Happy birthday to How To Be Adopted – 8 years old!
HTBA turns eight this autumn and much has happened in the interim.
These days it’s solely run by me, Claire, the founder. And as anyone who’s emailed me will know, it can take a little while to get back to everyone as I also have a job, two kids and a cute little doggie who insists on daily walks and cuddles.
I always try hard to do what I think I’m best at, and that’s connecting people – either to other adoptees, to a podcast or book I’ve discovered or been told about, or to other organisations that support adoptees.
The North London adoptee peer support group I set up in 2021 is turning four this month and that’s a great feeling. It’s only been possible thanks to support from Adopt London North who provide a brilliant adoptee social worker for every meeting and funding for snacks.
My award-winning local pub The Clissold Arms has been offering their meeting space free of charge for the whole four years and we are incredibly grateful to them. It’s no wonder they just won Best Community Pub in London – do check them out and leave a review if you enjoy your visit.
I should also mention my local estate agent Tatlers who have been kind enough to sponsor our Christmas lunch for three years. It’s lovely to get the funding from them, but what touches my heart every year is that they always reply enthusiastically about the importance of supporting “such a worthwhile cause”. It’s always a nice surprise when people connect with the cause – adopted children is one thing, but adults? That’s never going to be a fundraising no-brainer!
Since my experience of burnout in 2023, the wonderful Rachel and Lindsey have taken over the role of liaising with the Clissold and Adopt North London as well as welcoming new members to the group, ensuring they feel comfortable and have read and agree to the group guidelines. Thank you Rachel and Lindsey from the bottom of my – and so many other’s – hearts. Without you taking over at the helm, the group may well have been consigned to history; an urban legend. Instead, we get new queries all the time and people travel from far and wide to meet other adoptees, share their experiences and learn and heal in community. Bravo to these amazing humans for steering the good ship HTBA North London!
On that note, the reason people travel from far afield is that we still haven’t achieved my aim of having an adoptee group in every town and city in the UK. We do, however, have many groups in various stages of development – from fully-fledged, like London, Manchester and Bristol, to newly formed and attempting to get off the ground, like Tunbridge Wells.
Ch-ch-ch changes
What started as a fairly manageable task for me – connecting adoptees with others who lived near them – has become fairly time consuming as more people get in touch and I’ve had to learn the geography of different parts of the country (it’s all north of the Watford Gap to me!) Ideally, we’d have a ‘champion’ in each area of the UK who was happy to be contacted directly, taking me out of the equation as I can be a bit of a bottleneck! If anyone wants to put themselves forward for this, please get in touch.
Another big change that happened gradually was coming off social media. Around the time of my burnout I was finding a slight increase in trolling – which I know logically can be a consequence of getting more exposure, so a sign of achievement in many ways.
However, because of my emotional state and because some of this was coming from other adoptees (!), it definitely got to me and I drew back. The final straw was the whole thing with Twitter being bought by you-know-who, which meant a return to Twitter was out of the question. That felt strange and a little sad as it was where HTBA started essentially – I regularly posted my provocative thoughts on the adoption industry anonymously – such as ‘Stop Celebrating National Adoption Week at Downing Street’ and ‘Long Lost Family Is Not Representative of The Adoptee Experience’ and got into heated debates with adoptive parents and TV producers.
Thanks to the subsequent rise in awareness and new adoptee organisations joining the ecosphere, these provocative opinions are more mainstream now, even if they haven’t all been taken on board or acted upon by adoption agencies and adoption charities, there are far fewer people missing the nuance of adoption than there once were.
So no return to Twitter on the cards, but I’d love to be more active on Instagram as I miss discovering new adoptees on the scene and finding out what’s happening internationally.
What have Gilli and Lara been up to?
Of course, over the years, How To Be Adopted has been greatly enhanced by the input of the wonderful Gilli Bruce and Lara Leon. They’ve both been up to wonderful things which are changing many lives.
Gilli works for PAC-UK and is a private counsellor too. She is currently training therapists and counsellors working in adoption in a training programme she devised with PAC-UK. This is reason to be happy because, in case you didn’t know, the previous widely used training on offer was written by an adoptive parent, not an adoptee. It was this training that counsellors had to complete to be Ofsted-registered and allowed to work with adopted people. (The 3rd anniversary of having this law overturned is 18th December!)
Gilil’s upcoming courses are sold out in London, with a few spaces left in Leeds on Nov 25th. Find out more
Lara has written a book which is out now. Entitled Adopted and Seen, the book is also a journal. Find out more and get Lara’s book.
Visit Lara’s popular YouTube channel.
Who knows, one day these two powerhouses of insight and empathy might reunite for another adoptee retreat. Fingers crossed!
Birthday cakes!
Personal news
In personal news, I have had a lot to navigate which I wasn’t feeling able to share with the community at the time. I experienced a breakdown in my relationship with my biodad which, after, 12 years of meeting up and talking regularly, was a huge blow. When I say a huge blow, I mean catastrophic in terms of my self-worth and impact on my immediate family. Funny how I didn’t feel brave enough to share this with my community at the time - ironic that I’m busy setting up peer groups but not comfortable with being vulnerable myself.
My birth mother was recently taken critically ill and visiting her in the hospital where I was born (and relinquished) in the mindset of potentially having to say goodbye was incredibly triggering to say the least. If that sounds like something from a film, that’s because much what we adoptees navigate is a bit like that – we’re incredibly strong and resilient and we don’t always realise the impact on our nervous systems.
My most proud achievement of recent months was my appearance on Women’s Hour. (You can download the file which is 55MB. The segment on adoption starts at 15:50 and my interview starts at 20:43.)
Escapism escapes me
Adoption keeps popping up in books and TV shows I’m trying to enjoy for escapism - was very much looking forward to Frauds with Jodie Whittaker and Surranne Jones, for example! I’ve noticed a rise in adoption experts being consulted for TV shows, such as Riot Women, which is positive. But these consultants are not always adoptees. Why is this I wonder? Answers on a postcard…
I haven’t seen as many adoptee plays, exhibitions, etc, as I would have liked to recently. If you’re looking for something that hits the nail on the head from an adoptee-persepective I still whole-heartedly recommend the film Return to Seoul.
Other highlights
The other pleasing surprise was the popularity of the blog by Pamela Hodgkins on the History of Adoption in England and Wales. So many views. If you want to hear more from Pam comment below or email me and we will see what we can do!
I also had my first adoptee get in touch thanks to finding How To Be Adopted via ChatGPT! Pretty chuffed with that.
Other adoptee organisations
Remember the other adoptee organisations out there that are well worth connecting with:
If you have any more please list them in the comments and/or email me.
Big love!
Claire x