I’m glad to have seen that begin to change. I hope we will see it change more, and rapidly. I hope I will see a time when the law allows and agencies agree to simply release the information contained in my files to me without interpretation, censorship or qualification. Search is necessitated by the present system of closed records that allows someone else, usually perfect strangers, access to files that contain intimate details of my origins that are hidden from me. It is a ridiculous system and an unintended consequence of actions taken with the best of intentions by social work professionals and lawmakers half a century ago.

Having said that and having acknowledged that search is a regrettable but necessary procedure until we successfully change current law, I’d like to address a few thoughts to working with sensitivity within the system we have.

Rather than a prepared summary of information, I would like to have received the information in my files, photocopied and, where absolutely necessary under law, names blackened out.

I would like to see a formal checklist of the kinds of search activities that the CI carried out in an effort to complete my search, which databases were searched using what categories of information etc. This might not be important to some, but to anyone with search experience and even a limited amount of search expertise it is unnerving to realize that I know about techniques and resources to yield important information that the searcher assigned to my case does not. And I would like to see something that I understand is permitted, confirming when the searcher guesses right, done with consistency. In my case, these confirmations were both truthful and untruthful, depending on which social worker was involved.

And while I don’t know how it can be done, some kind of sensitivity to the fact that someone else having my information is unfair.

One of the things that I believe is necessary to promote these changes is a change in how social workers are educated and certified. I was shocked to discover that social work education in my state does not require a single course in adoption. The most training that future social workers receive in the process of earning a bachelor’s degree is one chapter in the text on social work practices; at most this represents a week of study. Yet we deem these graduates adequately prepared to deal with adoption casework. Departments of social work in our state can be certified without a single member of the social work faculty having a background in research or practice related to adoption. Moreover, the state has gradually shifted almost all adoption work to private agencies retaining an interest only in adoptions from foster care, to which federal funding is attached.

What adoptees want with regard to search is unrestricted access to our information. We want well-meaning and well-intentioned individuals to stop helping us, stop doing for us what we want to do for ourselves. I think the question today is, until that is possible, what do we do in the meantime?