Contact after adoption

[imnotcooking]

Hi everyone my niece is being adopted I have my last goodbye visit with her on Thursday. I am loosing sleep over the whole thing my heart is broken i go to sleep crying and wake up crying I'm only sleeping a few hours at a time it is killing me.

She is 7 years old I obviously have no clue where she is moving too. Is there no way we can contact her once she is gone? She is my DC's only cousin I'm so sad for them that they will never get to grow up with together.

There will be 'letterbox' arrangements as part of the care plan - basically once a year letters from the adopters to the birth parents.

These arrangements can sometimes also be put in place for other birth family members.

Direct contact is unlikely. It tends to only happen between siblings who have been adopted by different families.

Hi OP, what a difficult time for you all. If an agreement is already not in place then I would speak to social services about possibly setting up an arrangement.

My ex-husband's grandparents have a letterbox agreement in place as I put their names forward so it does happen.

It is worth discussing direct contact as well as letterbox with social services, and it does sometimes happen - it will depend on the social workers involved and the adopters.

It is worth you doing some research about direct contact now and also possibly contact an organisation such as Family Rights Group to see if they have advice so that you are informed when discussing it with the social workers.

There are polarised views about contact - my belief is that direct contact can be hugely beneficial for the child being adopted (just as you feel it would be beneficial for your child to stay in contact with their cousin).

If social services feel you're important enough to have a goodbye contact session then you have a good case for indirect or letterbox contact. You would probably only get one letter a year and it would probably be exactly the same letter that anyone else entitled to one would receive. You would be allowed to write one back and a copy of anything you wrote would be placed on her file for her to read if she chooses as an adult. Obviously there are guidelines about what is and is not appropriate to put in the letter but these would be explained to you. Also it's possible that the adoptive parents decide not to share the contents of any letter you send with her or fail to send you a letter at all even if they initially agree to do it.

Unfortunately when it comes to direct or face to face contact, social workers are reluctant to allow it with any family members (we were told no because of safeguarding risks even though I would've been happy to take our LO to contact with certain members of her birth family) and not all adopters are keen on it despite there being good evidence that children who have direct contact with members of their birth family often have a better understanding of their identity.