With adoption being viewed as an intervention, it becomes increasingly important to be clear about what outcomes are being sought from the intervention and from whose perspective success is defined. This cross sectional study of public child welfare
adoptions examines the definition of adoption outcome from the points of view of both the adoptive parent and the adopted adolescent.
Using a secondary analysis of survey responses from 146 adoptive parents and their eldest adopted child, the factors that most contributed to three different conceptualizations of success (adoptive parent satisfaction,adoptive parent perception of the parent-child relationship, and child perception of the
parent-child relationship) were identified. The majority of adoptees and their adoptive parents view their adoption relationship very positively, however they define success
differently. Other key findings included that although child related factors contributed the largest percentage of the variance in all three definitions, three family process factors
(communicative openness, family functioning style and adoptive parent perceived stress)also had an impact on at least one of the definitions. While structural openness did not have an impact on any of the definitions of success, communicative openness in the
family was the one factor that significantly impacted all three of the outcomes.
Implications for research, practice, and policy are discussed.