The Adoption and Fostering Podcast

Adopter Stories - #1 Clare

Welcome to Adopters Stories hosted by the Adoption & Fostering Podcast

In this, the first Episode, Clare tells her story, with her husband Steve they adopted their son Jake in 2011 when he was 7 and a half years old.

All adoption stories are unique and all adoption stories represent the coming together of different experiences, motives, hopes and aspirations. They often don’t go to plan and many adoptive parents discover that their lives are taken in directions that they never anticipated.

Of course, there are other voices in adoption and we’re not presuming to speak for them and as we’re based in the UK all the adopters that we speak to have adopted through the UK's statutory adoption system.  If any of the stories in future episodes are different we’ll say.

If you’d like to share your story or would like to get in touch you can message through the adoption and fostering podcast facebook page or through our Twitter feed.

 

The 2018 Mini Summer Podcast Special

This is a short podcast were we briefly reflect on the years to date and consider some of topics that we're hoping to cover, including adoption breakdown/disruption/children return to care, parental anger, fostering, chronic loss/sadness and the challenging and violent behaviour. 

We also que up the new venture for the podcast - #AdopterStories, something we're a little trepedatious about but hope will be helpful for prospective, new and old adopters. 

Have a great summer, be kind to yourself and those that you love. 

 

Episode 47 - An interview with Sarah Fisher

We speak to Sarah Fisher in relation to her experience as a single adoptive parents as well as a NVR practitioner. She supports many families and has seen the benefits of the model of parenting in her own home. 

We discuss the underlying principles and how these are outworked within specific situations. There are a few listener's questions, we talk about the 'three baskets', 'poo sandwitches' and 'sit ins'. Scott does use a rude word so be warned! 

As always, it's a serious subject as we discuss the challenges of living with violent and aggressive behaviour but we manage to amuse each other in midsts of all that. 

If you want further info on the Sarah and her work here are some links. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/connectiveparentingusingnvr

sarahpfisher.com 

Episode 46 - Suddenly Mummy, a wedding and an Equal Chance

This week we're really excited to speak to Becky AKA Suddenly Mummy as she gives us the low down on her recent engagement. We do get a little distracted by that but then manage to pull ourselves back on track discussing the recent Adoption UK initiative and report (Equal Chance) in relation to supporting adoptees in the education system. Becky recounts her expereinces with teaching as well as appearing on Radio 4, meeting celebrities in the Green Room all before her Fiance distracts her with a cup of tea and has to leave.

We then indulge in a little banter, touch on approaches to empowering parents and all kinds of usual stuff.

We hope you enjoy it as we look start the summer holidays.  

Episode 45 - An interview with Colourful Carwen

In this episode we interview Colourful Carwen, she was diagnosed in her 40's as having autism but throughout her childhood she presented with challenging, violent and aggressive behaviour to her parents and family. Carwen's reflective account of how experienced the world she lived as well as her feelings on the her behaviour offer a rare insight to the inner workings and thoughs of chldren who are sometimes challenging. 

Scott and Al discuss the news of the day, international adoption and LGBT predjudice. Needless to say there's the usual banter, a moment with a guitar and an interuption from a dog

Be advised there are a few adult words    

 

Episode 43 - An interview with Mark Owers

Mark Owers has been close to the decision making and has influenced adoption over the last 10 years within No. 10 Downing Street and the Department for Education. He recently co authored the Fostering Stock Take and now works with agencies on the regionalisation agend. Mark is also an adoptive parent. 

There's a lot to dicuss with Mark as he has insight and understanding of a wide range of issues that affect adopters and foster carers but we start with his own adoption story which is quite remarkable and unique. 

We talk to Mark about the Fostering Stocktake, that was controversial, and the responses from various groups as well as considering some of the points that were raised in relation to professionalisation, risk management, foster carer/parent roles as well as being sensible in relation to how we care for children.  

Adoption is discussed and Regional Adoption Agencies (RAAs) are spoken about with some of the concerns that many familes have discussed as well the challenges that adoption services may be facing are discusion as well as the future of adoption. Contact, support, Facebook, lifestory and birth families are all touched on as we have a really interesting conversation with Mark in relation to modernising adoption. 

We had a few intermittent technical issues on the line with Mark, they come and go, so apologies but it's not unbearabe. 

As usual Scott and Al enjoy a bit of pre interview banter.  

Ep 42 - An Interview with Prof Dr Beth Neil

Contact is an issue that raises passions, worries, hopes and concerns for children, adopters and first families in equal measure. So, with that in mind we speak to Prof Beth Neil who has studied contact in adoption for over 20 years and is able to offer insight into an issue that never fails to pique the interest of all people touched by adoption. 

We put specific questions to Beth that were sent to podcast towers as well as expanding on issues that are often raised on social media.We discuss the potential positive and negative impacts on children, the barriers to positive contact, the challenges and myths of letterbox contact, social care resistance to contact and more. The nature of the subject means that there was much more that could have been discussed and Dr Beth has a wealth of knwoledge on the issue. 

Midway through we experienced a few minor technical stammers but these are overcome so tough it out. 

Links to Dr Beth's research can be found here as well as a range of resources on the Reseach in Practice webpage here

 

As always, thanks for listening and if you are feeling all warm and fluffy a wee review on iTunes here would always be welcome! Thanks

Podcast Special - Adoption UK's FASD Scotland Conference

We were delighted to be invited by Adoption UK to attend their FASD conference in Scotland to record interviews with some of their speakers and attendees. FASD is an issue that is in most of our minds, and is becoming more and more recognised as an issue that affects families where children no longer live with their birth parents.

We speak to Dr Raja Mukherjee, UK FASD Expert and Lead Clinician UK National FASD Clinic, Neurodevelopmental Psychiatrist, Lee Harvey-Heath an adult diagnosed with FASD at the age of 26 years old and two parents who tell us their story about their journey to coming to terms with their children having FASD.

Scott is joined by colleague, Alison Woodhead, Director of Public Affairs at Adoption UK for some of the interview, and we would like to thank Adoption UK for supporting this special edition of the podcast.

Ep 41 - Becky, Scott and Al

This episode is a veritble buffet of adoption and fostering topics, conversation and thought. 

However, we don't miss the opportunity to interigate Becky on her personal life and draw conclusions from the slow down in her blogging output. 

We discuss the thorny issue of how much is too much on social media and the challenges of under and oversharing as bloggers, tweeters and facebookers. 

We attemp to review a couple of books and have a brief, but informative, discussion on poetry. 

We then stumble into the much discussed topic of resilience and Al gets a little hot under the collar and then Scott makes a poem up!

Books reviewed. 

Life Work with Children Who are Fostered or Adopted by Joy Rees

All You Need Is Love: Celebrating Families of All Shapes and Sizes by Shanni Collins

 

Ep 40 - Andrew Christie the Head of the Adoption & Special Guardianship Leadership Board

On this week's podcast we speak to Andrew Christie the Head of the Adoption & Special Guardianship Leadership Board. We'd asked for questions through Twitter and the Facebook page and received a wide range of issues that we put to Andrew. 

We discussed the name change to include Special Guardianship, the Adoption Support Fund as well as the level of influence that the Board has over local authorities in relation to their adoption services and the support that they provide to special guardians. Adopter favourite education was raised as well as transracial adoption, the 2020 vision, workforce development and the views of the new minister Nadim Zahawi.

Being honest it was no Paxmanesque grilling, that's not our style,  but we did ask the questions and Andrew was open in his answers. There was so much more that we barely had time to cover but it was a worthwhile conversation.

As always we sandwich it with a little light banter.   

Andrew was very open and keen to hear the experiences and views of adopters and special guardians and gave a contact email address that can be linked to here.