We adopted Daniel when he was four. He came to us with existing important connections. First with his with his birth mum, with whom he had regular contact. He also had an important relationship with his foster carers, whom he lived with for two years – which at the time was half of his life. He was fortunate, unlike most looked-after children, that he had a degree of permanence with two sets of foster careers. He remembers them well, and in his mind these are the people that brought him up through his preschool years. They've developed a really beautiful, almost ‘grandparent’ relationship with Daniel that we've always been really keen to support.

Daniel’s also kept a really close relationship with his two older brothers. There is a lot of distance between where Daniel lives now and his birth community, but we do try to see them at least two or three times a year. So those are the main connections that we've tried to keep.

We’ve also kept a connection with preschool teachers that Daniel had. And of course, quite a lot of the people who were providing Daniel with support in his early years have all fallen in love with him. Many of them stay in touch and want to know how he's doing. So we stay in touch with quite a lot of people from Daniel’s home town.

‘It’s the face-to-face contact that makes the difference – especially with the people around Daniel who provided him with a positive and supportive relationship.’

Some years have been easier than other in terms of keeping contact. When there's been big events in our life, like moving house, it's just been prohibitive. It’s a 200-mile journey for us back to the place of his birth, but we try to do it as often as we can and as much as our resources allow. We’ve tried to be pragmatic about it. We’ll take holidays there to visit these people who have become our family over the years.

Social media makes things marginally easier. We can stay in touch throughout the year but it's really those physical visits that count. It’s the face-to-face contact that makes the difference, especially with the people around Daniel who provided him with a positive and supportive relationship.

When it comes to birth mum things are a bit more complicated. Contact has to be regulated; it has to be positive; it has to be on terms that provide Daniel with the consistency of knowing that he's going to get to see her. So that takes organisation. Daniel’s always had fantastic social workers around him who really understand his needs, and they've arranged that contact as often as is possible and circumstances which are appropriate. There has always been a plan, when we're crossing the country, to make sure Daniel knows that contact is available to him if he wants to pursue it, but he also understands that organising factors weigh in on whether, ultimately, that contact happens.

We've always been keen to talk to Daniel in positive terms about his birth mum. We explained that life can be difficult and people's choices can sometimes impact their availability to be a parent.

 

Maintaining our son’s building blocks

Adoption meant that our family got bigger. For me, adopting Daniel was never about trying to take him away from his existing life, or from the people that he knew, and that he'd built relationships with, and who loved him. It was a case of inviting all of those people into our lives and keeping them as part of our new extended family. Our goal was to add to his life.

Over the years we've built a family around this young man – it’s the same as my birth family, your birth family, it's the same love, it's the same respect, and it's wonderful that these people have stayed in Daniel’s life. I know the story of Daniel’s early life is important to him because the questions come thick and fast now. He wants to understand his origin story and being able to set all of that our clearly for him is helpful. But additionally, Daniel doesn’t just need to rely on us to obtain that story. He will find the truth in his memory box, in his memory book, and from the people we have kept contact with. It’s a consistent story from all of the sources around him.  As he grows older, he becomes more interested in these family connections and it's great to be able to point at them and say, ‘they've always been there from the start’.

Children are really looking for just one thing and that's safety. Every stage in a child's life is a building block towards the adult that they will eventually become. So if you can maintain the building blocks of that child's life – which may or may not include maintaining the existing relationships that they have –  you are increasing their feelings of security, a sense of where they came from, of being loved through their journey, and of having a family and having a network of support around them.

The benefit of keeping these connections is, simply, family. We instinctively understand it. It's knowing that there are people around you who love you and to whom you are important. It’s really for each adoptive parent to take, on a case-by-case basis, ideally working with the professional network around you. There may be instances where it is absolutely appropriate to remove a child from their existing surroundings and the people connected to them. There will be other circumstances where a relationship is positive and stable. Your social workers will be there to guide you.

However, a general rule of thumb, maintaining relationships that children have built in their very early life leads to benefits as they grow older. It’s maintaining the building blocks you inherited. If you can, cherish them, support them and build on them.