Traditional NJ adoptions meant the birth parents had no contact with a child after their parental rights ended. In open adoptions, there can be varying degrees of communications between the child and birth parents. These are more common today than at any time in the past. However, New Jersey courts will not presently enforce an agreement between the parties specifying an open adoption. https://kingstonlawgroup.com/what-is-an-nj-open-adoption-and-how-does-it-work/

1. “Insert Article
Title”
What is an NJ Open Adoption and How
Does it Work?

2.  What is Adoption?
 What is an Open Adoption?
 Can Birth Parents Ask for Future
Contact?
 What’s the NJ Legal Process of
Adopting a Minor?
 What are the Pros and Cons of an
Open Adoption?

3. ● Traditional NJ adoptions meant the
birth parents had no contact with a
child after their parental rights ended.
● In open adoptions, there can be
varying degrees of communications
between the child and birth parents.
● New Jersey courts will not presently
enforce an agreement between the
parties specifying an open adoption.

4. What is an Adoption?
● Adoption is a legal process where all rights,
duties, privileges, and relationships between the
child and their birth parents end -- and the
adoptive parents become the child’s legal
parents.
What is an Open Adoption?
 In an open adoption, one or both birth
parents are permitted to have contact with
the child after the adoption is legally
complete.

5. Can Birth Parents Ask for Future Contact?
 Adults born in New Jersey and adopted as
children have a right to get uncertified and
long-form copies of their original birth
certificates from the New Jersey Department
of Health, Office of Vital Statistics and
Registry.
 This records system allows birth parents to file
a document stating their preference for future
contact with a child surrendered for adoption.
It can be for direct, indirect, or no contact.

6. What’s the NJ Legal Process of Adopting a
Minor?
The adoption process has three parts:
1. Identify the child and their birth parents
2. The birth parent(s) surrender their rights to the
child to an adoption agency or before the court, and
the court terminates their rights
3. The legal process of joining the child with their new
parents
An adoption agency:
 Is licensed by the State
 Prepares evaluations of potential adoptive parents’
homes
 Places children for adoption
 Performs home evaluations after an adoption

7. What are the Pros and Cons of an Open
Adoption?
 With open adoption, birth parents may choose
who the adoptive parents will be, making
them more comfortable with their choice of
adoptive parents.
 The adoptive parents will be kept up-to-date
on how the child is doing.
 The birth parents may get photos of the child
and meet him or her.
 Birth parents may not feel closure if there’s
ongoing communication with the child.

8.  Being chosen by birth parents may make
adoptive parents more confident when they are
raising their child.
 Adoptive parents may feel excluded if the child
and the birth parents make a strong connection.
 After age 18, the birth parents and the adopted
child may create whatever relationship suits
them.
 The child can learn the identities of their natural
parents and not speculate what happened and
why they were adopted.

9.  With open adoption, the child may also feel torn
between two families.
 If your child is racially and/or ethnically different
than you, the child may feel a deeper divide.
 Your child may try to play one set of parents
against the other if they think they will get what
they want.
 While adoptive parents have access to the
child’s birth certificate from the start of the
adoption process, adopted children can’t
access it from the State until they reach 18.

10. “Insert Article
Title”
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