Conversations - Nicola

In this episode Nicola shares her story of adoption. It’s a difficult story to listen to as with limited or no support Nicola and her husband supported children with challenging and aggressive behaviour for many years. Nicola shares the impact on the whole family as well as on her mental and physical health. 

This is a  personal account with personal views and at times is hard to listen to but reflects the experiences of an increasing number of adoptive families. We advise caution as this is a challenging listen but we hope you find it thought provoking and interesting. 

Nicola writes:

'Our experience of adoption has not been an easy one but it is far from unique. Many adoptive families have had similar experiences, particularly with their local authority. My original reason for telling my story was to help improve the understanding of any social workers who are stuck in a child protection mindset and don’t have the training to understand the impact that early childhood trauma has on family life.  Or that parenting  children who have had very difficult starts in life is extremely challenging  and even the best parenting may not be good enough in some circumstances. I want them to understand, that in these cases, support not criticism is vital.
More recently after our complaint to the local authority was upheld I have been working with them.
I have been very impressed that they have now heard this message and are working extremely hard to provide additional training around whole family support. They have accepted that things were not done well in our case and although a little too late for our family have been receptive to making essential changes to avoid this happening to any other families. So if you recognize your struggle in our story please don’t give up. There are people in local authorities who do want to listen and make a difference.'

If you’ve a story of care or adoption and would like to share your perspective or experience then please do direct message us at our twitter feed here or on our facebook page here.

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