I’m Still Standing

Individual identity is important; we can all agree on that. But when I hear someone say, “Just be you”, I can’t help but squirm. For one, yourself is rarely what is best in most situations. Two, I also wonder, if simply being yourself creates the illusion that you have no power to shape or to mould out the (prolonged pause) bad bits?

Being a teenager and learning that such ‘self-crafting’ is possible could be an extremely powerful thing. However, there is a downside to this, because part of yourself is your past. And your past. Well, you can’t change that.

For some, the past they carry is heavier than for others. For anyone who is adopted, this burden can be quite large. This can take hold and then shape their identity more than they seem to be able to themselves. More than they want.

In my family, my adoption was talked about in a way that meant I created a toolset of motivation. What happened in my past with my birth parents wasn’t fun, good, or beneficial to me. But without sounding like a hippy, I firmly believe that life is riddled with rough times. And, after adoption, with the right support and mindset, we can all go on to take on the world headfirst.

This is the basis I have built my foundation on as a person. And this is a way for you, too, to take control of your past, no matter what it is.

I’m thankful I have the resources to do so, because even though it was tough. I’m still standing.

By Arran Gray

Head to the adoption section to read more interviews and articles written by adoptees.

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I think lucky is a word that means so many different things to those who’ve experienced adoption. I feel very lucky to have been chosen to be mum to our daughters. Our family are lucky to have our girls in our lives. But they aren’t lucky to have been adopted. Their start in life was full of loss and trauma.

It’s a term that people often use to describe adopted children, saying they’re lucky to have been adopted. I hope it’s a well-meaning comment, but it shows how far we still have to go in terms of raising awareness around adoption.

Chloe’s perspective on what lucky means for her is humbling.

Lucky

Perhaps some young people don’t understand what it means to be adopted and be “in the system” until they’re older. But I always knew.

Adopted at eight years old, I worked out early on what foster care was. I accepted I’d move around continuously and that eventually, leave the system. I also understood that I was… lucky.

Being in foster care was a fairly confusing and upsetting time for me. It was “decided” that every second Thursday, I would be allowed to meet my birth mother.

At first, I’d be overexcited and sometimes even be physically sick before she arrived. Soon after, it turned to a case of absence. She stopped turning up, and this fact would make me so ill that on the day after the contact, I’d again become very ill.

My foster carer soon became my long-term carer, and from this time, I have a lot of memories. I’m not sure if this is the same for all of you. But for me, I felt that my foster carer and I formed a kind of mother-daughter bond, which, as we all know, includes both good and bad times.

Memories of foster care

Strangely, some of my clearest memories are the weirder ones.  For example, I’m extremely glad to see the back of haggis; my arch nemesis. It was a Halloween night, and I was told that I wasn’t allowed to go out trick or treating unless I ate my haggis, which she knew I hated. Maybe it was a test, but I’ll never know.

However, I’ve also got lots of good memories, which balance the bad. For example, our trips to Edinburgh zoo, Chill Factor in Manchester (sledging/ skiing) and my all-time favourite, horse riding.

Can I trust you with a secret, reader? My biggest memory with horse riding was when my brother’s pony handler let go of his pony momentarily, and the horse spooked, making him fall halfway off his pony. It then started to canter off with him. I know that this seems to be a weird thing to put in a blog, but my point is that memories are weird; you can’t choose what sticks.

Foster care is definitely not convenient or the best thing to go through. But if you’re lucky, you’ll be able to make good memories and look back at that time with fondness.

Head to the adoption section to read more interviews and articles written by adoptees sharing their experiences.

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Obviously, it doesn’t quite work like that. But until relatively recently, it was the case that physical letters were sent the post-adoption support teams who then checked and sent them out to the appropriate people. This was obviously a time-consuming exercise and one that often meant contact letters were delayed or even lost in the process.

That was our experience of letterbox contact in the first few years of our daughter being home. We started the process and sent our letter in July, but it was often nearly Christmas before we got copies of any replies. With offices relocating and team changes, and moving into different buildings, it’s easy to see how vital letters can become lost.

We live in a digital era, so it makes sense that precious memories and life story information moves with the times and becomes digital too. Digital information can be extremely secure and a much easier way to access information quickly. So, I was delighted when I was contacted by Virtual Memory Box, who shared details of their new service which is being piloted in the North East.

Virtual Memory Box

A digital innovation, already changing the lives of children in care, is now expanding to work with Regional Adoption Agencies (RAAs) to help more young people and families.

Virtual Memory Box, a tool that keeps memories safe and secure, is now working with Adopt North East to pilot the solution for RAAs, to support communication between adopted young people and their birth families.

Developed by Newcastle-based software house Nebula Labs, and successfully piloted with South Tyneside Council, it became obvious that Virtual Memory Box could benefit all children in care. Local authorities across England are now signed up as partners, offering the platform to thousands of looked-after children.

Adopt North East is the largest adoption agency in the North East. Since it was set up in 2018, Adopt North East has found hundreds of forever families for children and supported over a thousand adoptive families.

Using a virtual memory box in adoption

Nik Flavell, Head of Service for Adopt North East, said, “We know from research and through talking to young people that they would much prefer to use a digital tool to share and receive information about their family to help them develop and understand their identity.

“We are really excited to be the first RAA to partner with Virtual Memory Box to develop a secure, efficient and user-friendly tool specifically for those involved in adoption. We already work with North Tyneside Council, who use Virtual Memory Box to support their young people in care, so we know the positive impact it has had there, and we think it will be a game changer for us.”

Christian Brock, Virtual Memory Box MD said, “We are delighted to be working with Adopt North East on this development – our aim is to make Virtual Memory Box as accessible and useful for as many looked after children and their carers as possible. We are working with many local authorities across the country to make it easy for young people in care, and the adults in their life, to keep precious memories safe and secure. Now, to be working with Adopt North East and other RAAs nationwide is the next logical and exciting step in our mission.”

Head to the homepage to read the latest articles about adoption, parenting, wellbeing and more.

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Introduce yourself and your family 

I’m Suzy. I live with my husband and our two daughters who are full birth siblings.

How often do you have contact with birth family?

We do annual indirect contact every summer. We usually get any replies a few months after we’ve sent ours.

How does this happen? 

It happens via a written update. I write it electronically at the moment and send it to the post adoption team at our agency. They then forward it to birth family and sibling’s families.

We had asked for direct contact with the sibling born in between our two. We had been asked if we wanted to be considered for him, but decided it wasn’t the right thing at that time for our family. We asked if direct contact could be considered but it was completely overlooked by the local authority. As was indirect contact at the start and we had to push for this to be set up.

Eldest has met one of her older sisters. We had a few years where we attended an adoption event set up by our agency. Our social worker knew a sibling would be attending with her parents, so we were introduced to the parents. At the event the second year, eldest was actually sat beside her sister as they got their faces painted.

I found that really emotional because the sibling’s family hadn’t told their daughter about her younger sister. We had to respect their decision, but it made me really sad, because that would have been the perfect way for them to start to get to know each other. They live less than five miles away, so direct contact would have been very easy.

We didn’t go the last year the event was held because our eldest had been looking at her life story book a lot and would have recognised her sister from her photo.

What kind of things do you include in the letters? Do you send anything else like photos or pictures drawn by your children?

I find the updates quite hard to write because I want to share how wonderful the girls are, but I don’t want to be insensitive. I can’t imagine what it’s like for birth mum to get an update about how two of her daughters are doing. I want her to be happy to read the content, but I don’t want her to think I’m showing off at how well they’re doing.

It tends to be likes, dislikes, sharing their personality and how they get on together. I know that birth mum was very pleased when she was told they were going to be placed together, so I write quite a bit on their relationship. I tend not to write specifics in terms of holiday locations and focus on activities like going to the beach or a train ride.

This year eldest is six and so has a much better understanding of her birth history. She’s currently talking a lot about her brothers and has asked if she can draw them a picture, so we’ll include that this year.

Do your children get involved with writing the letters?

I currently write the updates, but I hope that as the children get older, they’ll want to be involved more. It would be nice if they wrote their siblings letters and hopefully get replies. It’s a great way to start to develop their relationship so that there’s something to build on easily when they’re ready to meet.

Have you requested any help and support in connection with contact from your agency? If so, what sort of help did you receive?  Did it do what you needed it to?

We haven’t asked for any help yet. I’ve found blogs and articles in the magazine really helpful. An Introduction to Life Story Work for Adoptive Parents, written by Dr John Simmonds, Director of Policy, Research and Development at CoramBAAF, is really helpful if you’re just starting out with life story work and contact.

I am going to ask for some advice this year about photographs. Our contact agreement is just for letters, but eldest has asked to see up-to-date photos of her siblings, and she’d like them to have more photos of her and her sister. I also think direct contact may be something they both want to have with the siblings who live close to us, in the not-too-distant future. That will have to be done initially through post-adoption support, but I really hope, if the children want it to happen, it’s something that is supported by everyone.

Do you get any replies from birth family or siblings?

Initially, we got replies from one sibling and then the sibling between our two. Unfortunately, last year, we didn’t get any replies at all, which is really sad. Our agency became part of a regional agency. so I’m hoping the replies are there, but have just not been forwarded to us. I’ll chase it up when we send out the letter this year.

Unfortunately, we’ve never had anything from birth family. I’m really sad for our children about that because I think it would help them as they get older and understand things more, to be able to read a letter from their birth mum.

If you get replies, do you read them to your child?

The last time we got replies from siblings, our eldest daughter was too young to understand. As we explore life story work more, we’ll read them to her. If we get replies this year and going forward, we’ll read them to the children as and when we get them.

When your child came home, did they have any memory of their birth family?

No, our eldest daughter was nine months old and our youngest was six months. They didn’t live with their birth family and had very little contact with them when they were in foster care.

If no, what age were they when you started life story work? 

Eldest was about two and a half when we started introducing the concept of her growing in her birth mum’s tummy and our hearts. I think she was about three when we started going through her book. I was terrified about how she’d react to knowing she had siblings, but she coped with it really well. You can read more about our experience of how it went the first time we showed her the book.

Our eldest daughter has always asked questions whenever she wanted to about her birth family. Questions tend to focus on her siblings, her brothers in particular. She’s recently been asking if she can go and see them when the virus is gone so she can give them a hug. I really hope they know about her and her sister, and they’re asking about them. But at the moment, we’ve got no way of knowing if that is the case or not.

The only thing that our eldest has struggled to process has been the fact that she didn’t grow in my tummy. When we first started doing life story work, she got very upset when I said she didn’t grow in my tummy. That broke my heart. When she looks through her book, she doesn’t ask any questions about her birth parents, but always asks about her siblings. Hopefully, as she gets older, she’ll be curious about them too.

What kinds of things did you use to support life story work?

Both children have a book created for them by their foster family, and they have an “official” life story book. Eldest doesn’t have a later life letter, but the one done for our youngest will be used for both of them because the circumstances were more or less the same. Eldest’s social worker left the agency just after placement, and despite lots of promises, the later life letter was never done by anyone else. We agreed with our youngest’s social worker that one letter would be used for both of them.

A later life letter is a letter written by your child’s social worker, explaining why their birth family couldn’t look after them. I think it’s something the children will read when they’re much older – I found it an emotional thing to read.

Eldest has access to her life story book and will look at it when she wants to. She knows all of her siblings’ names and loves to look at their photos. We haven’t read through the words with her because she’s still too young to understand, but we will as she gets older. We’ve found books like “The Family Fairies” by Rosemary Lucas and “Blanket Bears” by Samuel Langley-Swain really helpful in terms of explaining the roles of social workers and foster families.

Both children were with the same foster family, and it helped our eldest understand their role a bit more when we met them again for introductions with our youngest. Our eldest had no memory of them, but knew them from their photos in her books. The foster family were over the moon to see our eldest again, and it made introductions so much easier. We keep in contact with them via email, and I send regular updates and photos.

Have you accessed any type of help or support with life story work?

No we haven’t.

How has your child reacted to life story work?

At the moment, our eldest is taking everything in her stride. She asks questions when she wants to, and we do our best to answer them honestly, in an age-appropriate way. I expect that things will get more difficult for them to deal with as they understand more about their birth family and their history. I hope that they will always feel they can talk to us about it and that they know we’ll support them 100%.

I hope that one day, they’ll understand how we’ve all played different roles in their lives, but we’re all their family who love them very much.

 Head to the adoption section to read more articles about life story work, introductions, matching and more.

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In this article, @forever_macfamily shares how they tackled the letter and how they were able to make it so much more than just a list of things the child was doing.

The Settling in letter

It’s the first piece of written correspondence most of us are going to have with birth family. It’s natural to feel a bit overwhelmed about putting pen to paper.  It is, however, incredibly important to start as you mean to go on and it’s even more important for our children that we, as the adopters, take the lead in making these letters meaningful. 

Regardless of the situation that has brought our little ones to us and how that might make us feel about their birth families, we owe it to our children to be respectful and considered.

When writing our settling-in letter I took the lead over my husband as I wanted to write it mother-to-mother. Our birth mother didn’t want to meet us during introductions, so I wrote to her initially then; I wanted her to know that her daughter was going to be loved and was so incredibly wanted. But I also attempted to anticipate some of the questions our daughter might ask us when she’s older. 

We asked about her pregnancy, her childhood, favourite tastes, toys – that sort of thing so that we could provide those answers if our daughter came home from school one day asking what her birth mother craved during pregnancy.  Luckily, with the assistance of her worker, we got a response. That meant I could personalise our settling-in letter more easily and observe some of those connections. 

Sharing lots of detail

It was also very important to me that the letter was more than a perfunctory paragraph stating how long she’d been home, that she was feeding and sleeping well and liked to watch TV.  That’s just simply not enough. 

I wrote about all of the trips we’d been on, how much she was developing, about meeting her extended family, and how our daughter reacted to each of these things.  I made sure it was full of emotion and reassurance of how completely besotted we are with her and how incredibly lucky we feel to get to raise her. 

Of course, I spoke about what she was eating and playing with, and because of our earlier exchange, I could relate elements of that back to the birth mother and take the opportunity to ask further questions.  I described our house and her bedroom; spoke about the classes we enjoyed going to and gave a full report on her personality and how she was developing and meeting milestones. 

After I’d written our letter, my husband proofread it and added what he wanted to put in, so that we had both contributed.  I made sure I had no distractions for the period it took me to write it as I wanted to put what was in my heart down on paper. 

A journal of our daughter’s life

I think it’s important to remember that all of these letters are stored in our children’s files. When the time comes for our daughter to read hers, I want her to know that we love her enough to make every effort with letterbox contact.  Moreover, these letters will be like a journal for her to refer back to when she’s older, so she can see what she was up to over the years. 

If it helps to approach these letters like that, then it’s worth considering.  I am storing copies of the letters we write for her. Not everybody finds writing easy. Some might find it challenging to articulate their emotions – try dictating the letter and using an app to transcribe it for you. You can always edit it afterward or ask your social worker to help. Our daughter’s worker proofread our letter for me before I submitted it as I wanted to ensure it was phrased appropriately. 

Adoption is complex

It isn’t easy to make these connections. Adoption is hard and complex. For every happy emotion we have, there’s a moment of sadness for what our children have experienced and lost and perhaps for our own experiences and losses that have brought us together. For us, it was infertility and although we always felt we would complete our family through adoption, there’s not a day that I don’t wish I had given birth to our daughter. 

It would be too easy to demonise the birth family and resent them or feel anger towards them. But it’s not helpful to harbour those emotions.  I try to focus on the privilege of raising our little girl and how incredibly lucky we are to have found each other.  With that comes a realisation that if it hadn’t been for all that we lost, we might not be here now, together.

In that context, spending an hour or two once a year, to write a heartfelt letter to the person who gave birth to our little girl, really is the least we can do.  If we receive a response, then I’ll be glad, particularly for our daughter. But if we don’t then we know we’ve performed our part in the adoption triangle and put our daughter first. 

If you enjoyed reading this article, why not buy me a coffee to help keep the magazine free for everyone to read? If you’d like to read more articles about adoption, health and well-being, and parenting, head over to the home page and have a look at what’s new.

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It’s so important that adopters understand the importance of contact for birth families. It’s sometimes the case that they don’t feel able to reply to our letters, but that doesn’t mean they don’t cherish every word that’s written. Sammy does receive some help and support to write her letters, but I don’t think that’s always available in a way that encourages birth parents to reply.

How often do you have contact with your child?

I have indirect via letterbox yearly.

How does this happen?

I get two letters via the letterbox team in my local authority.

What kind of things do you include in your letters? Do you send anything else with them?

I send photos of me, her cat, anything new in the family, and a birthday card. I always ask about health, school, wellbeing, likes and dislikes, her birthday, and Christmas. I ask about her pets and how her adoptive parents and brothers are. I also add memories from home and her cat and fish here and anything they have told me. Her adoptive parents write first then I reply. I include anything I’ve been up to too.

Have you requested any support from the local authority in connection with contact?

I receive help with my letters via the letterbox team. They help me with what is good to put in, but nothing around how it works.

If you haven’t received any support from the local authority have you received any support from another organisation?

Yes. I’ve received support and currently still do from PAC-UK. It helps as they don’t judge like social services do and see me as a parent, not a failure.

What do you get in reply to your contact letters?

They write first which is two letters, one from the adoptive parents and a hand written one from my daughter.

What type of information is in the letters? Do you think there’s enough or would you like more?

I get told a lot of information about my daughter’s daily life. Their letters are always two pages long and her own is a page long. I feel I get told a lot which I love and am really grateful for.

How old was your child when they left your home?

She was three-and-a-half when placed with her potential adopters and six when the adoption order was granted.

Were you asked if you wanted to add information to her life story book? If yes, what did you add?

I asked them and they agreed. They asked me to get photos and information about me, her family, her dad, pregnancy, birth milestones, later life letter, and any wishes I had for her future. 

Is there anything else you’ve given her such as an item of your clothing or keepsake?

My daughter has my brown bear called Benji. I got him from Santa one Christmas Eve as I was ill in hospital. I gave him to her and I’m told she knows what he means and that she has him. She also has a locket with a picture of us and her cat.

Did you get any support with life story work? 

The family practitioner came to my house and we put it together. She had worked with me and my daughter from when they became involved up to the final goodbye. She and my daughter had a good relationship. She showed me the information up to her being in foster care and what she put in about that. Then I couldn’t see anymore as that was information about her adopters.

If you’d like to read more articles about adoption, health and well-being, and parenting, head over to the home page and have a look at what’s new. Head over to the life story section to read more articles about this subject.

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Introduce yourself and your family

I’m Hayley, my husband Lee and I adopted our daughter when she was 10 months old. She is now three and a half. She’s our only child and certainly keeps us busy and entertained!

How often do you have contact with birth family? 

We have letterbox contact with birth mother and a sibling (who is also adopted) once a year

What kind of things do you include in the letters? Do you send anything else like photos or pictures drawn by your children? 

We tend to include lots of details in the letters about our daughter’s hobbies, for example, dance classes that she’s recently started. We say what her favourite music or films are. If we’ve been on any holidays, we talk about those and what she enjoyed doing on them. We keep the letters very generalised and never mention a specific area. We’ve never sent any photos.

Do you write the letters or does your child get involved too? 

At the moment I write the letters as she’s too young to understand. I may include her in the future but it depends on how she is dealing with all of the emotions of adoption and if she wants to be involved. It would be her choice.

Have you requested any help and support in connection with contact from your agency? If so, what sort of help did you receive? Did it do what you needed it to? 

We haven’t needed to contact our agency yet (our agency was Adoption Focus which you recently featured and they are amazing). Although we haven’t had to use their help regarding contact, I know they would be there to support us anytime we needed it.

Do you get any replies from birth family or siblings? 

Unfortunately, birth mother has never replied to any of the letters. We had a response from her sibling the first time we wrote, but they haven’t replied to any further letters, which I find incredibly sad for our little girl.

When your child came home, did they have any memory of their birth family?

No memories at all due to her young age

If no, what age were they when you started life story work? 

We have always left our daughter’s life storybook lying around so she has constant access to it. She doesn’t yet understand what the contents mean, she just enjoys looking at photographs of herself. She’s familiar with the word adoption and knows that we adopted her but again she doesn’t really have an understanding of what that is. We’ll continue to look through her life storybook with her and even begin to read sections from it when she is a little older and can understand more.

Have you accessed any type of help or support with life story work?

Not yet but again I know Adoption Focus is always available should we need them

How has your child reacted to life story work?

So far her reactions are positive but it is very difficult for her to understand what has happened to her. There’s a picture of birth mum in her book and she knows the term birth mum but doesn’t understand the meaning yet.

We look through it with her and say all of these words at a young age so that they just become the norm for her. She’ll grow up with all of the terminology and can develop an understanding of her history easily.

If you enjoyed reading this article, why not buy me a coffee to help keep the magazine free for everyone to read? If you’d like to read more articles about adoption, health and well-being, and parenting, head over to the home page and have a look at what’s new.

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Life story work is a crucial part of an adopted child’s childhood. It helps them understand their birth history and their journey to becoming part of a new family.

This article looks at why it’s so important to do life story work with your child. And gives some tips and advice on what to include if you don’t get a life storybook from your agency.

What is life story work and why is it important?

“Children separated from their birth families are often denied the opportunity to know about their past and to clarify past events in terms of the present. They may have changed families, social workers, homes, and neighbourhoods. Their past may be lost, much of it even forgotten. Losing track of the past can make it difficult for children to develop emotionally and socially. Life story work is an attempt to give back some of this past.” (Ryan, T and Walker, R, 2016).

Life story work aims not only to help adopted children understand their personal history and life experiences but also to help them develop a sense of security and identity. “Who am I and where do I belong?”

‘Life story work’ is much more than just completing a book outlining key factors in the child or young person’s history and heritage (their ‘life story book’). The process of life story work encompasses a range of activities, particularly a trusting relationship with an adult to help a child explore their history and heritage. The completion of a life storybook is an important tool in the process.

Elements in life story work can include play, listening and observation, memory boxes and books, photograph albums, life celebration days, and later life letters. This now includes forms of online recording and social media events when these are safe and appropriate. These various tools and activities often overlap. They can be used as and when appropriate for the child or young person.

A collaborative approach

Life story work needs a comprehensive and collaborative approach. Everybody can have a role to contribute including birth families, social workers, foster carers, and adoptive parents.

Through life story work, adoptive parents can work together with their child to give them a stronger sense of their history and heritage and the thoughts and feelings that result from this. This usually means helping them understand why they were adopted.

Life story work can help to strengthen the bond between adoptive parents and their child. It can help adoptive parents to build sensitivity, understanding, and empathy for their child.  As such, it can be a therapeutic process, allowing children to make sense of what happened in the past and think about their aspirations for the future even if this is stressful or anxiety-provoking.

Adopted children can sometimes blame themselves for the reasons they were taken into care even if abuse and neglect were the primary reason.  Life story work can help them to put these thoughts and feelings into words where their sense of blame can develop into a more helpful narrative that increases their sense of feeling safe and secure in their adoptive families.

What should a life storybook include?

A life storybook usually includes information about birth family members, when and where the child was born, any previous foster carers, and why they were adopted.  Over time there may also be a record of the details about their adoptive family.

A life story book needs to provide an honest, but sensitively written account of the child’s history. It should be presented in an age-appropriate and child-friendly way. For example, using bite-sized chapters and colourful images or objects. It’s a story of the child’s memories and feelings in words, pictures and objects, and it’s important that these make sense to them in a way that they feel comfortable with. Every book will be different, but centre on the child or young person as it’s ‘their book’.

Life story books are a statutory requirement for adopted children in England and Wales. It should be given to the child and adopters within 10 days of their celebration hearing. Once children are with their adoptive families, the life storybook can, over time, be adapted in a way that will help children build on their growing security.

Whilst a traditional life storybook is ordered chronologically, starting with birth family and ending with adoption, other practitioners recommend a more balanced approach that enables children to learn about their history whilst enhancing security in their adoptive family.

Life storybook format

Leading adoption expert Joy Rees suggests using the format of present – past – present – future, as follows:

• Present – Current information about the child, their adoptive family, likes and interests, and a simple explanation of adoption.
• Past – The social worker’s account of the child’s history – details of birth family including siblings, place and time of birth, details of foster carers, ending with the granting of the Adoption Order. This section should include an honest but sensitive account of the events leading up to the child going into care, but should reinforce throughout that abuse and neglect, and any placement moves in care are not their fault or because they have done something wrong.
• Present – Bring the child back to the present, perhaps by focusing on the child’s favourite things which give adoptive parents the chance to show how well they know their child.
• Future – End on a positive note with the child’s plans, hopes and aspirations

How can the life storybook be used?

All adopted children should have a life storybook. Whatever their age, it’s never too early or late to start a book if one has not been provided.

Rather than a life storybook being seen as a ‘one-off’ piece of work, it should be continually revisited throughout a child’s life and at key developmental stages. It can be updated, with additional details added, as children grow in security and understanding.

Adoptive parents will read the book to their child or the child may read it to them. It should be used as a basis for answering the child’s questions, so it’s important they feel comfortable with it. Adoptive parents can judge if further details are needed, or if wording needs to be changed. Adoptive parents should be sensitive to their tone of voice, facial expressions, and gestures. Be curious and gently explore the child’s feelings and emotions.

Some final tips for adoptive parents… 

• Consider writing the life storybook in the third person, using your child’s first name, which can be a gentler way of sharing difficult information, especially for younger children
• Answer questions that arise honestly and in line with your child’s age, level of understanding, and stage of development. Admit when you don’t know the answer and offer to find out
• Thread positive messages throughout the book to reinforce that your child is safe and loved and to raise their self-esteem 

Books and further information 

• ‘Life Story Books for Adopted Children: A Family Friendly Approach’ by Joy Rees:
• ‘Life Story Work: What, Why, How and When’ by Tony Ryan and Rodger Walker, published by CoramBAAF:
• First4Adoption – life story work guide for adoptive parents

Head to Compass Fostering’s website to find out some statistics about fostering. Many adopted children spend sometimes years in foster care before they’re adopted, so including this type of information in their life story book is also important.

If you’d like to read more articles about life story work and other adoption topics, head to the adoption section.

The post CoramBAAF: An introduction to life story work for adoptive parents appeared first on We Made a Wish.

I think knowing how important it is can sometimes place more pressure on adoptive parents. I really worried about writing contact letters and also starting life story work with our eldest daughter. So I thought it would help those who aren’t at that stage yet, to read how others have gone about it.

The first interview is with Chris. I love how he and his husband have made a road map so that life story work is interesting and fun for their son. You can follow his family’s journey on Instagram. Chris has written a book about his adoption journey, which looks at some of the issues he and his husband faced as a gay couple. My Adoption Journey is available from Amazon in both paperback and now Kindle.

Introduce yourself and your family

My name is Chris and I adopted our little six-year-old boy with my husband Ricky. Our son was five when he moved in with us.

How often do you have contact with birth family?

We send a letter once a year which we do in August. Doing it over the summer gives our little guy some time to think about whether he wants to add pictures. We did a settling-in letter a month or two after he moved in.

We have had conversations and letter exchanges with his brother, which we do as and when. Contact with him is not through the courts more between us and his brother’s foster family.

How does this happen? 

We do this via letter. We did offer to meet his mum if she wanted and if the social workers felt it would be of some benefit, but we never heard back.

What kind of things do you include in the letters? Do you send anything else like photos or pictures drawn by your children?

We ask our little guy if he wants to add anything. Otherwise, we just say how he is, how his health is, and how he is doing at school. We include any hobbies that he has started doing.  We try to keep it to the point and not to waffle too much.

Do you write the letters or does your child get involved too?

We write the letters now and ask little man if he wants to say anything to his mum. When he’s older, we will include him more often.

Have you requested any help and support in connection with contact from your agency? If so, what sort of help did you receive?  Did it do what you needed it to?

We got our social worker, and little man’s social worker involved in the settling-in letter as we had no idea what to include. Since then, we haven’t needed any support. The adoption community through social media has been supportive and helpful in figuring out how to do contact.

Do you get any replies from birth family or siblings?

We have had replies from his brother but never heard back from his mum or nan.

When your child came home, did they have any memory of their birth family?

To begin with, he would talk very openly about missing his mum, nan, and brother, but this started to dwindle off. We are very open with talking to him about his birth family when he brings them up. We talk honestly about why he can’t see them. Now and again he will bring up his birth family when he’s had a memory or a dream. We are very open about talking to him about these things as and when he brings them up.

If yes, how do you do life story work with them?

We talk him through all the significant people in his life, i.e. his mum, nan, and brother. This also includes his most recent foster carers who we keep in regular contact with.

He has a road map in his bedroom which we’ve used for his life story by taking drives around and talking about these individuals when we reach their ‘destination’. He will talk through the journey and we will talk about the memories in each ‘destination’. I feel that doing this also helps him understand that he can talk about his memories in a fun way as well.

When it comes to formal life story work and going through his book, Ricky and I feel that we should do this when he’s a bit older.

Have you accessed any type of help or support with life story work?

We have used our social worker and also Adoption UK for help figuring out the best options. Another good resource we have used is New Family Social (aimed at LGBTQ+ adopters) to get advice from others on how to go about this. 

If yes, what was it, how did you find out about it and did it do what you needed it to?

It was great hearing from those who had gone through it themselves. I think the best advice we were given is to go with your gut instinct in that we know our son the best. We were also told that we’d know when it was the right time. That didn’t really alleviate my fears, but it was reassuring to know that it’s different for each child and family.

How has your child reacted to life story work?

He’s taken it all in his stride which is just classic of him. He has responded well to using his car map as a way of talking through his history. I think also because we are open to talking to him about his past, it will make the future life story work easier for him to process.

If you enjoyed reading this article, why not buy me a coffee to help keep the magazine free for everyone to read? If you’d like to read more articles about adoption, health and well-being, and parenting, head over to the home page and have a look at what’s new.

The post Adoption stories: Contact and life story interview with Chris appeared first on We Made a Wish.

We’ve been really lucky because both of our girl’s books are brilliant. They contain a fair amount of detail and explain things in a child-centred way. But the facts are there for them to read when they’re old enough to understand them

Both of our girls are growing up knowing that they are adopted and that their family doesn’t just include the people they see regularly. Our eldest has always been interested in this. She’s asked questions from the start and continues to now.

Our youngest is completely different. She’s not been interested in learning about her birth family. She likes looking at photos of herself when she was a baby, but she hasn’t been curious about anything else.

When I was approached by Sonja from Storydo to see if I’d be interested in creating a book for our youngest to help explain her birth history, I thought it would be a great opportunity to try a different way of explaining things to her. I was kindly gifted the book once I’d created it.

What is Storydo?

Storydo is a groundbreaking platform that allows all types of families to tell their unique stories and celebrate their family, simply by answering questions and uploading images.

The bespoke, hardcover, A4 book captures your child’s story and includes all the people and places that are important in your child’s life. It’s suitable for all types of families, from solo to nuclear to blended to adopted, celebrating their unique stories.

How it works

I started by choosing a design and then answered questions to build up our daughter’s life story and uploaded photos that fit the text. Some of the questions are open-ended and others can be changed to suit your child’s story better. I found the prompts and questions helpful to help me include all of the important information that was relevant to the section.

The Storydo Bookbuilder ‘writes’ text based on the answers and creates pages that you can edit as you go along. Although you have to answer the questions, there isn’t a lot to write so don’t worry about needing to be able to add in a lot.

There are thousands of possible pathways through the book depending on each family’s setup, so it really can tell each unique story allowing parents to decide what they would like to share.

The benefits of Storydo

There are many companies offering photobooks where you upload the images, add some words, and then your finished book is posted to you. Those types of books are a useful tool for life story work, particularly for younger children as they will enjoy looking at the photos and you can explain who is in them.

But as your child gets older, they need something more than that to be able to understand their birth history and the roles people like foster carers played in their early life.

Storydo books are designed to strengthen children’s identities. They also validate each child’s lived experience and family set-up by featuring them in a book. Research suggests that this can help children with self-esteem.

The language used has been created using experts to explain the more complex subjects such as adoption, bereavement, and gamete donation. The books are designed to explain and normalise less conventional family setups such as single, same-sex, and blended, and show that families are made up in lots of different ways. 

My experience of using Storydo

I found creating our book an easy process and added the photos as I went. If you want to be more organised, you could create a folder with images before you start. It took me a couple of hours to create in total, and then I read back through it several times and made a few tweaks.

Our youngest is five and is starting to show more of an interest in her birth family. We’ve read through the book several times with her and it does seem to have piqued her interest more than her “official” life storybook. She’s asked more questions, particularly about birth mum. It will be a useful tool as she gets older to explain the important people in her life.

You can get all the details about creating your book from Storydo’s website. I think it’s a great way of helping all children understand their history, not just for adopted children.

Family setups can be complicated and confusing for children. So being able to see their story in pictures and simple text can help them understand how their family came together.

If you enjoyed reading this article, why not buy me a coffee to help keep the magazine free for everyone to read? If you’d like to read more articles about adoption, health and well-being, and parenting, head over to the home page and have a look at what’s new.

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