Easing the pain of adoption
Adoption has an impact on the full range of human relationships. Here at the Post Adoption Resource Centre (PARC), we have the privilege of working with people to help them make choices about how to manage this impact in both their past and their future and, along the way, to witness their strength and generosity towards each other.
PARC, a service of The Benevolent Society, is based in Bondi but works with those affected by adoption across the State. PARC receives most of its funding from DoCS and was established in 1991 to coincide with the implementation of the NSW Adoption Information Act 1990.
PARC’s counselling team works to assist those affected by adoption to make sense of their experience, to gather information and to help facilitate reunion between adoptees and their birth family members. Each adoption impacts upon a widening group of family members, many of whom may process their responses to the adoption over a long period of time.
The biggest group of service users (54 per cent) are adoptees, followed by birthparents (25 per cent), with adoptive parents making up 6 per cent and partners, siblings, other family members and professionals making up the remaining 15 per cent.They bring a range of issues – grief and loss, hopes for reunion, questions about identity and about the lifelong impact of adoption. We have a terrific group of volunteers who are willing to share their own stories in a variety of ways – talking to groups, individuals and the media. It is our aim to provide a high quality service that accommodates the needs of each person and recognises their unique experience.
Our work began to change and diversify following the 2001 publication of our book The Colour of Difference: Journeys in Transracial Adoption, which gathered the accounts of 27 transracial and intercountry adoptees. The book is already into its second print run and has led us to run forums and workshops across Australia as well as brought referrals and enquiries from transracial adoptive families and their children, many of whom are under 18. We’ve established the Transracial Adoptive
Working Party with other agencies and support networks and have a seminar series planned for 2004 on transracial issues.
Our work in regional NSW is always a solid focus but our recent DoCS funded publication Adoption in NSW: An information and resource kit for counsellors and practitioners in regional NSW has taken us back to the country with new training material, with trips to Lismore, Newcastle, Broken Hill and Dubbo.
PARC offers the following direct services:
- Face-to-face counselling
- Telephone counselling
- Email support
- Intermediary service
- Information on rights and searching
- Information meetings and workshops
- Library, research, newsletter and book sales
- Assistance for support groups
- Web information
- Training and consultancy.