Working with birth relatives

Contents

Film clips

Slide presentation with trainer’s notes: Supporting Birth Relatives

Slide presentation with trainer’s notes: Birth parents’ and adopters’ views of contact

Practice briefing: supporting Birth Parents with Learning Disabilities with Contact

Practice briefing: supporting birth parents with learning disabilities with contact

Birth parents with learning disabilities experience the same feelings of loss, rage, sadness, confusion, jealousy, relief and joy at seeing their children as other parents do

Understanding the challenges

Parents with learning disabilities are disproportionately likely to lose their children to adoption. They may lack support and suffer additional stigma and bullying in the community
They may find these feelings harder to talk about and find contact arrangements harder to understand
Parents sometimes agree with what you have said even if they don’t really understand it because they are embarrassed to ask you to explain. They can find it hard to remember information or understand abstract explanations. They may tend to concrete, literal thinking
Parents with learning disabilities may find it hard to access post-adoption support that meets their particular needs.
They may need extra help to understand and respond to their children as they grow up, especially when they do not see them very often
Contact can be positive for adopted children, helping them to understand their identity and history and the reasons why they were adopted
Support can help contact to work well

What practitioners can do to help

Respect and value the role that learning disabled parents can play in adopted children’s lives
Model polite, patient communication and appreciation of all kinds of achievements (baking a cake as well as passing an exam)
Make sure that you understand the parent’s particular communication needs and share this information with the post-adoption support service, the contact supervisor and the adoptive parents
Work with learning disabilities services and help them understand the importance of contact
Use simple language in conversation, letters and written agreements
Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs
Set out information clearly on the page and avoid jargon
Don’t use metaphors, sayings or similes
Use simple pictures to support explanations
Repeat explanations more than once
Check out that you have explained properly by asking the parent to give you the explanation back in their own words
Remind parents about appointments
Don’t just tell a birth parent how to do something (like play with a baby), show them
Take an active, supportive role during contact. Tell birth parents what they are doing right, point out when the child responds well to them, help them change what they do as the child develops
Encourage adoptive parents to help their child understand the birth parent’s difficulties and value their positive qualities as they grow up.

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Practice Briefing: supporting birth relatives when making contact plans

Practice briefing: engaging with birth relatives when making contact plans

The importance of birth relatives in the child’s life

Birth families are important to most adopted children as they grow up, even if they have no conscious memories of living with them
Continued contact of some kind is a unique resource for many adopted children, helping them to understand their own history, make sense of their identity and feel wanted

Understanding birth relatives needs and wishes

Many birth relatives are acutely vulnerable with complex difficulties, in need of support in their own right. Parents may go on to have more children. Offering positive support at the time of the final hearing is an investment in the future
Many birth families lives are in crisis at the time of care proceedings; they may be angry, frightened or distraught. Relatives can struggle to think straight or manage their behaviour. The kinds of problems that led to the child’s removal may get worse at this time
The process of care proceedings is very hard for families to understand. We all find it more difficult to absorb information when we are angry, anxious or afraid
Many parents find it hard to turn up to planned meetings or appointments at this time
Fathers and black and minority ethnic parents find it particularly hard to access support
Parents often suffer abuse and even violence in the aftermath of the removal of their children. They may be shunned by friends and family
It is hard for families in care proceedings to work positively with child care social workers because of the adversarial nature of proceedings
Support from independent agencies is highly valued; birth families want someone non-judgmental to talk to who is not involved in making decisions about their child
Providing support with contact makes it more likely to get started well
Relatives value practical support at this time and may feel able to accept this before emotional support

What practitioners can do to support birth relatives

Explain and then explain again, adjusting the language used
Keep visiting and phoning parents and relatives even if they miss appointments
Offer practical help such as lifts to meetings or support letter writing if you can
Help to build links between relatives and the adoption team
Encourage families to make use of independent support services – make sure that other professionals (such as contact supervisors or children’s guardians) know about the help that is available – people may be more willing to listen to them
Make sure that support services are accessible, well publicised and that families can self-refer
Focus on the long term, it may take time for a parent or relative to accept help from support services or begin to recover from the impact of the court’s decision
Don’t make final contact plans based on relatives’ responses at the time of final hearing; you may need to explain to the court that such plans can only be provisional

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Practice Briefing: supporting birth relatives with direct contact in the long-term

Practice briefing: supporting birth relatives with direct contact in the long-term

Meeting up with or contacting your child/relative and their new family is a strange situation for which there are no established social rules
Contact visits in particular are highly personal but take place between virtual strangers often in impersonal circumstances with no chance for adults to talk away from the child

Understanding birth relative’s feelings

Birth relatives may feel a mixture of emotions around contact including renewed loss and grief, rage, jealousy, resentment, shame, guilt, relief, reassurance and joy
It can be very hard to hear your child/relative call someone else ‘Dad’, go to a stranger for comfort, speak in a different accent or talk about experiences you cannot afford to provide
Birth relatives often feel unsure of the rules of the situation, anxious that if they get things wrong contact may be withdrawn
It can be hard to relate to a child that you no longer know much about
Saying goodbye after direct contact is difficult, especially if birth relatives have to go home alone
Birth relatives often worry about what will happen when their child turns 18 or how to answer difficult questions about why they were adopted

What practitioners can do to help

Value the role of birth families in the lives of adopted children and recognise the difference that support can make to contact
Focus on promoting good relationships between the adults involved, so that the child feels reassured
Support birth relatives and manage boundaries if necessary so that adopters are free to support the child
Acknowledge the inherent power imbalance; adoptive parents need to feel in control of the situation for the benefit of the child, but also share some of that control with birth relatives
Help birth relatives understand how contact can help the child
Make contact with birth relatives before and after visits to check out how they are feeling; recognise the strong emotions contact arouses, ask about hopes and fears, help them think about how their child may feel or act and ask about who will support them after the visit
Offer post-adoption support services if these are not in place along with practical support with transport and venues, etc
Provide opportunities for an exchange of information between birth relatives and adoptive parents so that news can be shared outside of visits (eg. birth mother is pregnant, child now wears glasses, adoptive parents have divorced)
Attend contact in an active, supportive rather than supervisory role – helping to ease conversations, play and goodbyes
Be clear about roles and expectations: who is called Mummy? Are kisses and cuddles OK? Who takes the child to the loo? Tells them off? Brings sandwiches? Is it OK to: ask questions? Bring a present? Share good news? Talk about problems or worries?
Keep reviewing contact as circumstances change
Help birth relatives to think about answering children’s questions and to prepare for adolescence
Talk about social media contact before it happens