An Open Letter to Those Shaping Adoption and Social Care Policy

To those in charge of, and influencing, social care policy on adoption

Ten years ago, we stepped into parenthood. We welcomed two incredible children into our family; children who had survived more trauma in their earliest years than many do in a lifetime. We owe our wonderful, chaotic and loving family to the privilege of adoption.

But my intention with this letter is to call for change. I recognise that my experience is just one story, but its themes are not unique. While standards and practices may differ across authorities and agencies, they shouldn't.

It’s taken me ten years to feel ready to say this out loud, but silence doesn’t lead to change. So now, I am speaking, not just for myself, but for others who’ve walked a similar path with heavy hearts and full hands.

Whilst our family is a source of joy and strength, the adoption process was not.  We still struggle to comprehend how invisible, and unsupported we felt and continue to feel in the eyes of the very system that brought our family together.

And whilst adoption should always be about the child, overlooking and devaluing the identity and emotional reality of the prospective parent is dangerous. This is what I feel needs to change. Many of us have walked a long, painful road to get here. The interaction we have through the adoption process is our pregnancy. It holds the same weight, the same anticipation, the same vulnerable joy. But imagine if you were pregnant and a professional looked at you and said that you having a child represented a sense of failure in their eyes. (Yes, this did happen.)

I am not asking for a false narrative. If children can safely stay with their birth families, that is absolutely the best outcome. But some children, our children could not. They are among the most traumatised in the system and we are stepping into the role of parent, therapist, advocate…this is no small undertaking. This is why it is so important that we are valued and supported.

To create the deep, secure bonds these children deserve, we must feel some of that joy, we must be recognised as parents. Because parenting children through trauma requires everything we have and when the system treats us like secondary characters, it erodes our confidence and trust at the very moment we most need connection and belief.

When you work with prospective parents, please remember three things:

1.     Be catalysts for child-centred care: Your role is to help us understand and connect with what matters most to and for the child. Communicate their needs with honesty and compassion. Don’t sugar-coat the complexity but don’t lose sight of the child in the paperwork.

2.     Prepare us; honestly and thoroughly: We need more than approval panels. Equip us with insight, evidence-based training in trauma and attachment, and therapeutic parenting skills. We are stepping into complex lives and they deserve and we need, the tools to do it well.

3.     Value us: Not as ‘placements.’ Not as a ‘resource of last resort.’ But as parents. Recognise that, for many of us, this is the realisation of a lifelong dream of family. That excitement is no less real than a pregnancy. That love, hope, and fear walk beside us too. And when those feelings are ignored, it becomes harder to build the trust and bonds that these children so desperately need.

From the moment we stepped into the system, the language used chipped away at the magic of us creating our family. Whatever has led to this point, we are not sat before you as a "placement" or a "solution when all else fails."  These aren’t just technical terms, they were emotional landmines, leaving us feeling like worthless imposters.

Please remember we are prospective parents. Families. We provide homes full of hope and commitment often forged through heartbreak, persistence, and love that dares to step into the hardest places.

As we were becoming a family, we felt invisible in the one process that was supposed to honour and support that formation. When trust in the system is damaged from the beginning, it’s no wonder so many families feel a sense of both relief and abandonment when the adoption process is complete.

This beginning did tarnish moments we should have cherished; the joy, the nervous excitement, the pride. It replaced them with anxiety, making us cautious instead of connected. Whilst the children’s history is something to always be respectful of and sensitive to, we have the right and should be encouraged to celebrate our family in an appropriate way.

Now let’s talk about post-adoption.

Foster carers (rightly) have access to training, and professional support (albeit I think many would like more). Adoptive families often have none of this. Post-adoption support is, at best, a parent support group. At worst, it's a closed door.

This isn’t sustainable.

We are parenting some of the most traumatised children in the country. That is not a burden, it’s a privilege. But it is alsoa specialist responsibility. And yet we are offered none of the specialist tools.

Here’s what we need:

·       Mandatory, quality therapeutic parenting training before the child comes to live with us. Not a rushed half-day. A deep, immersive experience that explores trauma and attachment.

·       Trauma-informed support for parents—ideally including therapy for us. Everyone tells you “heal your own trauma first” but where is the system that helps us to do that?

·       Continued access to support post-adoption—real support, including trained professionals, not just peer groups.

And finally, a shift in policy from rigid rules to compassionate principles.

Let’s make the system flexible enough to meet individual children and families where they are, not where a manual says they should be. Let’s offer guidance rooted in humanity and experience, not just risk and red tape. Because we cannot fail these children.

So, this letter is asking for us to be equipped. Respected. Heard. And treated not as an administrative outcome, but as the beginning of a new and real story: A family, in every sense of the word, which can create an environment in which children can heal, adapt and thrive

We deserve a system that values us; parents who are showing up every single day, in the hardest of circumstances, with everything we have.

Don’t make us fight for recognition. Don’t ask us to carry the weight alone.

Do better, for the families you helped create.

Yours hopefully
An adoptive parent, advocate, and lifelong learner