In class, the day following the first presentation, students besieged Wilmer with questions. It turned out that three-fourths of Wilmer’s mass media class had personal knowledge of adoption through a close friend or family member and they had many comments and questions. The power of the spoken word, whether in-person or mediated, is tremendous.

The program varies with interest and availability of speakers. Speakers who discussed positive aspects of their adoption experience, either because they found or received “family” as a result, prompted a group of trans-racial adoptees – all Pan Pacific in origin – to approach organizers for a chance to discuss the negative aspects of adoption from their perspective.

Over the four years that the group has mounted the program at Salisbury University, it has also dealt with search, open adoption and adoptee rights. This year’s program is “From the Book” and will return to the original idea of readings as a starting point for discussion. A crop of new books, most notably The Girls Who Went Away by Anne Fessler, has inspired organizers to share some of their favorites with participants.

Wilmer encourages groups who are looking for a community outreach opportunity to consider this as a way of opening a dialogue, which will benefit triad members most of all. The fifth annual VOA program will have a community sponsor, members of Post-Adoption Search & Support of Delmarva, a local group with both monthly meetings and an Internet presence.

Not surprisingly, college students were intrigued by the opportunity to meet and hear from birth mothers. While open adoption is now considered a “best management” practice, and legal in 17 states, many adoptees still have limited information about their personal history. Mothers who are now discovering the courage to speak in public about their personal pain are almost always without knowledge of what became of their progeny or have searched and found.

Speaking in a public forum makes maintaining privacy difficult. Both student and commercial news media representatives have been very sensitive about protecting participants who wished to remain unnamed in the newspaper or not shown clearly on television but it’s not always a realistic expectation. Wilmer recommends forewarning potential speakers that by going public, they are likely to become identifiable. That is a consideration for birth parents still wrestling with guilt or fear disapproval. Others say that speaking out is therapeutic.

Adoptees, generally, feel no shame in revealing that they are adopted but many are reluctant to share very personal feelings about their experience. Interestingly, one who has participated in almost every VOA program since it began started by sharing with the audience that she did not wish to search but came back to tell the group that she has searched, found and was glad she did.

One particularly poignant experience occurred when a student whose girlfriend was pregnant and considering adoption came to the presentation and stayed to question one birth mother about how the child she found felt about her decision.

“Talking about our feelings sometimes helps to clarify them,” Wilmer said. “And making persons who will never share our experience first-hand understand it better may go a long way to changing the laws that mandate secrecy. What we see at these forums is that society is ready for openness, even if those who profit from adoption secrecy are not.”