and adoptive parents with no source of post-adoption services, either. The attorney general has filed charges against ASA and its owners, but nobody seems concerned about the disenfranchised birthfamilies. My little agency started by launching a private Facebook group to enable the ASA birthparents to find each other (figuring there's strength in numbers?!) We put out a press release and we've been overwhelmed by the response. While ASA emailed its adoptive parents to inform them of the closing, they didn't bother contacting birthparents, and every week, we get tearful, panicked calls from former ASA birthparents who are just now learning they've lost their only channel of communication with their children's adoptive family. It's heartbreaking. While Abrazo's adoptions are fully-open with direct contact between adoptive parents and birthfamilies in the years following placement, these ASA moms were told they, too, had "open adoptions", yet most know nothing more about their child's adoptive families than their first names and the state or country in which they lived. Thus, what we've been trying to do (the three of us who work at Abrazo) is to get whatever info we can from the ASA birthparents about their child's adoptive parents, then hunt for the families online (again, with little more than first names, location, and sometimes occupational information.) We've actually found about a third of the adoptive families for whom we've searched, so far, but the adoptive families' response to our calls has definitely been mixed. We try to educate them about the importance of ongoing and direct contact, especially in the light of ASA's closing, but even those who are receptive to our requests for updates for the birthfamilies are unwilling to engage in direct contact, leaving us in the awkward position of "having" to agree to serve as intermediary (which runs counter to our belief in full-disclosure) for fear that not doing so will cost the birthparent/s any opportunity for updates at all. Do any of you know of any search angels who might be willing to participate in this project? Do you have any insight as to how we could better appeal to the adoptive families we contact? We have no fiduciary obligation to any parties, as we are doing this on a strictly charitable basis: do you think we are within our rights, ethically, to turn over whatever identifying information we find to the birthfamilies who have requested that we search for their child's adoptive families? These ASA birthparents have been twice victimized, once by the agency which misled them into placing thinking they had open adoptions when they clearly didn't, and then by abruptly cutting off their only avenue of communication and making no effort to provide alternative sources of post-adoption care; we don't want to further harm them by failing in our endeavor to help reconnect them with the children they placed. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and for whatever insight or advice you may have to share, -- Elizabeth

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UPDATE: 9/15/12

International adoption handled through ASA have also caused problems, according to this report at PundPuppy Legacy:

In a lawsuit filed in March, the nonprofit agency accuses its former director of international adoptions of failing to disclose medical problems of children to adoptive couples, mistreating and threatening prospective parents, separating siblings without informing the adoptive parents, and costing the agency $300,000 in damages.
During three years, according to the lawsuit, Adoption Services Associates "received at least one complaint a week, every week, calculating to approximately 156 complaints," against the international adoption director, Orson Mozes.