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Hi Lydia,

I'm a single adopter and in the family finding stage of the adoption journey. I wasn't given a log to fill in as such. I had a prep course, then a home study which was about 5-6 months and finally I sat before a panel to be approved for adoption. We were given a list of books to read and I have been doing as many courses as I can on trauma/attachment theory, therapeutic parenting and life story work ect. Here are some of the books I have read: Creating Loving Attachments" By Kim S. Golding and Daniel A. Hughes "The Unofficial Guide to Adoptive Parenting" by Sally Donovan. "The Simple Guide to Child Trauma" and "The Simple Guide to Understanding Shame in Children" by Betsy de Thierry. "Re-parenting the Child Who Hurts" by Christine Archer and Christine Gordon.

Besty de Thierry has a website and I was very fortunate to attend an event she was hosting in Scotland just before lock down. I have also been doing a few webinars online since lock down. These have been through Children in Scotland who are a charity who run event/training courses on a regular basis. One of which was on Life Story work with Dr Richard Rose. You can access learning material through his website under resources: https://www.childtraumaintervention.com/our-services/therapeutic-life-story-work/

You can also find YouTube presentations with Dr Dan Hughes

Also anything with Dr Bruce Perry is good as well.

Here is a link to more information: https://beaconhouse.org.uk/resources/

That should keep you going for a while! :-) All the best with your adoption journey!

Thank you so much Sydney very helpful information. I’m currently reading flying solo by Julia Wise and Adopting a child by Julia Lord.

I’ll definitely take a look At the other books as well.

I teach (older ones), and included notes or certificates from CPD courses and awaydays on special needs, diversity etc.

But if you have teacher training that includes an understanding of children's early years development that would be very relevant. Children with disrupted early years often don't match their age group developmentally, but they still need to accomplish some developmental steps before they can move on to further ones. So having knowledge of the different steps can really help you to provide them with the opportunities they need for each stage.

Have you found the prospective single adopters group on facebook?

Sally Donovan’s book No Matter What is also really good - as it’s her own story - there used to be a series of similar - personal adoption journeys with different issues / ages - available through BAAF - and Adopters on Adoption and Parents for Children which were people’s different stories - you might be able to find some second hand on Amazon

Thank you everyone for the tips I will look for the single adopters group on Facebook and get some of the other books etc.

There's a good BBC Podcast on Adoption also 15,000 kids and counting is a good watch which was a channel 4 documentary I accessed on line.

As well as the book mentioned by others I've found the Cathy Glass fostering books good as an insight in children's behaviour and how she dealt with them.