Permanency Triad

The people involved in the adoption journey are typically referred to as the permanency triad. The first member of the permanency triad is the birth family. Birth parents can make a plan of adoption, choose the permanency family and perhaps maintain connections with a child. Birth parents can also be unable to resolve the problems that resulted in their child being placed in out-of-home care with the result that parental rights are involuntarily terminated.

Another side of the permanency triad is the permanency family. Families choose to grow by adoption for many reasons. A family may experience infertility and seek out adoption. A family may start out as a foster family but choose to adopt their foster child when parental rights are terminated. Other family members may come forward to care for a child in their extended family.

The adopted child is the third piece of the permanency triad, the piece that joins the other pieces and sometimes feels torn between them. Regardless of how old a child is at the time of adoption, he is a part of two families.

All members of the permanency triad are impacted by the CORE issues of adoption. They are linked together and need to understand those issues to have healthy relationships.