Archived Forums

Can I ask which part if the UK you live in? There seems to be a variance by UK internal Nation on this subject. In England this is considered to be detrimental to the security of the adoption and not common practice. It is only used in some very specific cases. It is usually considered that if a child requires that level of contact they are placed in long term FC. From a personal point of view, I can’t see how this would be adoption. The child would never feel like a whole part of your family when every half year they would be drawn back to their old life.

We have direct contact yearly and I have never regretted it. In fact, now that my daughter is a teenager, I think it is one of the things that keeps her in my family. She doesn't have a rose-tinted view of a birth family she doesn't understand. She is now talking to her birth mother online, but hardly at all because they just don't have anything to say to each other. I was also asked for twice a year and, after the adoption order went through, I said I would only do once. It is destabilising, and the birth mother does her best to undermine me, but with a few days of hindsight, my daughter can see it as confirmation that she's in the right place.

As ford said there is a variance across the UK in approach to contact. Direct contact is common practice in Northern Ireland and like everything the success or difficulties of it varies from case to case and child to child. we have twice yearly and so far (my children are still young though) we see it as a positive. Each contact gives opportunity to blend in a little tiny nugget more of life story. Ours is a contact agreement and not part of the legal court order so we can ask to have it changed as the children grow if we feel it is not appropriate. The contact is for the purpose of the child getting opportunities as they grow to make sense of their past and the family to which they were born into. It is not for the purpose of birth family to continue to see their children and so the needs for the child is at the centre throughout. I do know of some adopters who subsequently returned to letterbox contact as the child got older as what was right for them when they were three was no longer right at 12. This has been discussed often on the thread and there will be some who will never agree with it. I think that is largely because for their children it would absolutely not be right. Often this is because of the abuse that they received by their birth family. This is as it should be. No child should be forced to see a past abuser. However, in the case of my children while neglected by BM to an extent as otherwise they would still be in her care, they were still very much loved and protected as best she could in a situation she has very little control over, I don’t believe we are taking them to see an abuser. I want them to personally get to know her as they grow to begin to understand her past and her upbringing so they reach adulthood with a sense of why she was not able to meet their needs. My hope is that as they reach adulthood they will be at peace with their story and at peace with her. Direct contact in my opinion is supporting that. Trust me if it does not in the future we will stop it. Ford in answer to your final statement “you can’t see how it is adoption if there is contact” - my children know they are very much at the centre of our family but that they have a part in another family who love them but could not care for them. We are their parents. We will make all decisions about their future and we will love them unconditionally so I don’t see how that is adoption. From your previous posts I understand that your childen suffered hugely from their BF so I totally understand it would not be right for them but it does not make it any less adoption if it is right for others. OP as the child in question is older it highly likely that they already have a relationship with their BF and probably already have deep loyalties towards them. I think direct contact may be helpful to them to make sense of it all and to be able to piece together the reality with the fantasy.

It could work. A lot in adoption is a leap of faith. You simply don't have the control over things the way you get with a birth child. You have the spectre of the birth family in your family whether you have direct contact, letterbox contact or no contact - it just plays out differently. And it changes over time and the children get more control over what to do. So for example we had letterbox with birth mother and 2 birth siblings. My younger daughter (now 19) refuses to have anything to do with her birth mother now but we have reunited in person with the siblings. No contact kids may go searching on Facebook and even return to the birth family. There is no one solution. I think all you can do is try to make your particular situation work with the arrangements you have xx

I think there is a huge difference between contact with Brith Sinlings not living with you and Brith Parents. We are in this situation and we enjoy and encourage our children to meet their brother every six months. The thing I can’t get past is why if it is possible to have a meaningful contact with the birth parents was it necessary to have the children adopted, why not use long term foster care, where there is a chance of reunion if the situation which caused the children to be accommodated had resolved. I expect money is an issue. I think it may also have a negative impact on the number of people wanting to come forward as adopters. Like it or not, adoption is about having a family as if they were born to you. There are not many coming into adoption with the view that their children are perpetually reminded of a life they are no longer part of and easily influenced by birth parents. There is a good reason why the vast majority of adoptions in the UK do not have direct contact with BP’s and go out of their way to prevent their children inadvertently being contacted. Just from our own experience again. Our children were up for adoption then returned at the last minute to BM. Then when the inevitable happened, taken back into care. They both were old enough to know everything about their former lives and now coming up to their fourth Christmas with us, don’t give them the slightest thought. I expect many adults transpose their own sensibilities into what a three to five year old actually thinks. They adapt very quickly.

My daughter was 3 when we adopted her. She was, and always has been, obsessed with her bm. Her younger sister hates the bm with a passion even though she doesn't remember her. So I can't be responsible for having taught them how to be. In fact I took a much more middle , neutral ground. I got them both independent life story work but I would say it just entrenched their existing positions. But I wouldn't be opposed to direct contact. Our girls' bm has a mld and was exploited by some dodgy men. She isn't inherently a nasty person as far as I can see. And this is why every situation is different Ford. Some adopted kids do want to reunite, regardless of circumstances or what their adoptive parents think. Mine are 19 and 20 now and I know several families where the children have chosen to go back. It happens. Early direct contact may offer some protection.

My DD had direct contact with her birth mum from when she was placed with us at 7 until she was 9. It was stopped because both were finding it difficult. It was a useful experience but sad as well as BM really struggled.

we had direct contact with birth dad, which broke down due to him having a series of mental health breakdowns. Meeting him a couple of times a year for a few hours for a pizza, trip to a theme park, swimming pool, did not draw my son back into his old life, it does not make him any less part of my family. This man called dad exists, he was not an abuser in the sense that he actively set out to harm his children, he is just not capable of looking after them, day in day out, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. He just can't do it, he has mental ill health issues, is probably undiagnosed ASD, he drinks a bit too much, smokes a bit too much weed ( no evidence of hard drug use) he can just about hold down a job. That does not make him a 'bad' person, just someone not capable of permanent child rearing. There are lots of birth parents like him. I don't think adoption can ever be really 100% as if the children were born to you, because the truth is they were not. Like it or not you cannot erase the past life. I would also say Ford, that like yours my son was old enough to what happened. He could reel off dates, addresses, names, details of events. But really the crucial question is why. Why did they drink, take drugs, have mental health issues. Your children may ask that question in the future, they might not, but they might. It was only when he was given the opportunity to ask those questions, and be given answers that things started to really fall into place with my son.

Well I am extremely glad I was spared that malarkey !! If it had became obvious to me, once my child was placed, that he wanted and was helped by direct contact, I would have done so, but I would never have agreed to take a child who had court declared compulsory contact. I am aware of kids who have gone along with contact but didn't really want it, and of those whose placement has been de stabilised by it. We are undertaking the very difficult challenge of caring for children from care, having no idea what we will face in the future, and I am sorry but either I am the full parent with the right to decide all contact or I am a foster carer with pay !! We agreed to letterbox,( best minus photos in these days of social media.) Maybe that would rule me out of some placements but it's not something I would be happy to have as compulsory. Takes away from the parental scope for judgement of what is right for my child at any given time as he/she grows up. Both mine had full and regular contact with birth siblings placed elsewhere, which was very positive and important to them.

I think it all depends on the background - whether it a case of 'couldn't' or 'wouldn't' look after the kids, and so much more. I could certainly term my kids' BPs as abusers, so I would never advocate contact for them. They don't want it either, although I always say that as far as I am concerned if they wanted to have any contact I would support them all the way, as long as we had support from our VA (because I know it would be needed). On the other hand, it really pleases me to see the examples of contact above working well, and I am really happy for my kids to be in touch with their siblings, who have done nothing wrong. My advice is to know as much as you can about context before considering anything. Good luck x

Hi Serrakunda. The last Paragraph of your post gets to the root of the issue and it formed the theme of the recent AUK Conference. Quote Serrakunda... "I would also say Ford, that like yours my son was old enough to what happened. He could reel off dates, addresses, names, details of events. But really the crucial question is why. Why did they drink, take drugs, have mental health issues. Your children may ask that question in the future, they might not, but they might. It was only when he was given the opportunity to ask those questions, and be given answers that things started to really fall into place with my son". The thing is, why should that information be passed on from the BFam directly? Surely this is the realm of Therapeutic Life Story Work or at worst from their adoptive parents. My children have questions like all others about their birth family which we are able to answer. We met up with BM for a couple of hours not long after we adopted our children and that gave us a fair overview of whatever information she was willing or able to share. I'd recommend the Adoptive parents meeting the BFam just once after the AO without the children knowing, just so you can get a measure of what you are dealing with. It certainly gave us a much more detailed picture than the one the SW's were painting. Incidentally, our children had a SW recommendation in their CPR that prospective adopters should consider direct contact with BP's. It turned out this was at the request of the BP's themselves and the SW just went along with it. Luckily the judge wrote into the placement order that in his opinion this would not be suitable in their case and their adoption should not be delayed or influenced in any way if the LA were not able to find adopters who were willing to agree to this. I'd say to the OP that at their stage, the CRP they have read may have looked very much like ours but in the end direct contact was not even considered.

I assumed Serrakunda meant getting answers through life story work rather than directly - also in relation to your last point I think a lot of BPs will ask for contact - and ours asked for videos rather than photos - and I think your point is very valid that it depends on SW to a large extent what is written down - that it might be requests rather than recommendations so it’s certainly worth looking into it further. The request for videos was made at a court hearing and the judge turned this down without further discussion

Ford - where have I said that birth families should be providing that information ? That was never the purpose of the contact we had. I very much doubt dad could explain anyway, and he certainly can't answer for his former partner, birth mum. My point was more in response to you saying that your children have no interest in their birth parents, I was just suggesting that the lack of interest may change. We have had extensive life story work, with Richard Rose who I believe was at the conference. You may not have noticed that I only ever refer to dad, not birth mum. There are good reasons for this. I wouldn't have agreed to direct contact with mum when Simba first came home. Following 18 months gruelling work with Richard Rose, he has now asked to see her, he has his reasons, which after the work he put in with Richard I understand and respect and support him in that. . He absolutely does not want to live with her, I have no concerns on that score. Its a shame that SWs will not support him in this until he is 18.

Read "Safe Contact" by Claire Macaskill (sp?). Sometimes it is good, sometimes it is definitely wrong. She talks through several different cases. Our two had an initial plan for direct contact. But we ended up starting with indirect and since the BF didn't respond for first three years we never changed it. I personally think 1x a year is about the most unless there are special circumstances. For our two (2 & 3.5 at placement) I don't think it would have been beneficial. When they are older if they want it we would like to support them through the process. BdF

Can I just add it's about the needs of the children. Some of the comments here are more about the needs of the adopters imo.

Adopters are people too. Often when that is forgotten it makes for a very unhappy family.

" Adopters are people too" Yes ! Not everyone can handle everything and adoptive parents have needs too. We all have tolerance levels and things we can handle well, handle "sort of" or not handle at all well. Lack of recognition of this by social workers is one reason why adoptive parents don't get the support they need when the child's behaviour is difficult, and get judged when things go wrong. People who have birth kids get by on " good enough parenting" but we are expected to be perfect ! And I haven't read anything here that suggests adopters are not putting their kids first. Different opinions and choices yes, but still considering their child's needs and wants.

But imo we have to try to put our feelings to one side. Yes, we are all only human but if we are triggered by something, surely that is something to deal with privately, not advise other people off the back of it? Some of the advice on here basically says "I don't like it / cant cope with it / dont agree that it ever makes sense so you shouldn't do it".

That’s how humans work. We all need to get something out of adoption, children and parents. We have needs too and they are often overlooked. It simply can’t be all about the children. The adults needs must be met too. The adults who seem to be overlooked in many adoption related scenarios are often the adopters, often placed below the BFam in Social Services view. We are making stable families for traumatised children to thrive within. We are not custodians of the children on behalf of the BFam. They are our children and a part of our family. We claim them, love them, parent them and care for them no matter what they do to us through whatever their birth parents did to them. If I thought there was a compulsion to have direct contact with birth parents, I wouldn’t be an adopter. I don’t think I’m alone in this.