Letterbox

[MissFenella]

Is it usual/typical for letters from parents to include 'when you are 18 and we meet again....' type stuff.

Letter from birth mum included a few 'wonderful future together' type references.

Putting aside the heart crushing 'she thinks I am babysitting' element (because that is about me not the girls) how would you couch the tone to your children?

If I have learned one thing from adopting it is don't judge. A snapshot is no indication of what is going on as a family.

Maryz - tell me your letterbox woe

Singsongsung, if you are worried then maybe talk first to someone like a child psychologist who is aware of adoption issues. If the adoptive parents are too controlling, then the child may have problems with identifying their own thoughts and feelings, as everything is being dictated and controlled, and she isn't learning to make appropriate choices for herself, and this might explain the attachment thing. Having said that, any kind of intervention is going to be very stressful, and 14 is a vulnerable age, hence suggesting you chat with someone who really knows what they are talking about. It might be that intervention can be gentle and help everyone. Not sure if that helps.

child psychologist who is aware of adoption issues - ha, good luck with that!

Its very tricky - you can only really talk to the parents if you are fairly close to them and you would have to handle it very carefully. It's a tricky one indeed, but pretty much I agree with Maryz

I would imagine allowing a child to come to that of their own accord would be much more appropriate than demanding it to the point of aggression - I agree but that particular boat has sailed now so I wouldn't focus on it - it may just mean that they were advised to act that way.

If they have discussed with you her attachment problems, can you suggest they contact post-adoption support for some advice? As an adopter I would find it wierd if a non-adopter sugegsted it when I would know all about it but it's possible that they haven;t thought they would be eligible at this late stage. Or it might flag up to them that someone outside their circle recognises a problem which might make they think a bit more about it.

kewcumber - you say they are few and far between, and that was my worry about the training being given to adopters as referred to in this thread... I got the impression that a decent child psychologist specialising in the affects of adoption hadn't been near adoption training for an aeon - what is the position so far as you know? Genuine question, and putting our online stand off on hold as I'd like to know the answer.

Adopted if that is a genuine question about psychologists then the answer is money
Nothing more than money
To provide that kind of support you need specialist teams- they have them at GOSH and a couple of other places including PAC and Family Futures but CAMHs is fighting tooth and nail just to get the budget for the children living with their birth families and all of the specialist care they need. There are not enough adopted children spread across the country to justify the cost and training of such a team -so you rely on people making themselves specialist in a field whilst dealing mainly with children who have other issues.

My question was genuine, but it was about the training specifically?

Thanks for the other info though. (And no, I wasn't lying or changing the story - information might have been incomplete so that i didn't out myself, but no changes to my story or untruths).

The training costs money for a disproportionately few number of cases- who will have a range of different issues (thus different training) to be paid for

thanks

The other issue around training is where do they go. The real leaders in the field are generally in the USA and Australia-where density of adoption population for one and heavy investment in child mental health and emotional well being for the other mean that a lot of work is done there.
In the UK we do have a few leaders, but in the USA about 135,000 adoptions take place each year from a variety of starts
In the UK 5,050 were adopted last year
These figures don't include step parent adoptions- that means that the American clinical psychologists have more exposure to case studies and research opportunities and money for therapeutic interventions.
There professional bodies have more exposure to sharing information in formats that are costly for the UK clinicians to access

I think you're asking whether a proper professional with adoption related expertise will have helped in the training materials used for training adopters? OK well this is the long answer (actually it isn;t - there's a longer answer but it's late and I've driven to BRighton and back today already)

Yes - training is generally (I can't speak for every authority but I know the London authorities appear to work together on areas like training to keep standards high) prepared with the input of various professionals with expertise in adoption-related research and therapy eg there was a pan-London seminar this year (probably the largest ever of its kind in the UK) which focused on supporting LAC's and previously LAC's in education and the audience comprised of social workers, educators, adoptive parents and a handful of foster carers. The content extensively referred to evidence-based research that has been done in various areas including psychology and neurology and talked about the research into brain development and how to form new neural pathways and cement them.

Likewise my prep course (although some years ago now) which although it was predominantly focused on the practical - likely issues which crop up, role playing various scenarios like discussing difficult life stories with your child, tackling racism and adoption bullying, also included extensive reading lists and made use of studies - some quite old now like the groundbreaking Bowlby work on attachment to the relatively newer discussions on brain plasticity which is obviously of great relevance to adoption and the "mindful emotion coaching" approach to parenting and education and the "attachment friendly schools" initiatives. (Bath Spa are doing a lot of work in this area)

Not all of the "experts" who have input are psychologists, some are educators, social workers, psychiatrists and other therapists. Though most of the research they base their work on is by psychologists such as Dr John Gottman (who has done heaps of research over the past 30 years on raising happy children not adoption specific).

So from my experience, all of the training I've done has been rooted in solid evidence-based psychology even if the training is presented by social workers. There is a strong preference in the UK for evidence-based research so there tends to be a reluctance to follow the latest theory unless it is backed by good research - so its possible that some of the very newest theories are not covered but in my opinion in the absence of evidence thats probably right. But as I say I can only speak for the training over the years that I've done not for all training across the UK. To a degree also, after the prep course how well trained/read you are is pretty much self-driven though in my experience the majority of adopters are knowledge hungry and you often see people swapping book recommendations and sharing articles on here.

As for actual therapy in practice on the ground, in my personal experience is that any practitioner experienced in adoption (in any field) is as scarce as hens teeth even if you are prepared and can afford to pay.

In DS's case - initial contact with post adoption support...
adoption team "well we suggest from your description of the problem he might have XYZ issue (they were right btw!), ummm... tell the school to sort it out"
school "we don't have a clue how to access support, have you spoken to adoption? Yes? Oh dear - how about play therapy?"
Me "Hmmm, I'm not convinced play therapy will cut it but what the hell I'll try anything at this point"
Play therapist "sorry I'm not trained to deal with adoption issues"
Me to school "have you tried Family Futures?"
Family futures "No we don't offer individual therapy in these situations (he isn't bad enough) but these are the training days we do for teachers"
Me "OK I think he has anxiety issues and EPD and I'd like him assessed by the EP"
EP "If I think any of his issues are attachment related I will have to pass as I'm not trained to deal with them"
EP "OK you are right he probably doesn't have any attachment issues (or not significant) he definitely has severe executive processing problems but other problems (left out for DS's privacy!) means that its hard to use CBT on him (they tried for 8 weeks) - how about I review him again in a year or so, I'm not sure what else to suggest. Bye"

Helpful

Btw, I don't have a stand off - I just don't agree with some of what you say and you don't like my posting style (or maybe you don't like me posting at all!)

Yes, I agree with Kew - there is a great deal of expertise out there but it is hard to access. I also thought my prep course was pretty good, and supplemented with lots of handouts and reading lists which seemed evidence-based and sound.

However, the problem is that after prep it can be hard to access expert support. Our LA offered some support groups and seminars - but as we lived a fair distance away, and I was at first home with a fiercely clingy child and then back at work, these weren't easy for me to access. Once we reverted to my home LA (this happens after 3 years) I asked for an assessment for post-adoption support. The very experienced psychoanalyst seemed keen to take us on, but SS felt we weren't experiencing enough problems and so fobbed us off with (another) reading list.

School have been better, after an unpromising start. dd now gets play therapy (paid for by pupil premium) and is being referred to the EdPsych. The school's struggles have allowed me leverage to go back to post-adoption and we now have another assessment coming, together with a FAS screen.

But it's all a struggle, and very under-resourced. Our post-adoption service covers two boroughs, and has just 2.5 WTE staff. What I really need now is more training for me, I reckon - this only works if parents have a good deal of expertise and I, frankly, don't feel up to the task sometimes - but of course that costs money and everyone is strapped for that.

There should be much more training and support available for adoptive parents. Not that I think most of them don't do a great job, but of course we learn on the job, and that is not ideal when you have a vulnerable young child who needs us to get it right NOW.

Sing song - regarding your friends and their child - I think you might be confusing cause and effect.

If the child had attachment issues , she may need strong and clear boundaries and strict rules . Kids with attachment problems often struggle with what you might see as " fun" and often need to sabotage things . Raining a child with such issues is very VERY difficult , although she may seem ok to the causal observer.

So it may be that her issues require a certain type of parenting , not that the parenting has caused the problems .

The best thing you could do to help is offer to babysit sometime, to let them get out togther .

HTH

So it may be that her issues require a certain type of parenting , not that the parenting has caused the problems .

I wondered that but it's so hard to tell. Offering to come over and stay with her if they don't like leaving her home alone is a good idea.

But an important point Maryz we do need to build up strong bonds- on the whole we are all insecure about the burgeoning relationship we need SSs to see that it isn't just about the birth parents.

My Dh has never shown the letters from DSS birth mother to him. I did not think he was suposed to. He has kept them if he ever asks, but he does not. They also stopped about 5 years ago and we have not been told why. he has not asked as he is glad not to get them.

Maryz has never seen Frozen?

Kewcumber, thanks, but I was referring to the training to do with this thread, letterbox, which seems to me to be outdated (I know the vast majority of you do not agree). It is interesting that tangerine quoted Aus as a forerunner as I thought they strongly advocated open adoptions, which is basically what I was advocating as the second best option but which I thought most of you strongly disagreed with. I cant imagine they would espouse the ideas expressed on here about guilt and emotional blackmail. I might be wrong though.

I try to stay out of opinions re letterbox and open adoptions - it isn't possible for DS so it something I spend much time considering (other than wishing it were different). So if its specifically letterbox "training" you're talking about - I haven't had any.

My assumption would be that like most adoption related training that I've participated in that it's evidence-based as that is currently the buzz-word in social work/psychology circles now.

I think Princeton (the USA has enough open adoptions to make some credible findings) did a big review of all the information and outcomes known about open adoptions.

From memory, they said it was very hard to make a definitive conclusion because of the huge differences in individual cases, that there were both birth and adoptive parents wanted open adoption they should follow that path BUT open adoption prior to adolescence was fraught with difficulties causing permanency issues to the children and there was mixed views on the overall benefits to the children. Adoptive parents tended on the whole to be pro open adoption where a child was relinquished (which is vanishingly rare in the UK). There were issues around adolescent birth mothers (which would be the norm in the USA) not understanding the life long commitment that comes with open contact and that when contact drops off due to other life changes in the birth parent (eg marriage or other children) it can cause a second separation trauma in the child. They also recommended long term support for all parties in open adoptions in order for them to have a chance of success.

I think there may be more recent research.

But adoptions in the UK are generally not relinquishments and therefore come with many more additional issues than a relinquishment would.

baffled and mary, no I don't - because as I said firstly not all involve neglect and abuse (to the very best of my knowledge - and I am aware not all of you agree) and secondly because of relevant research done on parallel areas such as fathers who are not in the home and who have been abusive.

That is about all i can add though - I would now really like to check out the Aus research and to talk to someone I know of who I think probably is an expert in the field, and will when I get a chance.

Maryz - you didn't operate an open adoption though, did you? How old were the children when adopted?

Sorry - maryz, i meant to say - it isn't so much about another set of parents waiting in the wings, or it shouldn't be. more to do with children doing better emotionally within themselves if they have the relationship available to them, and so the bad behaviour is less likely.

again, i am not sure about this (certainly not today anyway as have spent all day driving, listening to winnie the pooh...)