Adoption stories: interview with birth mum Sammy
This article of the year is a very honest interview with Sammy, a birth mum. Her daughter was taken into care and subsequently adopted. Birth parent’s voices are the ones that often get lost in the noise and aren’t heard, so I’m very grateful to Sammy for sharing her experience. You can follow her on […]
Adoption stories: Contact and life story interview with birth mum Sammy
This week’s interview about contact and life story work is with birth mum Sammy. I’m really grateful she’s agreed to give us an insight into things from her perspective. 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 […]
Adoption stories: Contact and life story interview with Chris
The next series of interviews is about contact and life story work. Knowing about their birth history and learning to understand it is really important for adopted children. This post written by Dr John Simmonds, is a great introduction to life story work. I think knowing how important it is can sometimes place more pressure on […]
Creating a life storybook: Storydo
Having an accurate and age-appropriate life storybook is really important to help our children understand their birth history. The standard of life storybooks provided by local authorities varies massively. Some are brilliant. Some are completely inadequate. We’ve been really lucky because both of our girl’s books are brilliant. They contain a fair amount of detail […]
It’s just a name
A lot of kids, girls, in particular, have thought of names they’d like to call their future children. My nieces have done this for years. I often have to control my facial expressions when they tell me the latest ones as some are definitely not my cup of tea. That’s the thing about a name. […]
Child protection: How does a child get taken into care?
There’s a perception that children who are placed for adoption are removed from their birth family without warning. The reality is far from this. There may be rare cases where an incident occurs which requires instant removal, but that is the exception, not the rule. I thought it would be helpful to highlight the steps […]
Book Review: Billy Moffle’s Straight Lines
There’s a lot of children’s adoption books on the market which explain the process. They use engaging characters to explain to young children why it sometimes isn’t safe them to stay with their birth parents. And explain the role of adults like social workers and foster families. Finding a book that explains to young children […]
Adoption court hearings
I wrote this post not long after the court proceedings for youngest were concluded. This part of the process is something adopters are told the least about. And not knowing how it works and why adds to the stress and anxiety for us all. I hope you find it useful. At last we’re no longer […]
Something borrowed
I first published this piece back in January 2018. I think one of the hardest things about becoming a parent through adoption, is the fact that placement day means you’ve gone from nought to a child in a relatively short period of time. Although the matching process can take some time, once you are matched, […]
Fingers crossed
It’s funny how life turns out sometimes. Some people believe in fate and that things happen for a reason. I tend to be one of those believers. I think we were always destined to be parents to our daughter. We were never meant to have a birth child. If we had, we’d never have met […]