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| History : |
Jigsaw was a self-help organisation with the aim of changing public perception and the law to provide people who had been part of the adoption system the right to access their personal information surrounding the experience. Rona Devlin was the first to speak out in 1975, seeking publicity opportunities for recruiting members and initiating a public debate about access to birth records for adult adoptees. She named the fledgling organisation the Adoptees' Liberty Movement Association (ALMA) after an earlier organisation founded in New York in the 1960s. A New South Wales group using the name Jigsaw emerged about the same time and the Victorian and NSW groups combined forces in 1976, operating under the name Jigsaw. The active operation developed after the first Australian Conference on Adoption, organised by several adoption agencies in 1976, and by 1984 Jigsaw had grown to over 12,000 members. Within eight years Jigsaw had succeeded in changing the public attitude about access to birth records for adult adoptees from hostility to widespread support and approval. The amending of the Adoption Act in 1984 enacted what Jigsaw had campaigned for. Its aim essentially complete, the organisation wound up in 1986. The Jigsaw Trust was established in 1987 to administer residual matters and it was wound up in c.2000. |
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Lobbyists |
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