The dread of telling a therapist you're adopted in case they pull the plug

I’ve just found an EMDR therapist who sounds amazing. We had a brilliant initial chat over the phone, and we talked about felt safety, emotional regulation, fight/flight/freeze/fawn, triggers, early childhood experiences and much more. I am excited to hopefully work with her.

EMDR is one of the therapies I haven’t tried yet, after many years of talking therapy, some cranial sacral therapy and a fairly frustrating experience with CBT.  

However.

I haven’t mentioned that I’m adopted.

And I’m betting that the therapist isn’t Ofsted registered.

Which means I can’t mention that I’m adopted, or she will have to cease treating me immediately. If she doesn’t cease, she will be breaking current law in England and Wales. However, if I don’t tell her I’m adopted, am I breaking the law??

This could be interesting. How many sessions can I get through without mentioning I’m adopted! There are certainly early experiences I would love to tackle that can be talked about without the pre-knowledge, but I’m guessing it wouldn’t be nearly as useful as if the therapist had all that detail.

What a frustrating dilemma I find myself in. And I know hundreds of you have had similar experiences.

This is why we need to challenge the Ofsted law. It’s clearly a mistake that nobody considered properly when the responsibility of adoption moved from the Department of Health to the Department of Education.

If you haven’t yet filled in the government consultation, please do so. It takes around 15 minutes, maybe a bit longer if you have any additional educational needs – as there is a bit of reading to do to understand the way the questions are worded.

 Respond to the consultation now: deadline 20 March

And importantly, please forward the consultation to any current or past therapists and counsellors. I’m sending it on to the counsellors who have turned me down in the past and said they wish they didn’t have to. Well, now is your chance to change the law and get your wish! We need as many practitioners as possible to fill it in.

And, for the record, I think therapists should still have specialist training in adoption (from an adoptee perspective, not an adoptive parent perspective as seems to be much more common), but I do not think Ofsted need to gatekeep this. We are adults and we are very capable of enquiring if a therapist has taken any specialist training. Whether the current Barnardo’s training that Osted require is adequate is another story. Let’s get this law changed first and then we can look to improve training for therapists if required.

More info on the proposed changes can be found here

Photo by Isabela Drasovean on Unsplash 

Introducing Adult Adoptee Movement

Thanks to Claire and How To Be Adopted for inviting us to introduce ourselves here. We are baby scoop era adoptees living in the UK, who came together in May 2022 during the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) parliamentary inquiry into historic forced adoptions. We aim to raise adoptee voices and campaign on issues that affect adult adoptees, in order to change the narrative and to improve things not only for us but for younger adoptees too. We believe that at our stage in life we have a perspective on adoption that we did not have when we were younger and that our lived experience and insights can inform policy makers and service providers. Adult adoptees are rarely part of the conversation and we want to change that.

Our first task was to write a response to the JCHR report, which we published in October 2022. We are still (as of February 2023) waiting for the government’s response to the Committee report, which was due in September 2022. We have had an email reply from the Department for Education but it echoes the evidence given to the Committee by then-Secretary of State Nadhim Zahawi, and it does not sound like the government will take responsibility for the state’s role in forced adoptions and issue an apology. We are asking for a lot more than an apology and you can read our full response on our website.

One of our recommendations was to remove the requirement for those providing counselling and therapy to adult adoptees to be registered with Ofsted. The government is now consulting on this change in England and you can respond to the consultation up to 20 March 2023. We will be responding as a group and we will make our response public. We support the proposal but have concerns about what unregulated services will look like, and about how we will actually get the help we need.

If you would like to learn more you can visit our website where you will find profiles of our founding members, links to our response to the report, some resources and a series of blogs we have written. You can also follow us on Twitter or sign up to our newsletter. If you are an adoptee and would like to join our Facebook support group you can find it here.

We love the work that HTBA does and will continue to advocate for adoptee-led services and organisations to be at the centre of any support for adoptees.

Adult Adoptee Movement, 
February 2023

Thoughts on the PAC-UK adoptee day in London for NAW 2022

Last year PAC-UK put on a day of adoptee voices for National Adoption Week online – and Gilli and I were speakers on the day and participated in the Q&A.

This year, PAC-UK put on both an online day and an in-person day. HTBA’s Lara Leon spoke at the online day about her research into the wellbeing of adopted people. Many people got in touch to say how much Lara’s talk resonated.

The in-person day was a welcome addition to the NAW calendar which tends to be 80% adoptive parents talking about “their” adoption journey in the newspapers and on the radio (the BBC in particular seem to be allergic to hearing from adopted people – even recently producing a podcast about the language used about care leavers, and only interviewing an adoptive parent).

PAC asked me to speak at the London event about coming out of the fog. Once I sat down the prepare my talk, I realised there is far too much to condense into a 20-min talk, and that I would not be able to speak to every experience in the room. So, I decided to speak from my own experience of coming out of the fog after I became a mother and how things are still very much a work-in-progress for me. If it would be helpful, I could record the talk and make it available for those who weren’t available to attend?                                                                                        

The main focus of the day was making connections with other adopted people and sharing our experiences. There were three workshops running, of which people could choose two to attend:

·      Identity

·      Reunion

·      Art therapy

I helped out with the identity workshops and today I have been thinking about the emotions and experiences shared. Firstly, it’s always interesting to note how varied people’s experiences are – from being born in a mother and baby home in the 1960s to being born in another country entirely. And, for the first time for me, there were much younger adoptees present who have a number of difficult experiences from their early years prior to being adopted. However, as always when adopted people get together, the similarities also shine though. A common refrain heard throughout the day was, “Oh my god, I thought it was just me who felt like that!” and “I’m so glad you shared that, so I’m not a freak after all!”. Even some of the younger adoptees said they managed to score a “full house” in the adoptee bingo list of ‘symptoms’ that I shared, including anxiety, rejection sensitivity, rage, people pleasing and many more. Incredibly sobering to think how we are all carrying these challenges with us as we go about our lives.

One strong theme that shone out was the number of people who had a racial, cultural or religious identity that was erased by social services and their adoptive parents. They have subsequently struggled to reconnect with this part of their identity in adulthood / post getting their adoption files or doing a DNA test. Some of the younger adoptees added that due to their early experiences of abuse and neglect meant that they had chosen to reject aspects of their identity including where they were born and names they were given.

At the end of the day, PAC-UK asked us to write down thoughts and suggested actions for adoptive parents, social workers and policy makers to take forward. It will be interesting to find out how many of these suggestions from people who have lived through the process are taken on board and changes made.

The feeling I am left with is one of absolute awe that we as adoptees keep getting back up, keep doing such courageous things every single day that no one else may ever understand. And all this while holding down a job or study, looking after a family, renewing the car insurance and checking in on an elderly neighbour, because – after all – there is no ‘coming out of the fog’ leave from work, and no ‘embarking on adoption reunion’ leave from college. We soldier on with no government support and no societal recognition. It can be a lonely place when we try to share what we are going through with family and friends who have swallowed the Long Lost Family propaganda. That’s why connecting with one another is so important.

With that in mind, PAC-UK have launched a closed Facebook group for adopted people, so get in touch with PAC-UK to join.

Keep an eye on our Eventbrite page for upcoming events - including a retreat in the Lake District 2023. We’ve also just launched a monthly Zoom for Patreon members, and our North London in-person group goes into its second year soon.

If you’re interested in starting or joining a HTBA group in your area, please reach out.

If you were at any of the events this week, drop a hello in the comments as I didn’t manage to get everyone’s details.

Lots of love, take good care as you process all the emotions of NAW.

Big love. Claire x

PS. I had a poem prepared to read, but the nerves got the better of me and a totally forgot. It’s dedicated to anyone who’s struggled with people pleasing and co-dependency.

Mary Oliver, The Journey

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice -

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voice behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do -

determined to save

the only life that you could save.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

7 tips for adoptees who are new to this blog

Hello! You may have seen us in The Guardian and are curious as to what it’s all about. Adopted people needing support? What for!? Well, a warm welcome! You’re about to find out what the challenges are and how we’ve been campaigning for change in support for adopted people.

Here at How To Be Adopted, we have been pondering what it means to be adopted for a number of years. (Feels like longer, says my husband!) So, if you’ll permit us we wanted to share what we’ve learned in 7 tips, covering the journey we’ve been on:

1. Read, watch and listen to all the adoptee content

   Many people start with this stage, almost like a hyper-fixation, you consume as much as you can find - from books, to podcasts and blogs. A popular pitstop at this stage is all six series of the podcast AdopteesOn - caution, may leave you crying on the kitchen floor with relief and recognition. Anne Heffron’s You Don’t Look Adopted is a popular book choice, and her Instagram is full of truth bombs.

   This Paul Sunderland video on addiction and adoption is important, but very hard hitting. Make sure you have someone to hold your hand while you watch.

2. Find someone you trust to talk to

   It’s quite common to withdraw a little at this stage as you’re processing everything you’re reading and learning. You may find that people you thought were a safe sounding board are bringing their own opinions to the table when you really need someone to listen. If you have an understanding friend or partner, bravo. Otherwise you may want to find a therapist. This is where we break the bad news that adoption-competent therapists are thin on the ground in the UK as they have to be registered with Ofsted to treat adopted people. PAC-UK are a good option at this stage, ask if your local authority funds any therapeutic sessions with them. If not, the phoneline is a godsend.

3. Connect with other adoptees

   How To Be Adopted is a good place to start. We hold regular adoptee events in person and online including the North London adoptee group. The next one is 15th October 2022 10am-3pm, a virtual retreat to boost our wellbeing before National Adoption Week. Find out more and book

   We’ve put together a list of the adoptee peer groups we know about in the UK. In the US there’s AdopteesConnect.

   Another UK organisation who run events is Adoptee Futures.

4. Stay boundaried on social media

   Following on from the above, you may head to social media to connect with other adopted people. It’s worth knowing that Twitter can be a really tough place to be, so take it very easy! Instagram is slightly kinder, in my experience.

5. Get support for search and reunion

   Sadly, reunion is rarely like Long Lost Family. If it’s something you’re thinking about, PAC-UK is a good start as are Barnardo’s and Family Connect. These are for England and Wales. The important thing to remember is, if reunion doesn’t work out, it’s not your fault - these are relationships for which we have no blueprint and many birth parents carry a lot of shame (this is not our shame to carry, by the way!)

6. Look after your wellbeing and stay in the body

   You may want to consider other therapies on top of / instead of talking therapy. We cannot recommend anything in particular, but some adopted people have found cranial sacral therapy, reiki, EMDR, massage, somatic therapy and music therapy helpful.

   Coming out of the fog, as it’s referred to, is a very emotional, draining time for many. So prioritise your wellbeing as much as you can. At this stage you might start learning about the nervous system and realise that you have been living in flight/fight/freeze/fawn. Be compassionate with yourself. Try to stay grounded (exercise from Gilli below), and consider anything that takes you into the body, such as yoga, swimming, walking, gardening. The Body Keeps The Score is an important read.

7. Check the credentials of support organisations

   There are a number of organisations who purport to offer support for adopted people. It’s important to look into this, as the big ones are actually set up by and run for adoptive parents. That’s not to say you shouldn’t use them, but be aware.

To stay in the loop about our events and campaigns, sign up to the How To Be Adopted mailing list

Gilli’s grounding exercise

Some signs that you may be ‘ungrounded’ include:

• You get distracted easily

• Feeling spaced out

• An inability to concentrate with focused attention

• You over-think or ruminate

• You engage in personal dramas

• You experience anxiety and perpetual worrying

• A sense of urgency, a need to be fast-paced as if everything needs to happen right now

Physical clues may include:

• Poor sleep patterns and on-going fatigue

• Inflammation

• Poor circulation

• Palpitations or feeling as though your heart is racing

• Knotted stomach or tension in the body

• You feel fidgety and it is hard to sit still and relax properly

Research on grounding has been accumulating over the last 15 years and there is growing evidence that grounding techniques will:

• Elevate mood

• Reduce emotional stress

• Improve immune responses and reduce inflammation

• Improve blood flow

• Improve sleep, rest and relaxation

Grounding techniques

Cover your crown – place one or both hands over your crown, close your eyes,

breathe deeply and mentally push yourself down gently for 30 -60 seconds.

Feel your feet – stand or sit and put all your attention into your feet. Feel any

sensations of socks, shoes, floor surface, temperature etc. 30-60 seconds.

Stand like a tree – stand with your feet parallel and at least shoulder’s width apart.

Keep your head floating above your body, chin tucked in and spine straight. Rest

your hands at your side or on your navel. Without collapsing your posture – sink all

your weight and tension into your feet, allowing it to sink deeper and out into the

ground below. Imagine roots growing from your feet and out into the ground.

Extend these roots out to the sides like the roots of an old oak tree. Extend them

deeper into the ground. Strengthen a sense of being so firmly rooted into the

ground that nothing could blow you over – you are firmly anchored into the ground

and are part of it. Hold this for 60-90 seconds.

Follow your breath – focus on the sensation of the breath and track it as it enters

the nose, down into the lungs and back out again. Don’t force the breath to change

just notice it. In particular pay attention to the space between the outbreath and the

next in-breath – this is the moment when the body enjoys total stillness and where

you will find it.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Closed adoption in Aotearoa New Zealand - new book 'Adopted' by Jo Willis and Brigitta Baker

THE EXPERIENCE OF CLOSED ADOPTION IN AOTEAROA

To not know your family story is a huge loss of your sense of self. It has the potential to undermine your wellbeing and your relationships across a lifetime.

Adopted is the powerful and honest account of two of the thousands of children adopted during the era of closed adoption in Aotearoa New Zealand, between 1955 and the early 1980s.

Jo Willis and Brigitta Baker both sought and found their respective birth parents at different stages of their lives and have become advocates for other adopted New Zealanders. They share the complexity of that journey, the emotional challenges they faced, and the ongoing impacts of their adoptions with candour and courage.

Closed adoption also exacts a physical and emotional toll on birth parents, partners and children. Their stories are also told in this compelling book.

Adopted is the new memoir by Jo Willis & Brigitta Baker, published 11 August 2022 by Massey University Press. You can pre-order the book here – it will be shipped to you upon publication.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Brigs (Brigitta) Baker has been in reunion with her birth family since 2008. Her professional experience ranges from leadership and advisory roles in the private and public sectors, to senior level consulting positions within human resources, leadership development and organisational development. She is a qualified coach and experienced workshop facilitator — skills she now uses in mentoring and supporting adopted people.

Jo Willis longed to know the truth about her birth family when she was growing up and was reunited with them with the help of Jigsaw. The journal she kept from the age of 16 helped her process her experience and navigate the impact of adoption. The journal was the beginning of a collaborative work that became Adopted. She is a passionate supporter of adopted people and advocate for legislative change.

Photo of Jo Willis taken by Florence Chavin

THE TEN QUESTION Q&A WITH WILLIS AND BAKER

Q1: What prompted you to share your story?

JW: This is the book I wished that I could have read secretly under my duvet when I was only just surviving. I needed someone who had been there, understood and could lead me through this and out the other side. It was time to speak up and begin to deconstruct the dominant narrative that adoption is a positive experience with no impact on any of the parties involved. Adoption is no one’s first choice. It is a westernised solution that has loss at its core. By debunking the myths, those directly impacted by this experience can regain their sense of worth and dignity and access help to heal and redress barriers limiting their wellbeing.

BB: For me, I had kept a journal of the search for my birth mother, so there was a point when I was reading back on what I’d written and thought, ‘This might be useful for other people.’ It was around that time I was introduced to Jo and found she’d been working on a book for several years, so it seemed natural to collaborate. I think for both of us it is summarised in the description we use of this book as being ‘a hand to hold through the adoption journey.’

Q2: How did you meet each other?

JW: I had been writing a version of the book — a mish- mash of thoughts on my own adoption journey and reflections from adopted people/clients about what they needed. The book had stalled because I was going through a patch of being tired of doing it on my own. I needed to partner with someone who had writing acumen and who was as passionate as I am about helping our peers and educating others about the impact of adoption. I mentioned this to my admin support person in the adoption team and within days she said ‘Can you ring Brigitta Baker? She is an adopted person inquiring about searching . . .

and by the way she wants to write a book.’ I called Brigs immediately!

BB: I was wanting to find out more about my birth father, so I contacted the Adoption Services team in Napier. I was chatting to the women who answered my call and mentioned that I was thinking of writing a book about reunion, and she said, ‘Oh, my boss is writing a book on adoption too — you should talk to her.’ We met for a coffee, and it was honestly the most validating experience I’d ever had as an adopted person. I left feeling for the first time that I wasn’t alone in this.

Q3: What do you hope people will get out of reading the book?

JW: We have spent literally decades unravelling the impact of early separation and growing up under the closed-adoption system through books, articles and therapy to understand the full impact that our adoptive experience has had on us. I hope that Adopted will offer deeper understanding and insight into this experience for all involved. I hope that those affected by adoption will see that the issues challenging them are not them being bad or that something is wrong with them but that it is a totally understandable, even predictable, response to a devastating experience.

BB: An understanding of the unconscious trauma inflicted on adopted people through disconnection from their birth family, the potential impacts of unprocessed grief and loss for all parties in the adoption circle, a sense of how common these experiences are and the toll they can take on relationships. I hope that it also promotes a more open dialogue about this topic in a country that had one of the highest rates of closed adoption in the Western world.

Jo Willis is an adopted person and a specialist in the field of adoption counselling, coaching and education. She is viewed as a leader in personal development within the adoption field. As an adolescent, she lobbied local and national politicians for amendments to be made to the 1955 Adoption Act. At the age of 21 she was reunited with her birth family.

Brigs (Brigitta) Baker was adopted during the closed-adoption era, and has been in reunion with her birth family since 2008. Her professional experience includes human resource management, leadership development and coaching. She is currently training in both psychotherapy and counselling, with the aim of working more deeply with adopted people to help them process their experiences.

Q4: How does being adopted affect your sense of self?

JW: Growing up, and well into adulthood, I felt something was missing. Reunion with my birthparents went some way towards filling the void but not all the way. Adopted people seldom see themselves as complete. They can feel that a part of them/something is missing and often blame themselves. There has been no acknowledgement that this might be due to their adoption experience.

BB: Unlike Jo, I didn’t grow up with any sense that something was ‘missing’ for me. I was in complete denial that adoption and not knowing anything about my birth heritage or whakapapa had any impact on me. I bought into the philosophy that I was a blank slate, a sponge that absorbed everything I needed from the family I grew up in. I had no curiosity about my biological history or the stories that pre- dated me. It wasn’t until the birth of my eldest daughter (who according to everyone was the spitting image of me) that I even allowed myself to think that I might have missed out on something; that I, too, might look like other people out there somewhere in the world. My sense of identity was completely welded to the ‘fake history’ of being the natural child of my adoptive parents. Not being in a relationship with my family of origin until I was almost forty meant I had to reconstruct this understanding of ‘self’ decades after most people begin the process.

Q5: Did your relationship with your adopted family change when you started looking for your biological family?

JW: I didn’t tell my adoptive family when I first started searching for my birth family. I thought that they would be anxious for me and maybe even protective of me doing this. Or they might have wanted to help. I wanted to protect them and also not have an additional emotional element in the mix. I also felt I was being disloyal to them. I wanted to do this on my own for all these reasons. While I was terrified of what I might discover, it was also incredibly empowering to take action on my own.

I told my adoptive parents after I had met both my birth parents, Sue and Tony. I was very nervous but it was a ’good’ story to tell. They were genuinely happy for me. They were also amazingly welcoming of both birthparents into all of our lives. My adoptive mother expressed that ‘there was enough love to go around’. Once we could all be open about this, my relationship with my adoptive family flourished due to acceptance and inclusivity.

BB: Internally the relationship changed hugely for me, but wanting to be the ‘good girl’, I worked damned hard not to show it. I probably wasn’t very successful, as I felt a great

deal of internal conflict about trying to keep both my adoptive and birth families happy at all times. The tension I felt whenever we were all together leaked out. My daughters talk about that in the book, which was really tough to read.

It was almost a sense of whiplash for me — swinging from feeling that anything prior to being adopted was irrelevant, to feeling like I wanted to reject everything associated with my adoptive family. It was quite dramatic and for a long time I felt anchorless. Even now, when someone asks me where I’m from, I don’t know how to answer, nor do I have a strong sense of where my roots are. That is something taken away from us in closed adoption. I know for some adopted people they feel strongly aligned with their adoptive family, for others, they can comfortably stand with their feet grounded in both their birth and adoptive families, and some are estranged from both. It’s still a ‘work-on’ for me.

Q6: You have included the words of your birth parents, partners and children, which provide an insight into how adoption affects the wider family. What led to the decision to do this?

JW: We wanted to illuminate these issues and educate about the complexity, the emotional challenges, the legacy of adoption for all parties involved — partners, children, friends — because compassion and empathy flow from understanding, which is healing for all. The residue from adoption trauma oozes into relationships and I felt guilty about how my adoption-related emotional and psychological baggage landed heavily on those I loved. I wanted people to understand that this was an almost-predicable aspect of the terrain and for adopted people to take responsibility for their part in the dynamic. Self-empowerment and growing beyond these limiting patterns is life changing.

BB: Early on Jo and I talked about how many adoption stories tended to be one-sided and what a point of difference it might be to try to tell our stories from multiple viewpoints. I know when I’d read these books, I would find myself wondering what the other ‘players’ in the story were thinking, and what their experience was like. We were very privileged that our families were willing to be part of this work, and we’ve had lots of feedback on how much readers have enjoyed this aspect of the book. All of the interviews we did added so much richness to the story, and the addition of my daughters’ contributions right at the last moment before the book was printed was an absolute gift. Up until that point they hadn’t really been old enough to contribute in the way Jo’s children had — but one of our editors encouraged me to submit these additional sections. The girls were both incredibly honest in what they shared — there were certainly some brutal truths I had to face in reading the first draft!

Q7: It is a very personal subject and was no doubt a difficult process at times. At any point did you feel that it was going to be too challenging?

JW: Oh, yes, many times, especially before I met Brigitta. Writing one’s intimate experience (which for me began as a cathartic release in a personal journal) brought me face to face with deep insecurities, incredibly confusing and painful emotions, and challenges to my core beliefs. This can be a heavy load to manage on one’s own. Alongside my personal writing and healing I was also an adoption social worker and counsellor for adopted people which at times triggered my own pain and mirrored my own struggle. The adoption journey is life long; so many times during the writing I faced challenges in the relationship with my birth mother or myself. This was hard because at times it felt as if adoption was literally consuming all of me and permeating every aspect of my life. It was extremely intense. Teaming up with Brigs brought more lightness and ease to the process. I’m so grateful for this collaboration, as I’m not sure this book would have ever seen the light of day without it!

BB: Hell yes! Too many points to name. We had no issue creating content we felt was going to be of value, so during that phase of the work I felt invigorated, and the writing flowed. What felt hard and overwhelming at times was trying to pull it all into a structure that made sense and would appeal to an audience. It was also extremely difficult dealing with the range of emotions that came from sharing such a personal story. There were times I felt I was in therapy myself rather than writing a book — delving into a lot of my own unprocessed trauma, as well as living through reunion with my birth family in ‘real time’ while working on the book. Jo and I also had to deal with being in a relationship as a writing partnership . . . and as two adopted people, we brought a lot of baggage with us that made it really tough at times! We actually had to take a few breaks over the years, and there were many occasions when we thought we just couldn’t do it. But what kept us going was the belief that if reading this story could help just one adopted person feel heard, seen, and not quite so alone in their experience, it would be worth it.

Q8: Have you been surprised at any of the feedback you have received?

JW: Both surprised, immensely delighted and profoundly moved by it. Nothing negative at all just gratitude and expressions of support from a wide range of readers, adopted and non-adopted.

BB: So far, I’ve been surprised at how overwhelmingly

supportive the feedback has been. I think Jo and I were both braced for some backlash, and that may still happen, but there has been such strong acknowledgement of how engaging and ‘real’ the approach we’ve taken is. The adoption space can be highly emotive, and many adopted people and their families simply don’t want to talk about their experience, or acknowledge that adoption might be playing out for them in ways that aren’t positive. Our aim with telling our stories is to open up the dialogue about adoption in Aotearoa in a safe and inclusive way — it impacts so many people in this country — and to respect all experiences of adoption.

Q9: What would you say to someone who is thinking about searching for their birth parents?

JW: Prepare by knowing why you want to do this, how important is it to you. Be honest with yourself about what you are seeking and how you might feel if you discover things that are not ideal. Prepare by reading about reunion experiences — for example in reunion, after the honeymoon period, how do both parties engage in a healthy relationship when both have wounds that they inadvertently project onto each other? How might you navigate loyalty towards your adoptive parents and your birth parents if applicable? Relationships are tricky and these ones can be extra tricky. Prepare by putting in place support people (personal/ professional) you know are there for you to talk to, lean on and help you, if needed, from the outset. Listen to podcasts for the lived experiences and reach out to those who have been down this path before if possible. Local adoption social workers are there to help also. Prepare for anything, nothing and everything!

BB: I would say do your work first! Ideally with the support of a counsellor or other professional. Gain an understanding of why you want to search, what you want to know and understand about yourself, what expectations you have, and what you might need if these aren’t met. Read other stories or listen to podcasts about the experiences adopted people have had searching so you have an idea of what might play out. There is now so much more content available on this subject than when Jo and I went through it, although much of it comes from overseas.

Once you start the search, have at least one person who can be one hundred percent in your corner as you go on the journey — someone who can hold space for you, cheerlead, advocate for you if and when it gets tough, and who can help you work through the emotions that will invariably come up. From my own experience, I’d also say try really hard to notice when you are falling into the ‘good and grateful’ adopted person role and putting other people’s needs before you own. At the end of the day, however, you can never be fully prepared, so accept that there is no ‘perfect’ way to do this. Nothing in life that involves secrets, shame, judgement and loss is going to be easy to navigate!

Q10: Currently a review is underway of the adoption laws in New Zealand. What do you want to see changed?

JW: Firstly I would like to hear a public acknowledgement and apology for the practices under the 1955 Adoption Act that this legislation was inhumane. Financial reparation was offered in Australia to those affected to access help, and I would like similar here in New Zealand. Adopted people are often not in a financial position to fund the support they need. Ongoing access to counselling or services that can support the development of the child, mediate relationships when required, and help all parties involved navigate this lifelong process with more ease.

I would also like new legislation to reflect our current social and cultural values and be in line with the principles behind the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, including only separating a child from their parent in exceptional circumstances and that public authorities have a duty to extend particular care to children without a family and without means of support.

There are other important elements to include around research, policy and practices regarding adoptive parents and the needs to the child; for example, that there is only one legal birth certificate with all information contained on it. I’d also like to see a child-centred law that in no way fosters secrecy, shame, or severs a child ever again from their human right to their whakapapa, lineage or family.

BB: That’s a big question! Jo and I both made lengthy submissions to the current review, but I’d certainly like to see adoption as a social and legal construct abolished in favour of some form of long-term guardianship. I absolutely recognise that there are some circumstances when it is not ideal for a child to be raised in their family of origin; however, establishing healthy attachment wherever possible to the person who carried us for the first nine months of our lives, maintaining strong connections to kin, and having access to our heritage are all critical for healthy human functioning.

The whole concept of legal ‘ownership’ of a child by parents who have no biological connection to them simply seems wrong to me. When biological parents do have to relinquish their children, we need far more education and support for them to maintain the relationship throughout the child’s developmental phases, including into their teenage years, when the search for self is so critical.

I would also love to see the financing of professional support for all New Zealanders who have been affected by adoption. We are overrepresented in all measures of compromised mental health, including addiction, depression, suicide and having higher rates of incarceration and relationship breakdown — yet there is an absolute lack of adoption- informed counsellors and therapists available.

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An update on the Ofsted regulations that obstruct counselling for adoptees in the UK

An update on the push for changes to the regulations that obstruct counselling support for those affected by adoption.

For those of you who may not be aware – there have been obstructive restrictions in place for many years in the UK, that dictate who and who can not offer counselling support to those adults affected by adoption.

 As it currently stands, young adoptees up to age 21 (25 in special circumstances) can access counselling with specific counsellors - who have completed specific costly training with a few specific providers (that’s a lot of specifics right there) and who are registered with Ofsted (as this work comes under the Department of Education). This counselling is available to support families with adoptees and I wholeheartedly agree that this group should be protected by regulations and that indeed adoption-specific training is necessary and beneficial. So far so good. The problem here, is that adult adoptees and birth mothers who had to have their babies adopted – also come under this regulation.

Why is this a problem? Well – due to the costs, limited availability and the whole procedural machine that is entailed with Ofsted regulations – hardly any independent counsellors undertake this costly training - or have the will to create the processes and procedures required to meet Ofsted standards (hats off and thanks to the few committed souls who have by the way).

So – Ofsted registered counsellors are a rare breed and availability is very patchy around the UK. I researched provision in the North and searched all counties between Birmingham and the borders of Scotland and only found 7 Ofsted registered counsellors listed – that’s for half the country! I’m sure there is more provision in London and the South but this paucity of provision across the UK makes finding support incredibly difficult (happily on-line working eases this situation somewhat).  

We have been doing what we can to get these restrictive regulations changed so that more adoptees and birth mothers can access the counselling support they need. We have badgered Ofsted (thanks go to Matthew Brazier who has been super-helpful and supportive) and generally made noise about this and have created our own support streams via blog posts, webinars and adult adoptee peer- support groups. So far so stuck. However – the GOOD NEWS is in!!

On May 25th 2022, there was a meeting in Parliament took place between The Joint Committee on Human Rights and representatives of the government – namely Mr. Nadhim Zahawi The Secretary of State for Education and Sarah Jennings the Deputy Director of Adoption, Family Justice and Care leavers, also from the department of Education.

The chair was Harriet Harman. The case put forward by the committee was entitled ‘A Right to a Family Life’ and covered the experience of unmarried women who had to give up babies for adoption between 1949-1976. (Bear with me here, adoptees are included too).

I have copied the exchange that occurred towards the end of the meeting that is relevant to adult adoptees below, If you would like to watch the whole meeting (it was actually more interesting than I expected) you can find it on line at Parliament TV Live – Wednesday 25th May 3.15- 4.08 pm, The Human Rights Joint Committee, ‘A Right to a Family Life: the adoption of children of Unmarried women 1949-1976’.

This is the exchange that relates to adult adoptees:

Sarah Jennings: Thank you, Baroness, for the question. The Secretary of State was just beginning to touch on the issue that we know has been raised through evidence to this inquiry about the barriers to accessing support because of the requirement that professionals providing therapy and support that relates to adoption services must be registered with Ofsted. We are aware that this has been raised as one of the reasons why people are struggling to access support. I think the Secretary of State was just going on to say that this is an issue that we are very keen to look at.

 Nadhim Zahawi: Currently, the requirement that services are Ofsted registered can be a barrier to adult adoptees accessing and receiving support. I want to try to get rid of any bureaucratic barriers where this will, I hope, improve service delivery. However, we need to be careful that we do not sacrifice quality, which cannot be compromised in any way. I will give you my commitment and pledge that my officials will look at the options as to how we do this. We will consult very shortly on removing the requirement for providers of support services for adult adoptees having to register with Ofsted. In practice, that should make it much easier, and also more cost effective, for these providers to run their businesses. It will mean that support is more accessible for the adults who need it.

Baroness Ludford: I am a Liberal Democrat Member of the House of Lords. You have pre-empted my question. Like others, I appreciate the empathy that you have shown, referring to injustices and pain, and to the huge and unending suffering from these traumatic experiences. You have emphasised the importance of the ability to access therapeutic counselling and say that you want to try to get rid of the bureaucratic hurdles of the Ofsted registration process without compromising quality, and that you are going to consult. First, can you give us an idea of timescale of that consultation? Was it already in the pipeline before this 11 Oral evidence: The right to family life: adoption of children of unmarried women 1949-1976 inquiry prompted you to think about that? Secondly, does removing altogether the need to register with Ofsted contain some dangers of quality dilution?

 Nadhim Zahawi: Baroness Ludford, thank you for the question. Because it is a regulatory matter, we need to consult on it. However, we have been following your deliberations and evidence here as well. When I looked at this with my officials, we thought that we should move on it quite quickly because it is something that we should be able to do reasonably well and rapidly, and in a way that does not compromise quality. I think we can do that, and it will, I hope, inject more capacity in the system.

Sarah Jennings: We are already in active discussions with Ofsted colleagues about it. I think your point about the balance of risk and how to avoid compromising quality, as the Secretary of State alluded to, is why we are very keen to make sure that we consult and that we balance those risks and seek views from the sector as well.

Baroness Ludford: Will that be soon?

Sarah Jennings: I hope so.

Chair: There have clearly been decades of unmet need in this respect and obviously you are addressing it now, as you have told us. Do you have a budget for this? Are you confident you will be able to resource this?

Nadhim Zahawi: I think so. My department will be spending £86 billion a year by 2024. It is a big department and I think we can do this and do it well.

 Chair: Perhaps when you write to us you can give us a sense of whether there will be any ring-fenced budget of any sort and what sort of scale it might be on. For these services to be high quality and accessible to those who need them, there obviously need to be funding streams behind them.

Nadhim Zahawi: I do not want to repeat myself and repeat the numbers, but I can send you the numbers on the increased investment in the NHS that I outlined earlier.

(Joint Committee on Human Rights Oral evidence: The right to family life: the adoption of children of unmarried women 1949-1976, HC 270 Wednesday 25 May 2022 Watch the meeting Members present: Ms Harriet Harman MP (Chair); Joanna Cherry MP; Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen; Lord Dubs; Florence Eshalomi MP; Lord Henley; Baroness Ludford; Baroness Massey of Darwen; Dean Russell; David Simmonds MP; Lord Singh of Wimbledon. Questions 25 - 34 Witnesses I: Nadhim Zahawi, Secretary of State, Department for Education; Sarah Jennings, Deputy Director of Adoption, Family Justice and Care Leavers, Department for Education)

So – watch this space! Fingers crossed we will be reporting changes that affect adult adoptees sooner rather than later, although I do fully recognise that there is still a need for training so that counsellors fully understand the trauma and difficulties associated with adoption. Change must come, but it must be achieved with checks and safeguards in place to ensure that when we do get counselling – it is of the highest quality and meets the needs of adoptees and birth mothers who have suffered for too long.  (Side note from Claire: this training should not be written by an adoptive parent, as we believe the current training provided by Barnardo’s is!)

 - update from Gilli Bruce

Read the full minutes from the Parliament meeting

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Burnout as an adoptee advocate

I had a great coaching session today and one of the suggestions was to share with you all about my recent experiences of burnout. While my instinct has been to hide away and wait until I feel ‘better’ and able to stand in front of you all as my ‘normal’ self, my coach suggested that it may be helpful for some of you to hear what’s been going on for me to see if you can relate to any of it.

Burnout as an adoptee advocate

In a way it’s amazing I haven’t experienced burnout before now. I am a working mother of two young children who have needed me even more since lockdown. How To Be Adopted is my passion and I worked out I am spending between 40-80 hours a month on it as a social enterprise.  Don’t get me wrong, I love it! There is nothing like the feeling of helping another adoptee feel understood and connected to their community.

However, just before our last webinar, The Long-Term Impacts Of Adoption, with the wonderful Gilli Bruce, I was experiencing physical symptoms of overwhelm in the form of shortness of breath and shaking. I wanted the webinar to go well. (Let’s be honest, I wanted it to go perfectly.) I didn’t want to let anyone down who had paid a donation to attend. Truth be told, my tech/Zoom skills are good but not great and I was worried something would go wrong. Happily, help appeared in the form of an angel volunteer (who wishes to stay anonymous) who ran all the tech for us that day. So, after all that worrying, everything was ‘alright on the night’.

Mum guilt and parenting as an adoptee

In terms of the hours I’m spending on How To Be Adopted, one could argue that’s 40-80 hours that I’m not spending with my children; helping them read, making them pancakes or even cleaning the house (lol). In normal times, I don’t have any guilt about these things as my husband does 50/50 of the ‘family load’ and I believe that I/we mostly strike the right balance between parenting and having my/our own interests. However, as my reserves get lower, the mum guilt creeps in. Parenting as adoptee is not easy and it’s something that many people reach out to me to discuss.

 I spoke to my GP who referred me to a counselling service. However, on the first Zoom call (after one minute) they said they would need to terminate the call as they were not Ofsted registered. Another blow - that I know many of you have experienced - which added to my feelings of frustration.

Finding out I have ADHD

I’m on the waiting list of a diagnosis, but all the signs are pointing in that direction. I impulsively take on way too many projects and then get overwhelmed and procrastinate. I go right up to the deadline for projects which stresses out the people I work with. (Apologies to everyone who has been waiting since last autumn for Gilli’s PDF! I just want it to be ‘perfect’ before I send it but I’m sure you’d rather just have the damn thing.)

I’ve needed some time to process all of this and reflect on the way my relationships and behaviours have been influenced over the last 40+ years.  I’ve found it incredibly helpful to meet other adoptees who also have ADHD and I know that despite the challenges it is a superpower. However, there is a knock-on effect of trying to have a career, a relationship and be a parent and friend with this additional challenge.

Effect on my husband as the partner of an adoptee

This brings me to the impact on partners of adoptees and in particular adoptee rights advocates. I’ve blogged before about the impact of all this on my partner and it got to the stage where he, quite rightly, asked me to pause things as I was clearly struggling. He also suggested that maybe we could have a nice relaxing family weekend without the mention of the novel I’m reading that introduced a lazy adoption plotline 2/3rds of the way through, or the latest Twitter back-and-forth with Nicky Campbell!

The futility of campaigning for change in adoptionland

Some days it feels like it’s all a little futile and that the powers that be don’t actually want things to change. They are paying lip service to adoptees and CEP. Seeing steering groups only filled with the ‘right’ adoptees who say the right things in the right way is box ticking. Seeing national leaders take selfies of themselves with adoptees and post them (without permission) and yet not taking a single thing that the adoptees suggested on board or feeding back to them about actions they had taken off the back of ‘listening’ to them. Let’s not even go there with the Care Review and the Unmarried Mothers Inquiry – which I still have fingers crossed we will get an apology and concrete changes, although hearing a government minister wrongly say that adoptees have enough support and can go to their GP like everyone else was infuriating.

It really does feel like we are banging our heads against a brick wall sometimes. And, to be frank, I have a life to live. I only have one wild and precious life. Do I want to devote it to the thankless task of changing an industry that doesn’t want to change? I’m essentially fighting the entire Conservative government who are openly pro-adoption and openly anti poor people – who represent the higher end of the numbers of mothers currently losing their children to adoption. Existential crisis alert! I recently read a book that challenged me to live an unremarkable life, as it’s said that is the route to happiness.

Seeing national leaders celebrating adoption at Downing Street last National Adoption Week was probably where this malaise started. Time and again we have asked them to present the full story. ‘Celebrate’ if you must, but please acknowledge the lifelong loss and trauma as well. Parading younger adoptees in front of the camera while excluding older adoptees who have spent time learning about their trauma, their coping mechanisms, and the effect of adoption on their relationships throughout their lifetime is not cool.

Comparison syndrome with other adoptee advocates

Comparison is a one-way ticket to dissatisfaction, and logically I know that. I’ve been in therapy for years and taken dozens of self-development workshops, I know this stuff! But when reserves are low it’s easy to fall into the trap of looking at what others are doing and how much funding they’ve managed to achieve.

In reality, what I’ve achieved it beyond brilliant and I’ve managed it with a young family and a job. A senior bod at PAC-UK recently said, “What you do has galvanised adopted people in a really beneficial way.”

Other organisations getting hundreds of thousands in funding to improve adoptee support

Of course, objectively this is a great thing and will help many adoptees. But I do feel that it’s partly due to my hard work, networking, campaigning and galvanising over a number of years that has led to this level of national understanding for the need for additional support. So it’s disheartening to see huge funding for what is essentially How To Be Adopted’s ideas going to a non-adoptee led organisation.

What’s next for How To Be Adopted

The next blog will be more upbeat, as I share with you my top achievements over the last 4.5 years (since 2017 when I began) as I think it’s important for me to recognise that. It will also be a chance to highlight some gems that you may not have seen/read.

I’ll be taking some time to think about where my skills will be best used as it’s clear I can no longer try to be all things to all people and to solve all of the problems with adoptee support, or lack thereof, in the UK, particularly with no funding behind me. Big thanks to the amazing Gilli Bruce, Lara Leon and my fab support network of adoptees – you know who you are! As well as the organisations who have reached out to see how they can help namely PAC-UK and Adopt London North.

The main thing I would urge you to do off the back of this blog post is to sign up to the How To Be Adopted monthly email as this will be the way we’ll be communicating for a while as we scale back the social media. You are also welcome to join the HTBA membership programme and help us shape the future of the service – thanks to our wonderful founding members for your support!

Of course, if you have any brainwaves re resourcing, funding, etc please send them over to hello@howtobeadopted.com or comment below

Claire x

Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

To my friend - a letter to my adopted friends

To my friend and who asked his birth mother for a more honest dialogue and she never replied...

To my friend who was ghosted by her birth mum...

To my friend who discovered her adoptive dad gave up a son for adoption 15 years before he adopted her...

To my friend who didn’t find any biological family until he was 76...

To my friend whose adoptive brother destroyed the letters his birth mother sent before he had a chance to read them...

To my friend who had never met her birth mum until she went to her funeral in handcuffs with a police escort...

To my friend whose adoptive mum knew her birth mother’s name but didn’t tell her while she was searching...

To my friend who travelled from America to Greece to meet her birth family...

To my friend who travelled to Korea to meet her biological father but neither of them speak the other one’s language...

To my friend who grew up black in 1980s Sweden...

To my friend who found Irish heritage but was told she can’t celebrate St Patrick’s Day because she is ‘not really Irish’...

To my friend who was told her birth mother died but she is not sure how to verify if this is true as it was an international adoption...

To my friend who never worked after having her four children because she couldn’t bear to be away from them...

To my friend whose birth mother was raped and was never able to tell a single friend that she had a daughter who was adopted…

To my friend who is extra close to her adoptive family but afraid to say in case it upsets other adoptees...

To my friend who travelled with his birth mother to the exact place in Europe that he was conceived 40 years ago...

To my friend who knew his adoptive brother’s birth mother reached out to him but their adoptive parents threw the letter away...

To my friend who first held hands with her father age 29 and felt something deeply spiritual...

To my friend whose birth mother ‘joked’ that she can’t stand children...

To my friend who almost went on Long Lost Family despite big reservations because he was so desperate for answers...

To my friend who found out in his late 20s he was adopted...

To my friend who had a birthday card through the post telling her she was adopted ...

To my friend who was turned away for counselling because the therapist wasn’t Ofsted-registered...

To my friend who decided not to become a parent because she was still processing her adoption...

To my friend who was told she looked like someone and discovered it was a half sister living locally...

To my friend who saw on her paperwork that  her birth mother was described as ‘educationally subnormal’...

To my friend who found her sister on Facebook and when they met they were wearing the same outfit...

To my friend whose birth father can only call her on his way to work so his wife doesn’t find out...

To my friend whose half brother wrote and performed a song about ‘bastards’ after she made contact...

To my friend who was adopted with his sister but the adoptive parents kept her and put him back into Care...

To my friend whose little brother was ‘removed’ by social services at age 8 and adopted, leaving the brother age 10 behind...

To my friend whose adoptive parents didn’t allow him to have contact with his biological siblings in case he didn’t bond with his adoptive sister...

To my friend who doesn’t know how many brothers and sisters she has...

To my friend who went to meet her birth father in prison knowing he was charged with murder...

To my friend who travelled by herself to the Middle East to find relatives and answers...

To my friend who didn’t know she was Jewish until her 30s...

To my friend who sobbed his way through his first adoptee support group...

To my friend who identifies with her birth name more than her adoptive name but is too scared to change it in case it upsets anyone...

To my friend who has been caring for his elderly birth mother for years without his adoptive family knowing ...

To my friend whose adoptive family said she was weird when she came out of the fog...

To my friend who has stopped reading fiction because the adoption-insensitive landmines are everywhere ...

To my friend who only feels like her ‘non-trauma self’ after two glasses of wine but then the next day feels like she should never have been born ...

To my friend whose knows her birth mother regularly searches for her online but she hasn’t actually reached out ...

To my friend who was invited to her half-sister’s wedding but not asked to be in the family photos ...

To my friend who was told by her local authority that they couldn’t help her search as her birth mother was of ‘unusual ethnicity’ ...

To my friend who spent three weeks perfecting a letter to her birth mother but despite it being received she never heard back...

To my friend whose birth mother died without revealing the name of her birth father ...

To my friend who was told by social services to let sleeping dogs lie when she enquired about finding her first mother ...

To my friend who was told that older adoptees are making things worse for younger adoptees with all their moaning as it’s putting prospective adopters coming forward ...

To my friend who waited a year for her files to find most of it was redacted ...

To my friend who asked for medical information to be the law for adoptees and their children and was told that birth parents right to privacy is more important ...

To everyone who is handling microagressions, microrejections and more...

To everyone who has fought and battled the system and societies expectations to have difficult conversations and push for their rights to find clues to their identity and put together the pieces of their story. To everyone who has managed to find some joy from a relationship whether that’s with birth family, adoptive family or a family they have created themselves (including friends). You deserve this joy. Soak it up. And remember to always nurture your relationship with yourself.

We should not have to do this alone. We should not have to pay our own money for searching, mediation, dna tests etc or wait over a year to see our records. And this is in the UK - in other countries it’s even more difficult and sometimes impossible to ever get any information, particularly when it comes to transracial adoption.

I would love it if you felt able to add your thoughts, comments or wishes below…

Image Omar Lopez on Unsplash https://unsplash.com/@omarlopez1

The history of adoption in England and Wales by Pam Hodgkins MBE

A guide to adoption in England and Wales by adoptee and adoptee rights advocate Pam Hodgkins MBE

Pam kindly agreed for us to publish the following after a conversation about the government inquiry: The right to family life: adoption of children of unmarried women 1949-1976 Read on for a bio of Pam, who founded NORCAP.

The 1926 Adoption Act

There was no legal adoption as we know it now before the 1926 Adoption Act was implemented.  When this Bill was going through Parliament many suggested it was unwise and would lead to ‘fecklessness’ as unmarried mothers would be able to pass over all liability for their “bastard infants”.  Others claimed that severing the legal link between birth parents and their children would ‘protect the investment of the adopting parents and prevent the birth parents reclaiming the child once s/he was of ‘an age to earn a wage’. Before legal adoption some charities, concerned that people raising a child may indeed lose their investment, had earlier introduced an ‘indenture of adoption’.  This was a legally binding contract, very similar to an apprenticeship indenture.  It cost one guinea (£1.05) and each party had to pay half the cost – this resulted in one elderly woman sending me a copy of her adoption indenture with a covering letter which said “You will see from the enclosed my parents bought me for 10/6 from the Waifs and Strays.”  10/6 (ten and six) is 52.5p and the Waifs and Strays was a national charity later known as the Church of England Children’s Society, and now simply The Children’s Society.

Secrecy around adoption and birth parents’ names

There was no secrecy around adoption for the first 20 years of legal adoption in England and Wales.  The court papers, signed by each, gave the full name and address of both the adopters and the birth parent(s) named on the birth certificate.  Until the war years, courts were unwilling to make an adoption order unless the birth mother, at least, appeared at the adoption hearing, and many hearings were postponed in Birmingham to get the mother to attend.  Both the birth parents and would-be adopters….and the baby…would be in the courtroom together for the hearing.  When adoption law was reviewed post-war some of the adoption agencies suggested it would protect the adopters if they could make their application using a serial number to ensure the birth mother did not learn their names and address.  I have not found any evidence being presented as to why this was thought necessary.

Although introduced as a clause that could be used ‘when necessary’, within a very short time all agency adoption applications were being made under a serial number and the illusion of secrecy being important became firmly entrenched.  It is hard to say if the use of serial numbers became commonplace in non-agency ‘third party placements’  but I have been told by birth mothers that the person who arranged their baby’s adoption would place a piece of paper or a book over most of the document obscuring the adopters’ details, and simply instruct them to ‘sign there’.

Informally arranged adoptions

Many people do not realise that it was perfectly lawful for anyone to arrange an adoption right up until the adoption agency regulations 1983 were implemented in May 1984.  Many of those individuals making such arrangements were professionals such as doctors, clergy and lawyers but in reality anyone could do it, and there have been accounts of door-to-door tradespeople such as bakers or milk roundsmen learning of a baby whose parent – or more likely grandparent – wanted it to be adopted and also a couple on the round who wanted to adopt and therefore introduced the two parties.  The local council had to be notified by the prospective adopters and to conduct a welfare assessment, but this was only after the placement had been made.

Why the father’s name is not listed in many cases

When they first see their original birth certificate many adopted people assume that the dash across the space where the father’s details could be entered means their mother did not know who their father was.  This is untrue.  When a couple are married either of them can register the birth and give details of their spouse to the Registrar.  This is called presumed paternity.  However an unmarried woman could not name a man as the father of her child unless she had gained an affiliation order against him – i.e. a court decided that he is the father of her child. The alternative was that the father accompanied the mother to register the birth and they each gave their individual details to the Registrar and signed as informants.  This was not practicable in the 50s, 60s and into the 70s when women generally remained in hospital for 10 days after the birth and the Registrar attended the maternity unit to enable babies to be registered.  At that time visiting on maternity wards was limited to just the husband of the mother; boyfriends or fathers of babies not married to the mother were not admitted.  This made it very challenging for an unmarried father to be named on the birth certificate even if both he and the mother would have wished it.  It was not in the interests of the adoption agency to actively assist the father to be included, as if he was named on the birth certificate they would later need to gain his consent to the adoption. If he was not named only the mother had to be persuaded to consent.

Adoptive parents not sharing details of their child’s original name

It is also accepted as fact that adopted people could not have details of their original name until 1976.  This is false.  As clear from the details above all adoptive parents knew the details of the birth of the child they wished to adopt.  They had to submit a copy of the child’s birth certificate to the court as one of the documents needed when applying for an adoption order.  Some adopters thought to actually keep a copy or to copy out the details and probably few ever forgot the details on that certificate.  The key issue was would the adopters later share that information with their son or daughter?  Some may actually have believed they were not allowed to, perhaps the agency suggested that to them, but it was never true.  For adopted people whose adopters did not share their birth details with them there was no right of access to that information, but they could apply to the court for an order to be made to instruct the Registrar General to disclose their birth information to them.  It does not appear to be recorded how many made such applications and how many were successful.

Parliament debate in 1975

The debate in Parliament on 26 November 1975 was to determine if every adopted person who wished to know his/her birth details should be able to access this information without recourse to the court.  Observers recount that it was a close run thing, with passionate personal contributions from a number of Members of the House.  The provision passed once a ‘safeguard’ had been agreed that anyone adopted before the clause was passed would need to meet with a ‘counsellor’ prior to receiving the information.  There were many different interpretations of the purpose and powers linked to this requirement.  Many adopted people believed the information could be withheld if the applicant did not appear reasonable and responsible (it could not).  On just one occasion the Registrar General was concerned about an application received that he applied to the court for an order empowering him to refuse to provide the information.  The information the adopted person became entitled to receive one year after the clause passed was ‘information which would enable him/her to apply for a copy of his/her birth entry’. There was no right given to adopted people to read or receive information from the adoption file.  Luckily when Birth Records Counselling was introduced in November 1976 most social workers and agencies undertaking the statutory counselling recognised the benefit of placing information in context and did provide file information too.  The importance of this has since been emphasised by Practice Guidance issued by the government 30 years later.

Current government debate

The current debate around ‘Forced Adoptions’ is interesting and clearly Parliament has been convinced that many women who are recorded as having ‘relinquished’ their child for adoption only did so because they had been manipulated  and pressurised to do so with other options being excluded without examination.  It is likely that adoption workers, clergy and maternity service professionals will all be found to have acted in a manner in which many women now feel they were ‘forced’ to give up their babies. 

Accounts by many women of their treatment in the maternity unit and/or in Mother and Baby Homes run by religious orders and as a feeder arm to adoption agencies is horrendous, especially when judged by standards applying now, but other factors do need to be considered.  The one factor that appears to have been frequently overlooked is the support or lack of support offered to the mother by her own family.  If the extended family was supportive, some young couples could and did marry and bring up their own child.  Without the support of the father of her child many women were able to take their baby home as their own family were willing for that to happen.  In some cases, grandparents provided childcare to enable the mother to work to support herself and her child; other families simply placed the new baby in their family as the youngest child of the mother’s parents, so a Mother became de facto an older sibling and the grandparents assumed the role, responsibilities…and rights of parents, just like Kat and Zoe in the Eastenders storyline. 

Governments formally apologising to birth mothers

The first country to apologise to birth mothers was Australia, this gave impetus to the campaign here in England and Wales.  However there are significant differences in part practice.  In Australia it was common for unmarried mothers to be chloroformed at the moment of deliver and their baby removed before they saw it or knew its gender.  They were also required to give binding consent to adoption within five days of the birth, some say they were not allowed to be discharged from the hospital without doing so.

In England and Wales, although a few women do give similar reports, the law was clear a mother could not give consent to adoption until at least 42 days after delivery and in most cases up to the 1970s would have her baby in a Mother and Baby Home or return to a Home shortly after birth.  Expectant mothers were generally admitted to the Mother and Baby Home when between 24 and 28 weeks pregnant – many say before their pregnancy became obvious.  Mothers were expected to care for their babies, albeit in a regulated structure, including being encouraged to breast feed as this was recognised as best for baby.  

If a mother requested that her baby went to live with prospective adopters or foster carers before being six weeks old, the mother could change her mind and require the baby was immediately returned to her at any point until the baby was six weeks - at which point prospective adopters could make their application to adopt.  To avoid adopters being upset by mothers changing their minds, many agencies chose not to place a baby until it was six weeks old when the application to adopt could be made immediately.  Once their application was submitted the child became ‘protected’ and could not be moved without the direction of the court. During the 13 week ‘welfare supervision period’, which could not be completed until the baby was 19 weeks old (6 weeks + 13 weeks) the parent(s) had to give informed consent before a JP and, if they chose not to do so and requested the return of their baby, it seems the court would look favourably on their request.  The problem seems to have been that no one actually spent time explaining this to most unmarried mothers, or explored with them how they might find a place to live with their child and what financial support could be available to them.  No wonder so many felt forced to agree to adoption.

This article was meticulously compiled and recounted by Pam Hodgkins MBE

Pam was born to an unmarried mother whose own mother managed the situation by arranging for her daughter to live 100 miles away from home and her baby to be adopted as soon after birth as possible. The birth and pregnancy were hidden from Pam’s birth mother's own father and brother.

Pam was placed with prospective adopters, who turned out to be wonderful despite having been turned down for adoption by CECS and NCH as did not have indoor loo or bathroom. It was a private arrangement made between the attending GP and a clergyman Pam’s birth mother was sent to stay with. When told the proposed adopters were 'only working class', Pam’s maternal grandmother is reported to have said "So, the father was working class, that is why we are in this mess!"

Pam grew up surrounded by love and truth. “I cannot recall ever being told I was adopted I just grew up always knowing, so I presume the word was first used when I was still pre-verbal. Love was extended to my birth mother, who my adoptive mother always held in high regard and to whom she always felt indebted - nightly prayers were 'God Bless Mummy and Daddy and Mary wherever she is'.“

Pam made one attempt to trace her birth mother when she was aged 13/14 after a row with her Mum about the time she had to come home from a party. It was the usual, ‘My real mother would let me stay until 11pm!’ She says, “Luckily I failed at that time, but later found I was very, very close.”

Pam married and had two sons. She became unwell with a rare condition aged 30 and got worn out saying ‘I don’t know, I was adopted’ to her GP and hospital doctors asking about family history. “If it was not important why did they ask? And if it was important why did I not know?”

Pam actually traced her birth mother sic months later and had a clipboard list of questions for her. She met her, loved her, forgot her list of questions! She worried about her birth mother and feared her marriage might today be classed as coercive control. 30 years on she was still grateful to her husband for marrying her despite [her having had a baby out of wedlock] …

Pam remained in contact with her birth mother, and they remained important to each other for 13 years until she died aged 67 of secondary breast cancer. Pam is resented by her birth mother’s husband and youngest daughter and has a limited relationship with other daughter although their lifestyles and interests are too different for them to be close.

Pam has built a relationship with her birth mother's brother and his wonderful family. He and his wife are parents to five born-to children plus three adopted. As a specialist in crippling diseases of childhood, he worked on secondment to Canadian relief organisations in the most challenging places and times. Also he had a TB hip as a small child and spent five years in sanatorium where he was not expected to live to adulthood. She also has very close relationships with her cousins and actually lived close to them in Canada for 10 years.

Pam’s birth mother told her who her birth father was when they first met. She also said he subsequently married an Oscar winning actress! Pam built a relationship that has endured with her birth father and his son of that marriage. She realised he would have been an awful father when he was 23 and her adoptive dad was much better suited to that role. She says, “Roy was an amazing man to know as an adult - once met, never forgotten. I sat with him on the day he died - 14 June 2017 - the day of the Grenfell fire - and also the day on which my adoptive father would have been 100.”

The idea for NORCAP came in the early 1980s. I read in the newspaper of an adopted woman who longed to trace her birth mother and I sent a reply via the editor, offering practical assistance as I had recently searched successfully. I also offer to discuss implications which turned out to be more powerful than I had anticipated. I heard back almost immediately from the woman and one other adopted person who I assumed had handled the letter. The next day, the postman delivered a sack of letters wanting help, and one contained the clipping from the newspaper intended just for the original correspondent.

I contacted social services to ask for details of organisation that would help these people and was told there was none. However the director of SSD in Warwickshire, where I lived, met with me. She agreed an organisation was needed offered to help if I started one. She did not mention she was retiring in six weeks and moving to Cornwall! And so NORCAP began by accident, one might say like the majority of its subsequent members.

I was working as a teacher in further education but spent next three years being told, “Yes, but as a SOCIAL WORKER…” Anyone feeling patronised by social workers today should have felt what it was like 40 years ago! In 1986, I gave up and trained as a social worker. I always 'worked' for NORCAP from the day it was set up until I retired in 2011. I was only employed by the organisation part time for four years and full time for six. Once a qualified social worker, I worked for the British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) as a regional consultant in the Midlands and as a project of BAAF set up the West Midlands Post Adoption Service. I was also independent Chair of various adoption and fostering panels and an initial chair of an Independent Review Mechanism (IRM) panel. I worked with others, particularly Julia Feast, to persuade the government to include access to intermediary services for birth relatives of adopted adults in the 2002 Adoption Act.

I retired to Canada in 2011 with the intention of doing post-grad research into the high incidence of premature death amongst adopted people, particularly adopted young men under 30. This hypothesis grew out of practice experience when providing intermediary services and the not infrequent number of times we found the adopted man we were seeking had died as a teenager or young adult. Although backed by a university the intention was thwarted as the data I needed - from three national cohort studies - could not be exported outside the EU. I returned to the UK - the pull of grandchildren too strong to resist - and was shocked to find the progress we had made towards universal intermediary services in 2002 and implemented in 2006 was so eroded by the complexity of regulation and the decade of austerity to the extent few people had any access to a service that was affordable. I have been working with former NORCAP friends over the past two years to try to establish an entirely volunteer staffed intermediary service and this had actually been assisted by the learning and experience gained during the pandemic that has shown us the many options for using new technology and working and training remotely without diminishing the quality of service. I should be 100% retired but there is still clearly work to be done. 

Why are you so angry?

I'm not just ‘another angry adoptee’. But I am angry - here's why, and what we can all do about it.

Last week I had an email from an adoptive parent saying it was difficult to understand why adoptees are angry. I've been working on this blog all week to explain why, and I've also listed action points to encourage positive change, because as the author and researcher Brené Brown says,

“Anger is a catalyst. Holding on to it will make us exhausted and sick...It’s an emotion that we need to transform into something life-giving: courage, love, change, compassion, justice.”

1. Because adoptees lack a voice

The majority of voices on adoption are from adoptive parents and adoption professionals. Adoptees have a much smaller share of the voice (and birth parents even less).

I’m angry because I’ve spent the first 40 years of my life turning all my feelings of confusion and shame inwards and it’s made me very ill. My greatest hope is that once all these feelings are out, acknowledged and normalised, I can go on to live a fulfilling and happy life. 

Anger is an authentic feeling that many (not all) adoptees have, but it isn’t well represented. And however much I love my parents, I didn’t think the world needed another grateful adoptee blog!

Action point: Amplify the adoptee voice by supporting adoptee podcasters such as @AdopteesOn and @LocoParentis, YouTubers such as Yes I’m Adopted Don’t Make It Weird and authors such Anne Heffron. 

The Adult Adoptee Movement campaigns for a UK apology and lifelong support.

2. Because adoptee grief often goes unacknowledged

Tell me of any other human loss as ignored as that of an adoptee? I lost my birth mother the day I was born, and I was told it didn’t matter. Only in the last year have I acknowledged I experienced bereavement, and I am now, belatedly, going through a grieving process. 

I am not angry with my parents for loving me, cuddling me and raising me well. I am angry (and sad) they weren’t able to do all of this while acknowledging my primal wound. The two need not be mutually exclusive. 

Action point: Acknowledge an adoptee’s loss; read The Primal Wound (and, as the Primal Wound is written by an adoptive parent, also support books written by adoptees such as Nicole Chung.)

3. Because we lose our identity and our history

I not only lost my birth mother on day one, I lost all my biological relatives, my connected history and my original name. While the rest of the world fetishizes genetic links and blood ties - see the genealogy industry or programmes like Who Do You Think You Are? - what adoptees have lost goes unacknowledged.

We didn’t agree to forfeit our history so that it would be easier for our adoptive parents to bond with us, and easier for our birth parents to “get on with their lives”.

Action point: Challenge the narrative of adoption as a “celebration” as much as you can, and particularly around National Adoption Week/Month.

4. Because we struggle to retrieve our identities

After losing our identity, we later struggle to retrieve it. Even in the UK, where records are generally not sealed as they are in other parts of the world including the U.S. and Canada, things are not straightforward.

We still have to go cap-in-hand to ask for our adoption files, and spend money on searches and DNA testing to find out information that everyone else takes for granted. Many adoptees have little or no medical information, and many don’t even know the name they were given at birth. And yes, these things really do matter.

Action point: Support the fight to open all sealed records, by following hashtags such as #adopteerights and #flipthescript

5. Because many adoptees are second-class citizens

Many inter-country adoptees in places like the U.S. live in fear that they will be “sent back” to a country they have never lived in. These adoptees were taken as babies from countries such as China and South Korea. Tragically, adoptee Phillip Clay took his own life because he was deported from the U.S. to South Korea, a place where he knew no one and didn’t speak the language.

Action point: Support Adoptees for Justice to get citizenship for all international adoptees

Find out more about the history of adoption in the UK.

6. Because adoptees are expected to be grateful

Being told, even implicitly, to be grateful, can have a huge effect on self-worth and lead to a sense of shame. I was supposed to be delighted I had been “saved” from being brought up by a single mother with very little money. (It sounds a bit crazy in today’s times).

The ‘adoptive parents as saviours’ narrative is dangerous – no one else wanted you, but we took you in – because, firstly, it supposes we should be grateful and, secondly, it’s often not the whole picture. For many adoptees of my era, the truth can be much closer to: we wanted a child, so we took one from an unmarried woman (with her permission*). And in contemporary times I know many adoptive parents are not given support to deal with issues around infertility before they adopt.

Action point: Challenge anyone who says adopted children are “lucky”. Learn from Brené Brown about the damaging effects of shame so you can avoid inadvertently shaming your adoptive child.

7. Because the societal narrative needs to be challenged

In the film Lion, when the protagonist meets his birth mum after 25 years, he immediately telephones his adoptive mum to reassure her she is still his mum. This societal narrative seems to be the only palatable one, making it incredibly hard for adoptees to express anything else. 

When I told someone I had searched for my biological relatives, she said: “After everything your parents did for you? Taking you in and raising you ‘as their own’...”  This same woman had recently built a house in Jamaica – a place she had never lived – because her dad grew up there. So it’s OK for everybody else to know and honour their roots, but not adoptees?

Action point: Support adoptees who show the other sides of adoption though art, poetry and theatre, such as DAWTA by Dionne Draper, YOU a play by Mark Wilson and Somebody’s Daughter by Zara Phillips.

I round-up all the upcoming shows and exhibitions in my monthly email.

8. Because adoptees lack support

There is some (not enough) support for young adoptees today. There is next to no support for older adoptees. We cope with trauma and attachment issues alone. The support around reunion is woefully inadequate and unless you are affluent you cannot access private counselling. 

Action points: If you have a partner, child, sibling or friend who is adopted, take the time to learn about life-long effects of adoption and how you can help them make sense of their story, feel good about themselves and heal trauma.

Champion adoptee support groups, or start one of your own. Adoptees On recently covered this topic. The Dunbar Project also runs regular adoptee events.

9. Because adoption reunion is so hard

My parents stood beside me when I graduated, got my first job, got married and had my children. But they were noticeably absent during the other major milestone in my life: adoption reunion. 

It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to cope with and I had to do it alone. I had their verbal support, but without anything concrete I felt hugely guilty every step of the way. I’m angry (and sad) it had to be this way.  

Soap operas and programmes like Long Lost Family make it difficult to approach reunion on an equal footing. The former portray adoptees as stray and feral, and usually after money, the latter show adoptees in isolation, with their family and friends conveniently airbrushed away. It is so much more complex.

Action point: Listen to adoptees talk about the realities of reunion. Support organisations such as PAC-UK who offer support around reunion.

10. Because the system is broken

Too many young adoptees have birth parents who have experience of the Care system. It’s unacceptable that these traumatised young people are not given the right support and instead go on to have traumatised children themselves. Birth parents are not "other", we are all connected.

Action points: Push for support for birth parents, including parents living without their children, and champion amazing organisations like The Open Nest and Movement for An Adoption Apology.

So there you have it, a starter for ten on why I am so flippin’ angry. No, it’s not the healthiest of emotions but it’s a damn sight healthier than shame.

For disclosure I am an older adoptee, so when I talk about the established narrative, it's the "babies are blank slates" mentality of the 1970s; this is sometimes referred to as the 'Baby Scoop' era in America and Canada. I have close experience of the current UK adoption process including the advances in understanding of trauma and attachment, and the trend towards more open adoptions, with some level of (usually indirect) contact. 

*I acknowledge many first mothers from the closed adoption era did not give their permission freely.