‘Sharing Our Family Story’ Workshop Key Learnings

Workshop Series Key Learnings from Year 2 (Oct 2022 – May 2023)

Project Rationale

The decision to disclose use of donor material (i.e., donor egg, donor sperm) for conception can be marked by confusion and ambivalence. Research suggests that disclosure is associated with more positive offspring outcomes (i.e., Lycett et al., 2004), and the movement toward openness about donor conception and surrogacy has resulted in a majority of parents indicating they intend to disclose to their child (Söderström-Anttila et al., 2010). However, parents report not knowing how or when to disclose a child’s conception story to the child, to family, to friends, and to other important people in the child’s life (i.e., teachers) (Isaksson et al., 2012).

As such, the purpose of the Sharing Our Family Story workshop (SOFS) is to increase parents’ awareness about the importance of and ability to communicate with their children about their conception story and donor origins with more confidence, as well as feel more equipped with knowledge and strategies for having those conversations. Similarly, it is the goal of this workshop to increase ‘intention and confidence’ in disclosing to friends and family.

Overview of Clinical Intervention

Between October 2022 and May 2023, four workshops were delivered to a total of 41 heterosexual parents whom had conceived their children thru donor conception. Children were between 6 months old and 8 years old; 13 were male and 28 female. Two parents reported using donor spermand 39 using donor egg; 2 reported knowing the identity of the donor, and the remaining 39 used anonymous donors.

Workshops were held in the clinician’s office in Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin. Each workshop involved 2 half-day sessions, spread one month apart.

Seven couples expressed an interest in participating in a workshop, however, indicated they could not travel to Dublin to attend an in-person workshop, and have requested that an online workshop be provided.

Overview of Research Design

In addition to providing clinical services to NISIG members, this project includes a research arm, specifically to evaluate the effectiveness of the SOFS workshops. To conduct an evaluation study with scientific rigor requires significant academic resources, thus, a collaboration with Dr. Laura McKee at Georgia State University was undertaken. This collaboration allows us to avail of academic resources including statistical software, and research assistants to administer surveys, collect data, and manage databases.

Objectives of the current research:

1) To assess the effectiveness of the workshop on participants’ knowledge and skill level in when and how to talk to their child about their origin story.

2) To assess the effectiveness of the workshop on participants’ knowledge, skill, and comfort in communicating with extended family about their child’s donor origins.

3) To assess the effectiveness of the workshop on participants’ knowledge, skill, and comfort in communicating with the community (i.e., neighbors, school, acquaintances, strangers) about their child’s origin story 2.

4) To assess the effectiveness of the workshop on participants’ confidence and emotional reaction to communicating to their child about their origin story.

5) To assess the effectiveness of the workshop on participants’ openness to disclosure.

6) To assess the effectiveness of the workshop on participants’ concerns about their child’s emotional reaction to being told about their conception story.

7) To assess the effectiveness of the workshop on participant-child relationship warmth.

8) To assess the effectiveness of the workshop on participant stress in the parenting role.

Hypotheses

It is hypothesized that;

i) Workshop participants will significantly increase in ‘intention and confidence’ levels around disclosure to their child from baseline (T1) to post-workshop (T2), and that these changes will be maintained at 3 months post-workshop (T3).

ii) Workshop participants will significantly increase in ‘intentions and confidence’ levels around disclosure to family members and friends from T1 to T2 and maintained at T3.

Research Measures

The Sharing Our Story questionnaire is a 31-item survey created for the purposes of this study to asses parental cognitions, beliefs, emotions, intentions, and behaviors around sharing their child’s unique conception story.

The Having Conversations Scale was created specifically for this study to assess whether and how parents are engaging with their child to discuss their conception story.

The Parent-Child Relationship Quality – Short Form Measure (Pianta, 1992) is a 15-item survey that asks parents to indicate whether the statement applies to their experience with their child.

The Parenting Sense of Competence Scale (Gibaud-Wallston & Wadnersman, 1978) is a 17- item scale that asks parents to indicate how strongly they agree with statements of their satisfaction and efficacy in the parenting role.

Key Findings

Parents reported a statistically significant increase in all of the different domains assessed regarding sharing their family story from baseline to after the workshop series.

In summary, they reported statistically significant improvements in the below domains;

Feeling better equipped to communicate with their child about their origin story

Better equipped to communicate with extended family and their community

More confident in sharing the story and more agile emotionally

Valuing openness more

And having more confidence in their child responding positively to their story.