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Oh fruity!My heart lept reading this. At last someone appears to be listening I so agree that bf contact must be in the exceptional circumstance of positive effectHoping for change That thing you say about the relaxed attitude in sw about contact like its inevitable is something we've come up against. They are genuinely flabbergasted that our adoptees aren't interested and actually pretty scared of some of the bf.

Thanks for posting that great news, Fruitcake.I echo what Pear Tree has said.It looks to me like the campaigning that organisations such as AUK have been doing are bearing fruit!Love,Corkwing

I do wonder why they seem to make thiese extreme swings - every child and every family is different so surely each case should be assessed individually. We do have direct contact with BM and for us its a huge postive - that's because of her, us and the fantastic SW support we get. I know its not right for everyone, but such strong guidance one way or another is unhelpful. I am very pleased about the Facebook stuff - lets hope it can be enforced. Bop

Me too. It dies seem to me that more often than not contact isn't for the child, but as a sop to the bp.My eldest's sw went to court to obtain a no contact order, so adamant was she that bm wasn't going to be allowed to screw up my sons life.Middly's sw, on the other hand, tried her damndest to keep the family together despite everything. We were coerced into accepting birthday and Xmas cards, which do arrive every year from mummy! They get filed. Middly knows, but wants no part.And he made the decision to terminate lb - sw insisted I gave him an opportunity to choose. Needless to say she didn't like the response.Tough I say!! It's about him, not her.So glad that someone is seeing sense.

I have dug the paper out from my cellar and it is from Wednesday, 6th February, on page 9. The article is called "Birth parents will lose their right to contact children after adoption" by Rosemary Bennett, Social Affairs Correspondent. I am only sorry I didn't post on Wednesday.Yes I think AUK are to be thanked, also Martin Narey who is quoted as saying that "too often contact was maintained for the benefit of the birth parents and not for the child".On Facebook specifically, the article says, "New legislation will give courts the power to stop birth parents contacting children through Facebook or other social media websites, a growing problem for adopted young people". These provisions will be part of the Children and Families bill which was published on Tuesday, 8th February, if anyone wishes to follow this up.(Where it IS in in children's interests to have this contact, and let's be fair in a minority of cases it is, then it will still be possible.)I am particularly pleased and relieved that the techno-savvy birth parents of my youngest, whom the social worker was visibly afraid of, will not be able to stalk my youngest on Facebook.

Wow that is very very good sensible stuff. This is what jmk often talks about being in the best interests. The current system of contact, is based on the old fashioned adoption reasoning for relinquished babies. We are not in that era now and the current letterbox system is a way of bringing birth families chaos into the adoptive home IMHO, and restrictions on that are very welcome here!Facebook fantastic no nonsense guidelines, how it is to be policed?? But at least there is something tangible in writing.

Well said Fruitcake!! Finally someone is seeing sense!!I always thought that too much contact with birth family does not allow a child to move on. They are constantly being pulled back to their past, and if their past was traumatic, it just re-traumatises them. How can you attach to your new family and move on with you life if you have to meet BF twice a year, or whatever is the "fashion " at the time.I am so glad that someone is looking at the impact oF contact on our children. I have never believed it does any good, particularily for children, who either never lived with their BP's, or only lived with them when they were very young. Older children I do admit may benefit somewhat, but littilies, I'm sorry but I really do not see the benefits at all.I know that when I was adopting 11 years ago, if I saw that a child had "direct contact" then I simply dismissed that child on that fact alone and I am sure I wasn't the only one doing this.

Lillie - people have been handed down terms of imprisonment for remarks on Twitter. It would be perfectly possible to do the same for unauthorised contact with a child on Facebook, as happens now with known paedophiles who attempt to contact children on Facebook, etc. (if/when they are discovered/reported). The difference here is that our children targeted by unwanted birth family contact have robust, exhaustively assessed premium adoptive parents to fight their corner! No problem with discovering/reporting there. We just needed the support of SS and the legal system. Now we WILL have the support of the legal system and SS will be obliged finally to take this seriously.Let anyone dare mess with our children on Facebook now!

Thanks for your perspective jmk - very valuable as an adoptee, and I can tell you my adult dd would agree with you entirely.

AT LAST!Every generation and every 'branch' of my children's family are paedophiles.Yet every year I am expected to write the sweet and sickly letter telling them how well their children are doing with all my hard work. I don't tell them anything upsetting or negative for fear of upsetting them. I argue constantly about the inclusion of photo's. I never get anything useful for the children in return.It was even suggested that I should keep it up more regularly for my son so that should we have problems with him in the future he will have something to fall back on.And all because the children were all to young or to special needs to give evidence and so no-one have ever had a conviction. Common sense perhaps at last. We are not looking after these children temporarily. We are moving them on to something much much better.

sooo sooo glad to read this my son had contact letterbox many years ago when places we dutily sent letters and for a year or so brill, them bm stopped to hard for her and so forth. my son was gutted angry and bewildered as to why it was hard for her.after all he was adopted and had moved not her.he refused to do contact after that and even now at 20 says it was wrong of ss to start it in the first place.he has used a veto to stop her contacting him for a x number of years.this is music to my ears.

But Garden, birth parents do have rights, which is why thresholds for removal to care and placement for adoption are so high - rightly so.Adoption does terminate birth parents' rights: that is the whole point of adoption, giving children new parents, equal in legal status to their birth parents, in cases where that is in the child's best interests. There is the option of long-term fostering or kinship care in those cases where birth parental input is justified and needed.I wouldn't assume either that birth parents of children removed when very young "haven't actually done anything wrong". That was very far from the case with one of ours.It isn't so much that birth parents don't have rights: they do, but their rights are trumped by their children's rights, as they should be.There is a reason prospective and actual adopters do not tend to like contact, and that is because they want to be parents, and not carers. If birth parents are so dangerous that adoption is the plan, common sense should dictate that contact should not be a given, but only granted when it can be fully justified by circumstances and child-led needs.I think adoptive parents can easily foster anxiety about birth parents in their children by too conscientious a focus on life story work and letterbox, etc. entirely without meaning to, obviously. I think I was guilty of this with my older son and I have a much, much lighter touch with my younger ones. Adoption and their birth family history is by no means tabu and we discuss it as it comes up naturally, but the focus is very much on the here and now and on our own family. For the record, I am not at all angry with my children's birth parents. On the contrary I feel for them very much. My anger is aroused much more by social workers and others' sloppy and cavalier acceptance of e.g. Facebook contact, and apparent indifference to the significant harm it can do to children. Now THAT makes me MAD!

Thanks for posting Fruitcake, I can hardly believe it! I am not anti some sort of contact - we don't actually get letters from any of the bps of my children, but I can see how some sort of contact might be beneficial to my two. However I do fear Facebook and the like - the idea that there is (was) no control over who may contact our children or recourse in law if harm is caused, is terrifying frankly. My older dd isn't on Facebook yet - or at least, a girl at school put her on in order to bully her , but we removed the account and dd accepted that. I avoid discussing Facebook with her and have never mentioned anything re bps being on it, for fear she might look them up or make contact behind my back. I think actually that is very very unlikely at the moment - doing it behind my back, I mean, not doing it at all - but who knows what could happen as she gets older?Our children are children for longer than most and I don't think anyone child is grown up at, say 16, so what chance ours? It's good to think the powers that be will have to change their attitudes and might actually understand that birth families can continue to be harmful long after early childhood is over. (And I have NO feelings of anger towards my dds' bps at all, and have every sympathy with them in fact, but they are not suitable people to influence my girls while they are still at a vulnerable age.)

Have not been able to read the article as yet, but can I just clarify does this apply just to contact with birth parents or restricting all birth family contact, including grandparents and siblings as the title suggests.We currently have LB contact with BM, older siblings in LTF with extended family and direct contact with younger siblings also adopted. There have been some benefits but also dreadful fall out and security issues. That said I was interested in Gardens comments: “What worries me is that the Government is dead set on increasing the number of adoptions and looking at issues that they think are a hindrance to adopters coming forward. Somewhere, they have decided that adopters don't like contact and so have decided to stop it - it's not because of evidence re outcomes as far as I can see.”I share the same concerns, but do feel in some cases there has been an element of bullying in the past to get adoptive parents to agree to inappropriate contact that suits BPs rather than being in the child’s best interest. Certainly ”one size does not fit all” in matters of adoption.Social media developments such as Facebook and the internet have had a massive impact on contact in relation to modern adoption, especially with BP’s regularly using made up names and unusual spellings of names. I was just musing, what if they had used the practice of LB and direct contact in the 60s and 70s? I wonder what sort of outcomes and experiences they would they have recorded back then, without the internet, mobile phones etc. to aid tracing, and in a time when children had more common place names such as Janet and John, different times I know.I am really pleased that this issued is being looked at, very interesting to see that the pendulum is swinging back to the practices of the days when many adoptions involved “relinquished babies” and just hope they come up with something workable and flexible.Interesting times ahead it would seem. Penny

I totally agree with bop and Garden. I can only go on our own experience and contact by letter (and the direct contact with siblings that we instigated) has been a huge positive for my daughter. I think that this has to be considered on a case to case basis. To generalise and go down a general route of restriction for contact with birth families is dangerous. God help us that we go down the route of being a service for childless couples again. Sorry if this sounds harsh but as an adopter I was clear from the off that a huge part of my job as an adopter was to keep the links to the birth family. It is so important. The whole ethos of adoption changed to make sure that the adoption was in the best interest of the children and that included them being aware of their past and if appropriate contact with the birth family. Even if contact for the child is traumatic now, that isn't to say that parents should not keep up the dialogue with the birth family, as it may be appropriate for the child in the future. As adoptive parents we can not erase our childrens pasts, however much we may want to.

It might have been important you you nicky and your child, who I believe was older at placement? My case was different as part of a couple who were unable to have a birth child I suppose you'd class me as one of those childless couples being served by adoption. What a tactless remark to make. Your situation is unique to you and it's very sad that things have worked out as they have.My situation is different, my children are different and lb is most definitely NOT in their best interests. One size does not fit all. And believe me my children are fully aware of their backgrounds.

"There will no longer be a presumption that ongoing contact is in children's best interests".This is excellent news. The trend towards openness has, thus far, merely replaced one universal presumption (contact should never be considered) with another universal presumption (contact should always be considered). We need an approach which lends itself to case by case consideration, hopefully this is it (and it saddens me to see another presumption - that concerns around openness/contact are borne from selfishness on the part of adoptive parents. My overwhelming desire for my daughter is that she feels secure within her adoptive family - I won't allow anything to compromise that).

Whilst I agree you can't generalise as whether contact should or should not be restricted as it depends on the child, the BF and their specific circumstances, I do believe that the older the child at placement the more likely it is that (subject to safety issues of course - both physical and emotional)continued contact with BF could be beneficial. The younger the child at placement, the less necessary, IMHO unless and until they are much older. Having attended two annual direct contacts with my 3 younger children (5, 2, and 1 at placement, now 8, 5 and 4) there has been a clear benefit for my 8 year old (who is also the most troubled) in that she enjoys the contact and there has been no fallout at all. However I do not think either of my younger two gain any benefit from the contact and currently I think it is quite detrimental to them in that my son seems very angry afterwards (which I think is because it triggers memories of the chaotic poorly supervised contacts they had whilst in foster care although the contact is totally different now not least because I am present) and my youngest daughter had 3 months of night terrors after the last one. I am therefore in the slightly odd position of wanting to stop contact pro temp for my younger two but continue it for my 8 year old. What I am thinking of suggesting is that the little ones only attend every second year for the next few contacts to see whether they react differently when they are older. It isn't something I need to do anything about until the latter part of the year but I am acutely aware that SS are not going to be keen as it will give them hassle from the BF. Never straightforward is it?

Hello all,Contact is of interest to us all and I am sure that it goes right to the very heart of adoption. I am an adoptee myself (yes, wow! one of those old relinquished babies - I have to say that ANY adoptee still has to deal with issues of belonging, separation and loss whatever their start, though I do bow my head to those who have suffered abuse and neglect at the hand of families who probably have suffered the cross generational passage of trauma themselves...). Contact MUST MUST MUST be about the needs of the child. It doesn't really matter what we might think or BPs really. It has to be about the child or young person's needs and those may vary wildly across time. I see that people have asked about evidence research on contact. There is lots to support many arguments. However, I am particularly interested in the well respected work of Lorne Loxterkamp (who has also written for the AUK magazine). Should anyone wish to find out what research has to say, one could do worse than read his work. I have put an abstract below. To me, the notion of contact being 'honest' chimes very loudly to me on many levels. Contact that is about sugar coating hard truths and pleasing the 'system' is not fair on anyone. I think contact is the thorniest of all the adoption issues. No easy answers here, other than for me, holding in the mind that it is the CHILD who matters most. End of. Here is the abstract:Contact and Truth: The Unfolding Predicament in Adoption and FosteringLorne LoxterkampNorth Devon CAMHS, Barnstaple, UK, ---- EMAIL REDACTED ----AbstractIt is now time to examine the crystallizing results of the social experiment of contact, direct and indirect, and to scrutinize the arguments supporting the predominant conviction that the benefits of regular contact are certain. Many adopted and fostered children who have suffered maltreatment at the hands of their birth parents have regular face-to-face meetings with them as well as routine communication in the form of cards or letters. It is commonly maintained that contact has to be beneficial because it is necessarily in the child's best interests in the long run, if not also immediately. But the predicament emerging from such cases of early maltreatment is that contact, the very thing that is meant to provide a remedy for harm, can itself be harmful and the likely cause of enduring emotional and psychological damage, even when it appears to be going well or well enough. Three recent cases seen in a clinical setting illustrate the experiences of children tormented by the effects of contact that is suffused with mendacity.