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John, I can really relate to this. We did have one letter over the years, but it was addressed to our daughter using the wrong name! (a cross between her and her half sister's name) - and an exercise of chest-thumping.

I have often queried the purpose of letterbox with no replies, and certainly the trope of "at least you have proof that you were trying to engage and kept to your side of the deal."

Is this really a healthy way of looking at it? May my child not equally likely turn out to be resentful for writing and telling about them to persons who abused and neglected them and seemingly have no interest in them? Does it not also give the implied impression that these people still have a right to them? - With all the confusion and conflict of loyalties this may cause.

I was very positive about letterbox to start with, I wanted to build up a relationship and hoped this would be beneficial for my child and healing for BM. And I am sure in some cases this can work and is the right thing to do.

Not in ours though. My letters got shorter each year and I did ask several times could they please send me questions of what they would like to know as I found it very difficult to write about anything at all, since I did not know what was important for them to know, never a reply. So yes, this year, after a very tough year with lots of changes for us, I decided I would not write any more until they wrote first. I do not think I ever will write a letter again. Sad, but then there was a reason why they were taken away and one of them had been a total lack of interest in the children on BMs part.

I also think it’s self preservation on the part of the birth parents - each year they begin to come to terms with the situation and then it comes round to the time for contact and it is all brought up for them again - this goes on potentially for 18 years - so they can either dream of reunification or switch off because it is too hard or to protect themselves. I personally do not see the point - even though I was positive about it and took part for all the time until 18 - unless the children are older and it is important for them to continue. We got a little info back while birth mum was alive but only cards after she died. I think Zora’s idea of asking what they would like to know and then not replying until they respond is a good idea - and discontinuing if there is no response doesn’t feel to me as if you are letting the children down

I also think that the money spent on letterbox would be better spent on counselling for BPs

Thanks everyone for sharing your views.

In the run up to our approval, our agency ran an evening with birth parents to get a glimpse into their view of the process.

Take home message from that was "please, even if we don't reply please continue. We may never be in a place where we can reply but there is nothing worse for us then waiting for the letters and them not coming"

I think we have to remember that in the majority of cases, it's not that birth parents don't love these kids, its the ongoing cycle of deprivation, the parents more often then not don't know what good care is, have never seen or experienced a stable loving home, have made choices that are alien to us, are addicts, unable to make appropriate choices, probably should have been taken into care themselves, but that doesn't mean they don't love their birth children. I'm not surprised that many don't engage with the process. Imagine someone saying you're not good enough for your kids and taking them away. Maybe I'm being naive in this but when I think of our birth family, it's no wonder they couldn't do it.

OP - your kids needs will change, they might not care about it now, but it might be important to them later. I think it's about identity, knowing where you came from. Your kids may never need that link to their birth parents, but what if they do? Being able to show that you tried to keep that link open to that part of them could be very important. If your kids are old enough, why not ask them if they want to continue the letters when they're not getting anything back? If you're going to stop, I think a final letter saying why is worthwhile.

This is all said from the view point of someone who hasn't had to write a letter yet, as a new adopter, and I suspect over the years I will become jaded by the process, but I think the above is worth considering.

Chris, with all due respect, I think you are looking at this through rose-tinted spectacles. As mentioned, to begin with I did engage and in our circumstances it was the right thing to stop. I did not say in ALL cirmcumstances. Every case is unique.

Birth parents actually making it to an adopters info evening? They must have already been able to pull their lives together enough to go through this. I cannot imagine someone standing up in front of lots of strangers telling their story, but not being able to put a few lines together, even a postcard saying, I am in a bad state please do not judge me if I cannot reply. Or even a message through a social worker.

Love - what is the definiton of love? In a lot of cases our children went through hell and back. They have been abused and robbed off their childhood and we as their new parents have to live and try and undo all the ontold damage. I would be very careful with telling my children they had been loved. It is misplaced kindness. It open up wounds of, why did they treat me this way, why should I have been taken away in the first place? It may make it more difficult for them to settle with you. It may throw their whole concept of itdentity and confuse them.

My child was sexually, physically and emotionally abused - by her parents, siblings and presumably others. She was 3 months when she was taken away. How is she going to feel if I tell her this was love? What is it going to do to her idea of what a potential love interest may look like in the future?

There is too little emphasis on the needs and rights of our children when it comes to birth parents. When they are young they need to be protected from them. The courts and SS argued so, so I shall do that. Whether that means engaging in a letter once a year or not is the least of my problems. It was a mature decision after weighing up much evidence over the years. Both my child and her adopted half sister ( we have face to face contact with her and her adopters) have been independently described by profesisionals as the most traumatised children they have ever come across.

My daughter is very scathing when it comes to her birth parents. She does not want to associate with them, is very clear she would never want to be like them.

It is not my responsibility as an adopter to make the birth parents' lives easier. They may actually not want to receive any letters, it may stop them from moving on. They are individuals too, just because one said at an adopters evening that they benefitted from letterbox, does not mean all will. It may bring up feelings of shame and guilt each time they receive a letter. We do not know this, so have to make decisions on what is presented to us in each individual case.

Thankfully, we do have evidence in the shape of the older half sister who will be a le to confirm what went on in the birth family, if LO ever questions the validity of what she has been told by adults.

If she ever wants to seek out birth family when she is an adult she will be fully supported by me then. This door has not closed just because I do not write a meaningless letter once a year.

Zora, as I said, I'm early on in the process and we know BM engages well with the process as she's had an older child adopted.

Could I tell my kids they were loved by a family who had done what yours did to you little one? No I don't think I could. But every story is different. I can tell my kids they were wanted by birth parents and loved in a way but they didn't have the ability to make the right choices, and Birth parents own history will go a long way to explaining why they couldn't or wouldn't make the right choices, but I will ask for a hell of a lot of help in this life story work.

The evening was 3 birth mums who had been through the adoption process many years ago and come out the other side. There were drug, alcohol, mental health and learning disability reasons that they had had children taken into care, and there was someone who worked in supporting birth mums post adoption. Their adoptions were years ago and they were in much better places.

I completely agree that our children are the top priority, and we have to do whats right for them. There will be many child-centric reasons to stop, but I'm not convinced that birth parents not engaging is reason enough on its own to stop.

In my experience, 18 years in, your attitude and feelings about birth parents and your children develop and change over time.

Two of ours had no letterbox arrangement. In fact, for one, there was initially a no contact order. Birth parents had never been able to engage with authorities and were never able to prioritise the needs of any of their many children,

One did come with an arrangement, details of which were pretty much foisted on us. It included us receiving birthday cards and Christmas cards which we weren’t thrilled about but, hey, it wasn’t about the child or us. Or was done because it was easier to put their needs first - we were rational and reasonable adults. They weren’t.

Roll forward some years after we diligently write every year and accepted cards ... and one letter we wrote was sent back. My son has been dx adhd which I’d told bm about. Oh no, I couldn’t say that! It might upset them. They might blame me! So basically I was only allowed to rose tint what I wrote? Sw suggested that I speak to my son and ask him. He was very clear that I wasn’t to write. He was terrified that they’d track him down and didn’t want them to know anything. So, that’s that I told sws. Their response? Oh well, can you just do it anyway and not tell him? Seriously? You want me to lie to my child? And indeed they did? That pretty much told me whose needs were their priority, and it certainly wasn’t my child.

You have to do what you feel is right for your child. Trouble is things have moved on, we now have social media to contend with. IMO letterbox is outdated. I mean who actually writes letters these days anyway? SS need to catch up!

My daughter was also terrified of being found - she was only 2mths when she was taken into care and 8 mths since the last contact - but they do have some sort of bodily / pre verbalmemory - she had suffered a non accidental head injury and had almost been killed - she always had fears in crowds and when up high (eg on escalators) and I always even now have to stand behind her whether going up or down as the fear is attack from behind. Retrospectively I think the contact she had was retraumatising - but SWs have to do the assessments - and although I carried on letterbox to the end we stopped sending photos long before that - and this was before social media had become so sophisticated. Even then the necessity of having to have photos taken without their school jumpers to avoid identification and also to avoid having to use other photos which may have carried more information than intended - is not something I would put them through again willingly. As I said before I think letterbox should be the exception rather than the rule - and only if it is clearly for the benefit of the children - and the money saved should be put into counselling for birth parents to help them accept the situation and hopefully change enough that they don’t put themselves through this situation again and can move forward with their lives.

I support all the reasons expressed above to stop letterbox if the situation so necessitates it. I just wrote my first one - glossy and informative - with a view to removing any potential animosity between myself and BM in the future as I am sure we may meet one day. However reading the above posts I question my motives. This letterbox ethos makes me feel like I owe something to BM (apart from a physical letter). Unless she replies I don't see the benefit for my son and I feel this annual report is an invasion of my private life. I agree with Zora that it does imply they have rights. What I would have liked to tell her is that her son has the whole bag of developmental trauma and she has damaged him for life. Thanks for these posts, its helped me be a bit more discerning.

Hi John, I would suggest checking with your letterbox service that birth mum is actually receiving the letters. We were several years into unanswered Letterbox letters when I was told, almost in passing, that birth mum had never signed the agreement. All of our letters have simply gone on file, hence no reply.

That is atrocious Becky - all that time the children could have been really upset by the lack of response - all totally unnecessarily

It was very unfortunate especially since in the early days I did actually have a phone number for BM (as I had been the foster carer). That number is long-since gone, but I wonder if I had known that she hadn't signed, whether I could have texted her or something to encourage her, or made some other arrangement with her at the time. I'm afraid letterbox doesn't work very well too often - for birth families, children or adopters to be honest. It is hard when there are no replies, or where maintaining contact re-kindles trauma for a child, or where the child doesn't want it. Even when letters are successfully exchanged, I wonder whether there would still be scope for something more meaningful. For clarity, these are my musings rather than official AUK policy!