Public Forums

This happened many times to people on the old boards so it might be worth having a look in the archives. Also in the potato group if anyone is directly affected. For our family - my daughter always had a soft spot for her birth Mum (the idea of her really as she last saw her at 8ths old) and would’ve wanted contact - but BM died when AD was about 9 and she then was able to grieve not having the chance to meet her. She had some fantasy of looking after her when she was grown up. However she did not want to meet BF and had always been afraid of him finding her (she had serious non accidental injuries from which she nearly died caused by him when she was a couple of months old) So it was simple for us and my son has never been interested. I think it is key to keep the dialogue open and also to get life story work if you can (we are just having some now for AD) so they do not have rose tinted spectacles and can be honest about what they want / how they feel. Not to panic if they are having thoughts of contact but talk it through with them and offer to support them in it. Hopefully to pre-empt any secret contact. As with everything developing open communication is key

Hi Safia, thanks for replying.

Yes, we do have an open dialogue so I don't think this is a "problem" as such at the moment. Also getting daughter some 1-2-1 counselling via ASF, so she can explore her feelings about all of this (and other adolescent adoptee stuff) safely...considering following up with life story work.

I was just interested in models for supporting carefully managed contact as part of that life story work for teenagers, I guess. Listening to the testimonies of various parents on Radio 4 in the last week, it struck me there was a common thread: parents had been crying out for managed contact to avoid their adolescents impulsively seeking out birth families and the services didn't exist (computer says no).

Thinking out loud, I could imagine, that a teen who had been having supported life story work, might meet a birth parent (if they didn't pose an immediate risk) in a room with a social worker and a parent, ask questions, keep it all realistic but without sharing phone numbers and the like, burst any fantasy bubbles but also get that sense of something to do with their identity that they were missing. I know other families who have had direct contact from the off, not sure why it wouldn't be beneficial in these circumstances with appropriate monitoring.

ps. How does one access the archives?

You would think it’s possible to have supervised contact - or therapeutically supported - as you would after 18 - so I guess it should be possible to contact an agency and go down that route but I guess the problem is most young people are seeking or responding to contact in secret. Re the archives: I think you just click on the archive button at the top of the page next to the latest posts one to access the archives