I’ve had similar experiences, and quite frankly they’re terrifying.
I contacted SS, they came to visit, sympathised, but ultimately were fairly useless. Trotted out the line they’d given me at placement which was ‘BM isn’t a high risk’ That’s as maybe but it didn’t stop seeing her in my local area being a throughly unsettling experience.
I’ve since ‘seen’ BM on two or three other occasions. As far as I know she’s never spotted me but it is unnerving nonetheless.
I am lucky to live in a big city, so with a few relatively easy tweaks I deliberately avoid going to the places where I’ve seen BM and this has worked so far but it does mean I have to go to a supermarket way out of the way as I saw BM at two different local supermarkets. We also avoid a particular local park I used to love as I think BM now lives near there.
In my case I’d met BM so she, theoretically, knows what I look like. In reality she probably wouldn’t be able to place me, but I’m always a bit nervous as I have a fairly distinctive ‘look’. So far, and I’m 7 years post placement, I’ve never actually come face to face with BM.
I guess my advice is, avoid obvious potential meeting places if you can (appreciate this is hard) and be mindful when you are in places you could run in to BM but other than that there’s really not much you can do.
I did do a bit of looking up on Facebook which gave me the area BM had moved to. This helped to give me an idea of where to avoid specifically. I don’t advocate Facebook as a means of keeping tabs on BPs but in this case I felt it was appropriate in terms of keeping LO safe.
I have also done a bit of altering if my appearance which makes me feel a bit more confident when in places I may potentially see BM as it makes me feel as if she wouldn’t recognise me (although whether it actually makes any difference is anyone’s guess).
I also kept my daughter’s birth name. Definitely the right thing to do for her but makes me paranoid when we’re out and about in case BM or any other birth family hears it. To be honest it’s a fairly common name so there’s no reason for great alarm but I can imagine if I was in BM’s shoes and I heard someone calling my child’s name I’d probably look round to see who the child was.
I think ultimately my advice would be acknowledge the shock this has caused you. It’s perfectly reasonable to feel upset and rattled. Make any minor changes you can to your routine so that you minimise potential contact, and make sure that at school or nursery they understand the importance of not using photos of your child in any setting outside of school.
I also make sure that in the letters I send to BM I’m deliberately all encompassing about what my child likes to do and where we go so that BM won’t have an idea where in the country we are. For example, if we lived by the beach whilst I might mention that my child likes going to the beach or collecting shells I would give the impression this is something we do very occasionally rather than every weekend or after school if that makes sense?