• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
• /
• v.26 no.2
• /
• pp.1-17
• /
• 2022

This study provides a critical analysis of the Family Center's programs for adoptive families by interviewing employees at these centers and at Adoption Agencies who have experiences with adoption programs. For this study, nine such workers from three separate Family Centers and three such workers from two separate Adoption Agencies have (voluntarily) engaged in in-depth interviews. Major findings from the interviews are that the Family Centers were initially motivated to carry out adoption family programs for three principal reasons: they located many families (in need of adoption family program); potential adoptees were interested in the program; adoption families participated in the pre-existing programs such as Self-help Group and Co-parenting Space. Workers in the study also reported that they approach to an adoption family and their contemplation on ways to provide better services to the adoption families. They don't have any official and formal manual or guidelines from the Government Ministries and offices such as Korean Institute for Healthy Family; as a result, the workers at Family Centers have endeavored to gain connection with Adoption Agencies in hopes of cooperation with them and to improve the services at Family Centers. For benefits of Family Centers as a delivery system, they mentioned nationwide infrastructure, family professional, and arrangement of integrated program for family. For improvements, they listed awareness education based on a thorough consideration of adoptee's varied characteristics, close cooperation with adoption institutions, provision of basic operational manual from Korean Institute for Healthy Family, and governmental efforts to enlarge the consideration pool for families.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
• /
• v.42 no.1
• /
• pp.399-432
• /
• 2011

The purpose of this study is to understand the adjustment process of families adopting an older child, and to generate a substantial theory. To achieve this purpose, we conducted in-depth interviews with mothers adopting an older child and analyzed data with qualitative analysis approach. From the analysis, theoretical model has been made, and the model includes the adoptive families' diverse experiences, barriers to adjustment as well as resources and strategies that they mobilized and used for smooth adjustment. Their experiences in the process of adjustment consisted of five phases: unfamiliar meeting, shock, fighting alone without support, control, and stability. Barriers to adjustment process were composed of adoptees' problem behaviors, loss of time, lack of preparation, lack of experiences, repetition of the vicious circle, withstanding alone, improper resources, lack of support, and being criticized. Resources and strategies that families adopting an older child utilized were individual resources and ability such as rearing experiences, intellectual ability, willingness, belief, and perspective change; family system such as spouse and other offsprings; informal support system such as extended families, relatives, friends, neighbors, and other families adopting an older child; formal resources such as adoption workers and helping professionals. From our results, we suggested policy and practice guidelines to help adjustment experiences for families adopting an older child.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
• /
• v.65 no.1
• /
• pp.83-107
• /
• 2013

The purpose of this study is to understand the life experiences of an adult adoptee. For this purpose, the data were collected through in-depth interviews with an adult adoptee, observation, and documents and analyzed using life history approach. Results of analysis were composed of summarized life history, thick description of life history, theme analysis, and issues for intervention. The themes generated from analysis are 'a slub', 'a larva that want to be a butterfly', 'I am okay. No, I am not okay', 'because it is not my fault', 'love, the critical determinant leading my life'. Researchers, also, examined intervention issues of adoption, post-adoption service, closed adoption or open adoption, searching root, intervention for adult adoptee. Based on the results of this study, the policies and practical guidelines for adult adoptees were suggested.

• Journal of Family Resource Management and Policy Review
• /
• v.26 no.3
• /
• pp.35-48
• /
• 2022

This study aims to investigate prejudiced descriptions of adoption and adoptive families in the major textbooks in the field of child and family welfare studies. To this end, we analyzed the compositions and contents of eleven different textbooks and found four necessary changes to recommend: first, we found it essential for authors to have a comprehensive understanding of the characteristics of the open adoption culture and adoptive families. Second, we observed the need for the revision of prejudiced terminology found in textbooks' descriptions of adoptive families - about adopters, adoptees, and adoption institutions. Third, we advise an enhancement in the understanding of adoptive families reflecting both qualitative and quantitative understandings of the open adoption culture and perspective about social prejudice against adoptive families. Finally, we advocate for the inclusion adoptive families as one of the diverse forms a family can take, not only in the curriculum of child (children's rights) studies but also in the curricula of other family-related disciplines such as family welfare and healthy family theory. Based on these four changes, we propose a new approach to authoring including a multifaceted review of the subject composition and the content of the major textbooks and revision of the overall contents of the textbooks.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
• /
• v.69 no.3
• /
• pp.141-164
• /
• 2017

The purpose of this study is to understand the school achievement of domestic adopted children in Korea and its related factors. Although the developmental outcomes of domestic adopted children were the focus of research interests, their school achievement has never been fully addressed in Korea. The subsample (9-17 years old) of 5th wave data of was used for the analysis. The results showed that the school achievement level of domestic adopted children was not significantly different from their non-adopted peers during elementary school years except the mathematics, but changed drastically after they entered the middle school, showing significantly lower level from their non-adopted peers. Factors related with the overall school achievement were the level of school, maternal education, age at adoption, child's self-esteem and school adjustment. For specific subject, however, significant factors were found to be somewhat different. Based on the results of the study, the practical guidelines to improve the school achievement of adopted children were suggested. Also, suggestions for the following studies were made.

• 프린팅코리아
• /
• v.14 no.6
• /
• pp.68-71
• /
• 2014

우리나라는 한국전쟁 후 전쟁고아 해외입양이 많이 이뤄져, 한 때 '아기 수출국'이라는 꼬리표를 달고 있었다. 전쟁이 끝나고 50년이 지난 지금도 여전히 많은 아이가 외국으로 입양되고 있다. 입양인들은 대개 한국에 대한 그리움을 품고 살지만 또 다른 한편에는 버려졌다는 원망을 간직하고 있다. 이처럼 상처 많은 입양인에게 고국은 그리움과 배신이 교차하지만 꼭 한번은 방문해 보고 싶은 나라였다. 이들에게 고국방문의 용기와 희망을 북돋워주는 이가 있다. 바로 진흥문화 박경진 회장이다.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
• /
• v.41 no.2
• /
• pp.5-33
• /
• 2010

The purpose of this study is to understand the open adoption experience of adoptive families. For this purpose, the data were collected through diverse data collection methods including in-depth interviews with adoptive families who had experiences of open adoption and analyzed using a qualitative case study approach. Data collected from six adoptive families were employed for within-case analysis and cross-case analysis. Each case was carefully examined and summarized using story-telling style in the within-case analysis and major issues for open adoption appeared in each case were described and compared one by one. In the cross-case analysis, all the cases were re-examined keeping the issues appeared in the within-case analysis in mind and eight integrated themes were emerged from it. The eight integrated themes are 'the crucial meeting', 'a clear arrangement', 'an uneasy parallel', 'the other mom', 'who are the real parents?', 'the words never to say', 'the hidden characters', and 'the center of relations or the outsider'. Based on the results of the study, the policies and practical guidelines related to open adoption were suggested. Also, the suggestions for the further studies were made to obtain more abundant information beyond the limitations of the study.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
• /
• v.65 no.3
• /
• pp.53-78
• /
• 2013

This study applied hermeneutic grounded theory suggested by Rennie to understand general meaning of adoption decision process of 7 non-married mothers. At the end of the analysis, 191 meaning units, 46 subcategories, and 11 hermeneutic categories were constructed. The core category that threads throughout the adoption decision process was represented as "living with a scar left by the duality of motherhood; repudiating and embracing." The adoption decision process emerged as recognition of pregnancy, avoidance of reality, searching for adoption, escalation of confusion, determination and rationalization or forfeiture. Based upon our research, we suggested that the adoption decision process of non-married mother was another way of practicing motherhood, and we proposed that we need to develop a psycho-social support program to improve the lives of non-married mothers.

• The Korean Publising Journal, Monthly
• /
• s.374
• /
• pp.17-17
• /
• 2007

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
• /
• no.36
• /
• pp.203-225
• /
• 2008

The purpose of this study is to examine how much the external locus of control, social support, self-esteem, and adoption decision making process influence to teen parents' grief and find out the differences depending on meeting the baby, breast-feeding, anticipating the meeting the baby, ceremony for separation, and exposing their grief by themself or to others. Data was analysed with multiple regression and t-test. With the result of multiple regression analysis, the higher external locus of control, pressure of birthfather, regrets for adoption decision are, the higher grief is, and the lower support of friends and self-esteem are, the higher grief is. And It is estimated high grief statically among the group of breast-feeding, anticipating the baby, no ceremony for separation. But the group exposing their grief by self or to others felt low grief. On the basis of the results, we will find out the meaningful contents for intervention. The staffs of birthmother shelter and social worker don't overlooking the relationship between birthmother and birthfather and enforce the internal locus of control, self-esteem. Above all we will intervene about exploring the adoption decision making and facilitate the exposure of feeling related to surrendered baby(guilt, anxiety, sadness, shame, fear).