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I suppose it depends on the age of the child/ren. Younger children like either the photo albums that you can record your voice to.."Hi, I am your new Mummy" with a photo of you etc Or the laminated photos are a good idea as they can be handled alot. For older children then the more traditional album is more relevant I feel, as for what to refer to yourselves as, I would ask the childs sw for guildance on this but I do feel you should be saying Mum/ dad as that is what you are after all.Good luck, relax and enloy. All the best, bm

All I can tell you is what we did. We had 2 girls, aged 3 and 4 at the time of placement.We made up an album each, with their names and a photo of them on the front (all got from FC, who were really helpful!)Lots of stickers, pink fairies, butterflies etc to keep them interested.We bought two identical (but different colours, their individual favorite colour to help!) cuddly teddy bears. The start of the book was a picture of the bear with a bubble caption in large print saying "Hello xxxx, I am your new Teddy bear. I need a name, can you think of one for me?"Then a photo of the house, with a teddy sitting on the drive, bubble caption "This is your new home"Picture of teddy bear with paw on the front door handle "Come on in and I'll show you around"Bascially got the teddy to show the child their new home, their bedroom, the lounge, dining room, kitchen, garden, both dogs, their bedrooms (picture of teddy bear snuggled in bed, "I can't wait for you to cuddle up to me in your new bed"Even did both cars (teddy's in child seats), caravan, the lot.We had great fun staging this. The one of the both of the bears at the dining table, wife lying on the floor out of shot holding teddyes arms up so it looks like they are holding knife and fork!!!Get the idea?The teddy introduces them to everything.Last shot was my wife and I, infront of the house, with the two bears, "Mummy & Daddy can't wait for you to come home with them".FC's had these for 2 weeks before intro's (plus we did a short DVD film doing basically the same.Halfway through intro's FC's brought them to our house for an overnight stay and as soon as they came in, we gave them the teddy bears and their faces lit up and straight away wanted to "do the tour" like Teddy.......(wasn't teddy by now they had names!)Seemed to work well,Hope this helps, all the materials came from HobbyCraft, anything you need to make these up and get them to look good is there.Enjoy!

Ooh what a fantastic job you did VML3M! I thought we went to town on ours, but you really put your heart and soul into it - it was wonderful to read about it!I might use your tips for my next book. Thanks.

We are foster carers and we had a similar scenario to VML3M. Our fosterlings new Mummy and Daddy prepared a sturdy booklet. It was bright pink (favourite colour). It was a walk through journey of the house, from the outside (with Teddy sat on the step) to her new bedroom, play areas, toys etc. With pics of Mummy and Daddy too. They had used speech bubbles to tell the story of her new home. They also did a short DVD "Hello XXX can't wait to meet you...I hope that you will help me bake cakes....this is where we will all play in the garden etc...It was an excellent piece of work, and my little one loved it and read it all the time, and we watched the DVD at least 5 times a day! When Mummy and Daddy came to visit for the first time they brought Teddy and he stayed with us during visits and then eventually they all went to their new home together.It was a wonderful experience. Good luck with it all xx