A New Adoption Paradigm

In the summer of 1988, founder Richard Pearlman and a dedicated volunteer Board of Directors opened the doors of Family Resource Center. With the opening of FRC in the Uptown Bank Building in Chicago, this marked the beginning of its mission. The mission of helping children through adoption. FRC is a nonprofit 501c3, Illinois-licensed Child Welfare agency. FRC operates under the supervision of Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. From its inception, FRC endeavored to create an atmosphere of understanding and trust, where individuals feel welcomed, heard, and valued. FRC has always had a commitment to provide innovative, compassionate and ethical adoption services. Specifically, this is evidenced by the lens through which FRC views the adoption community. Drawing from the philosophy of Family Systems Theory, ACI staff evolved the conversation about adoption and its meaning in people’s lives.

For more than a two decades, Richard had been thinking about the paradigms that govern how people think about and practice adoption. Along with Jane Turner, ACI’s executive director, Richard developed a new paradigm that moves beyond the idea of “open” or “closed” adoption. This new adoption paradigm is the Extended Family Network. Accordingly, the Extended Family Network acknowledges the different ways in which families are formed through adoption. In this article Richard looks at the history of adoption and how paradigms come into being.