Adoption group tries to foster open relationships

In the past 30 years the adoption process, which for decades was shrouded in secrecy, has gained new levels of openness, said Karen Cheyney, director of Bright Futures Adoption Center. Since the 1980s, generations of children who grew up in closed adoptions have begun demanding to know more about who they are, breaking down the secrecy - and sometimes sense of shame - connected to adoptions, she said.

Now, if Megan, who was adopted in 2002, has any questions about her family and background, she knows her mother is only a call away.

The center, a program of the Robert F. Kennedy Children’s Action Corps, hopes to keep fostering such open relationships. Yesterday, about a hundred adoptive parents, birth parents, and children, including Megan and her family, met for a breezy picnic and barbecue held by the adoption center at Hale Reservation.

Together, adoptive and birth families shared stories and news about their children’s lives, as they lunched under bright sun and their youngsters swam and built sand castles at a private beach. The ninth annual event, Cheyney said, will help families build connections she hopes they will maintain well into their adoptive and biological children’s adult lives.

Openness “allows adoptive children to know that they were not abandoned,’’ Cheyney said. “They have access to information about themselves that allows them to feel whole.’’

The definition of openness depends on the agency, Cheyney said. Some adoption centers may consider their process “open’’ even if biological and adoptive parents meet only once and never do so again. But the Bright Futures Adoption Center focuses on keeping the communication between families going, she said.

Families at the picnic yesterday said they came to mingle with others who shared similar experiences.

“For us adoptive parents, it allows us to meet with people who have been in the same shoes,’’ said Kjartan Stefansson, who adopted his son, Adam, two years ago.

Trisha and Michael Hughes adopted Liam, who is 17 months old, from Lesley Townsend. Townsend was incarcerated when her baby was born, but she said she would not have considered adoption had she not been able to have a relationship with him.

“He has a few older brothers that need to know him and he needs to know them,’’ said Townsend, who grew up in a closed adoption but found her birth mother and has kept in contact with her.

Megan’s birth mother, Lindsay Chapman, and her adoptive mother, Ellen Hurley, stood at the edge of the beach as the bubbly girl splashed in the water. The two women have grown close in the past seven years, and Chapman tries to see her daughter at least three times a year. She attends her birthday parties and dance recitals, and Hurley often sends her Megan’s report cards and photographs.

When she is missing Megan, she can simply pick up the phone and schedule a visit, Chapman said.

The relationship has been natural since the beginning, both women said.

Chapman, who was a devout Christian, never considered abortion when she was pregnant with Megan. Young and confused, she said, she moved in with a family friend who had two adopted sons and allowed her to realize that adoption would be the best way to give Megan a better life.

“I want to be a part of her life as much as she wants to be, as much as it feels right,’’ she said.

Jazmine Ulloa can be reached at lulloa@globe.com.