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31

Articles / Film spotlights 'life-long' impact of adoption

« on: January 09, 2025, 07:22:00 PM »

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2y4ng1nedo

Film spotlights 'life-long' impact of adoption

Rachel Candlin
BBC News, West of England

Published 28 September 2024

Two women, who were adopted as babies, have shared their stories to spotlight the "life-long impact" of adoption.  Adele Gardner and Grace Payne feature in a documentary directed by Rwandan-born adoptee, Louise Ndibwirende, who wanted to challenge the assumption that "the adoption process ends with the paperwork".

Speak Little One: The World is Listening is being screened at The Watershed on 28 September for "underrepresented" adoptees and others with experience of adoption.  Alison Woodhead, from Adoption UK, said: "More needs to be done to highlight the voices and views of adoptees; they should be front and centre when it comes to reforming the adoption system."

Grace wearing a thick winter coat and scarf, standing smiling in front of a fence with brightly-coloured street art.  Ms Payne, 28, who was adopted at 18 months due to China's one-chid policy, said: "I got involved in the documentary because I have a passion for advocating for adoptees and promoting more awareness and discussion around the difficult subject of adoption.  Being adopted has massively shaped who I am today and I feel proud of my identity. To feature in the documentary is an honour and something I'll never forget as an incredible display of adoptee solidarity."

"The documentary shines a light on the reality of adoption, a topic often overlooked, whitewashed, and even stigmatised in our society," said Ms Ndibwirende, who was adopted into a French family at the age of three.

"I wanted to create a safe platform for adoptees to share the emotional and sometimes traumatic reality of adoption, so any adoptee who feels their experiences differ to the 'happy-ever-after' narrative knows they are not alone.  Actually there's often a lot of grief for everyone, and especially for the adoptive child and that follows them through different chapters of their life; with relationships, friendships and finding their identity and culture.  These stories deserve to be told without shame or judgement, and I was really passionate about making sure those voices were heard," she said.

Ms Gardner, 67, was adopted at three months in the 1950s when unmarried mothers were encouraged to give up their babies.  "To those who who are not adopted its complexities often remain invisible.  Louise's brave decision to make her first documentary on this subject encouraged me to want to be part of it. By sharing our journeys as adoptees I hope we can shine a light on identity, adoption and ownership of the self," she said.

Adoption UK is an organisation dedicated to supporting people across the adoption community.  Ms Woodhead, director of Public Affairs and Communications, said: "Most adoptees tell us that adoption has cast both light and shade on their lives.  Ms Ndibwirende is absolutely right that more needs to be done to highlight the voices and views of adoptees. They should be front and centre when it comes to reforming the adoption system and children's social care.  That's definitely a shift the sector is trying to make, but adoptee perspectives have been ignored for decades and change is happening too slowly."

Adoptee voices heard

Ms Ndibwirende, 35, who was adopted into a French family aged three years, said interracial adoption added another layer of complexity.  "For me personally, it can cause an identity crisis and challenge in terms of sense of self, which is really hard to unpack.  Looking for my birth family also kind of flipped the life that I had up until that point.  There's a narrative that once you've found your biological family, it's this kind of happy ever after, but it can be peak existential crisis," she said.

"The impacts can last a lifetime. That's why we're campaigning for lifelong support for adoptees, to make sure that adoption gives them the best possible chance to thrive," added Ms Woodhead.

Anyone with experience of adoption, especially adoptees, are being invited to the screening on 28 September and to take part in a question and answer session.

32

Articles / Gay Georgia couple will spend life in prison for sick abuse of their adopted ...

« on: December 25, 2024, 04:06:26 PM »

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14222835/gay-georgia-couple-sentenced-sexual-abuse-adopted-sons-life-prison.html

Gay Georgia couple will spend life in prison for sick abuse of their adopted sons

By JAMES CIRRONE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Published: 23:50, 23 December 2024 | Updated: 00:51, 24 December 2024

Two Georgia men who were convicted in the sickening sex abuse of their two adopted sons are headed to prison for the rest of their lives.  A judge decided that married gay couple William and Zachary Zulock once darlings of the LGBTQ scene in Georgia will each serve 100 years in prison for sodomizing their young sons, recording the sex acts and providing videos of the abuse to other pedophiles, 11Alive reported.  The horrific abuse was believed to take place when the boys were as young as three and five years old.  'These two defendants truly created a house of horrors and put their extremely dark desires above everything and everyone else,' Alcovy Judicial Circuit District Attorney Randy McGinley said at their sentencing.

'However, the depth of the defendants' depravity, which is as deep as it gets, is not greater than the resolve of those that fought for justice and the strength of the victims in this case. The resolve I have seen from these two young victims over the last two years is truly inspiring.'

In August, William Zulock, 34, pleaded guilty to aggravated sodomy, child molestation, incest, and two counts of sexual exploitation of children.  Zachary Zulock, 36, entered into his own guilty plea on October 21 for aggravated sodomy, child molestation, and sexual exploitation of children. Zachary had a bench trial for the two incest counts and was found guilty by Judge Jeffrey L. Foster.  Following arguments from the prosecution and the defense, Foster adhered to the state's recommendation and sentenced both men to 100 years behind bars without the possibility of parole, followed by probation for life.   But due to the seriousness of their offense, neither of them will be eligible for parole until the entire 100 years is up, ensuring they'll die in prison.  In their initial search of Zulocks' posh home in the Atlanta suburbs, police reviewed two weeks worth of footage from interior surveillance cameras, which showed the men sexually abusing the children in several different parts of the house.  The case against the couple began on July 22, 2022, when the Walton County Sheriff's Office got a tip from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes unit.  Investigators received an alert from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about suspected child sexual abuse material (CSAM) uploaded to a Google account with a Walton County IP address.  After obtaining a search warrant, investigators raided the Zulocks' home and discovered over seven terabytes of digital evidence, home surveillance footage, and cell phone data that had contained graphic images, videos and text messages discussing the abuse.  In subsequent interviews, both men admitted they had spent years sexually abusing their sons, whom they had adopted in 2018 from a now defunct Christian agency.  This involved them sodomizing the boys and forcing them to perform oral sex on them, they told police.  The investigation into the Zulocks also revealed they were communicating with two other pedophiles Hunter Lawless and Luis Vizcarro-Sanchez about the abuse of their boys.  Arrest documents said Zachary Zulock messaged Lawless on Snapchat that he was going to 'f**k his son' and to 'stand by.' Lawless also told police the Zulocks offered their boys up to him 'multiple times.'  Lawless was arrested after downloading a large amount of child porn that was traced by police to his Gmail address. Lawless admitted he received child sex abuse material from Zachary and was later sentenced to 20 years in prison, with the first 12 to be served in prison.  Incriminating messages from Zachary were also Vizcarro-Sanchez's phone. He pleaded guilty to pandering for a person under 18.  After also pleading guilty to the unrelated crime of stealing computers from his workplace, Vizcarro-Sanchez was sentenced to 60 years, the first 15 of which will be served in prison.  The couple was able to adopt their two sons, who are 12 and 10 years old now, despite Zachary having been accused of raping another boy in 2011. That allegation was reported to police but never investigated by prosecutors thoroughly enough to warrant charges. Zachary Zulock and William Zulock were raising their sons in an affluent Atlanta suburb for the roughly three years they had custody of them.  Zachary worked for a local bank branch while William worked for a local government customer service center, but somehow the couple were raking in $7,500-a-week.  They were able to build their dream home in an area where similar properties sell for $900,000. Behind their façade of a happy family living in a beautiful home was the reality that they were regularly raping their children.  Zachary and William adopted the boys from foster care. The boys, then five and three, had been removed from their heroin-addicted parents and placed in foster care.  The pair said the abuse and the filming of that abuse occurred between 2019 and 2021.  In 2021, just a year before they were arrested on heinous sexual abuse allegations, the pair made inquiries about adopting a two-year-old girl. The adoption agency they used was All Gods Children Inc, a now defunct special needs agency in Georgia. It's unclear how extensive their checks were on the pair before they took in the boys.

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Articles / I was forced to give my son away after he was born in a mother and baby....

« on: December 12, 2024, 07:09:37 PM »

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-14182105/mother-baby-homes-scandal.html

I was forced to give my son away after he was born in a mother and baby home in Ireland it took me 40 years to track him down

    Maria Arbuckle, 62, told the Guardian about the scandal which plagued Ireland
    READ MORE: Our lives are scarred forever by a medical scandal no one talks about in Australia

By ELMIRA TANATAROVA

Published: 12:11, 12 December 2024 | Updated: 12:20, 12 December 2024

One woman has laid bare the pain of being forced to give her baby away aged 18 and spending 40 years trying to look for him.  Maria Arbuckle, 62, candidly recounted her experiences with Ireland's mother and baby homes, which were designed to provide refuge for unwed mothers - but were years later embroiled in scandal after it emerged the institutions produced high levels of infant mortality, misogyny and stigmatisation of some of society's most vulnerable.  Speaking to The Guardian, she said even though she knew she wanted her child, 'everybody else was telling her she couldn't keep him'.

The campaigner, originally from Derry, has been outspoken about her traumatic experiences with the homes.  Aged 18, Maria met a 19-year-old singer musician who had a penchant for 'Irish rebel songs' and before long, she was shocked to find herself pregnant, never having been 'taught the facts of life'.  The romance didn't last more than six months, and the pregnant teen who was barely making any money in her traineeship with a bookmaker went to St Patrick's mother and baby home in Dublin.  'Psychologists have diagnosed me with complex PTSD [post‑traumatic stress disorder]. They think my time there must have been so traumatic that I blocked it out,' she told the outlet.

Maria says however that she remembers feeling 'terrified' and 'alone' just before giving birth.   After her baby, who she called Paul, after her brother, was born, official records given to Maria in 2021, sent by the Irish child and family agency, claimed she 'wouldn't rest' and 'wasn't being compliant' with the nuns, hence she had to be 'taken away from the situation'.  Maria found herself 'removed' from the home, and didn't see her baby boy until three months later in April, 1981 - for one last time, before signing the adoption papers through tears.  She explained: 'I always thought that I didn't want children that I didn't want to bring a child into the world that I'd grown up in. But I knew when I was carrying him that I wanted him. It was everybody else that was telling me I couldn't keep him.'

While Maria admitted that she was not in a good position to parent Paul, 'things could have been different' if she knew about the support which was available to her.  In 2021, Ireland's ex-premier Micheal Martin apologised to the victims of the mother and baby homes scandal and admitted 'the State failed' after a report found that 9,000 children had died in the institutions over seven decades.  The then Taoiseach had earlier been accused of 'whitewashing' the findings by campaigners who said the report shifted blame from those who ran the homes on to society at large.  He offered a profound apology on behalf of the Irish government, telling the victims: 'Each of you is blameless, each of you did nothing wrong and has nothing to be ashamed of.'

In a speech in the Irish parliament, the Dail, Mr Martin said: 'I apologise for the shame and stigma which they were subjected to and which, for some, remains a burden to this day.'

After her baby, who she called Paul, after her brother, was born, official records given to Maria in 2021, sent by the Irish child and family agency, claimed she 'wouldn't rest' and 'wasn't being compliant' with the nuns, hence she had to be 'taken away from the situation'.  Maria found herself 'removed' from the home, and didn't see her baby boy until three months later in April, 1981 for one last time, before signing the adoption papers through tears.   She explained: 'I always thought that I didn't want children that I didn't want to bring a child into the world that I'd grown up in. But I knew when I was carrying him that I wanted him. It was everybody else that was telling me I couldn't keep him.'

While Maria admitted that she was not in a good position to parent Paul, 'things could have been different' if she knew about the support which was available to her.  In 2021, Ireland's ex-premier Micheal Martin apologised to the victims of the mother and baby homes scandal and admitted 'the State failed' after a report found that 9,000 children had died in the institutions over seven decades.  The then Taoiseach had earlier been accused of 'whitewashing' the findings by campaigners who said the report shifted blame from those who ran the homes on to society at large.  He offered a profound apology on behalf of the Irish government, telling the victims: 'Each of you is blameless, each of you did nothing wrong and has nothing to be ashamed of.'

In a speech in the Irish parliament, the Dail, Mr Martin said: 'I apologise for the shame and stigma which they were subjected to and which, for some, remains a burden to this day.'

Tragically, horror struck Maria again shortly after her reunion with Paul as another one of her sons, Tony was killed aged 38 last October.  As reported by ITV, he was murdered in a brutal knife attack by his friend Nicholas Ward, 38, who was jailed for life with a minimum term of 21 years.  Maria has been vocal in her past struggles with the mother and baby homes. Earlier this year, she was among those calling for survivors of the scandal and families of all victims who died deserve the chance to apply for compensation.  Speaking to the BBC, she said: 'We’re getting older, and the truth needs to be out there.   We weren’t allowed to bond with our babies because we were told they weren’t our even though we were meant to bathe them and feed them every day.'

In June, consultations kicked off on proposals to establish an inquiry into the institutions.  The 2,865-page document published three years ago lifted the lid on years of abuse in homes for unmarried and pregnant Irish women.  Some of the institutions were owned and run by the local health authorities the county homes Pelletstown, Tuam and Kilrush.  Others were owned and run by religious orders; for example, the three homes run by the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, Bessborough, Sean Ross and Castlepollard (the Sacred Heart homes).  Many of the women suffered emotional abuse and were often subject to denigration and derogatory remarks, the commission of investigation's report said.  Studying the homes over a 76-year period through 1998, the CIMBH determined that 9,000 children died in them, or 15 per cent of those who passed through.   The report says 56,000 unmarried mothers and 57,000 children passed through the homes examined.   Many of the women received little or no ante-natal care.  The report gave no single explanation for the deaths, but said 'the major identifiable causes were respiratory infections and gastroenteritis.'

It also highlighted a total of seven unethical vaccine trials on children in the institutions between 1934 and 1973.  Meanwhile women of the period who gave birth outside marriage were 'subject to particularly harsh treatment' at the hands of families and partners.  The CIMBH was established in 2015, after an amateur historian uncovered evidence of a potential mass grave of infants at one such home in the town of Tuam.

Babies 'carried out in shoe boxes to be buried': The stories behind the mother and baby homes

St Patrick's Navan Road, Dublin, 1919-1998

The majority of the 18,829 children admitted to St Patrick's Navan Road were alone at the time of their death.  Originally known as Pelletstown and later operated as Eglinton House, this institution was run by the Daughters of Charity who were employed by the relevant local authority at the time.  A total of 15,382 women and 18,829 children were admitted here between 1919 and 1998, according to commission's report.  Facilities at Pelletstown were described as 'inadequate' with just four lavatories provided for 140 women in 1950. In 1966, women were sleeping in dormitories with 52 and 30 beds respectively that offered no privacy.  A total of 3,615 children died; 78% of deaths occurred between 1920 and 1942, but unlike at many mother and baby homes, the burials of these infants are properly recorded in Glasnevin Cemetery.

Belmont Flatlets, Donnybrook, Dublin, 1980-2001

This was not a traditional mother and baby home but rather a hostel type short-term accommodation for a small number of women and children, about nine or ten at any one time.  It was opened by the Daughters of Charity and was financially supported by the Eastern Health Board. The women lived independently, but got support from social workers and public health nurses.  The commission stated: 'The mothers were there with their babies and left with their babies so the issue of tracing would not have arisen.'

Kilrush Nursery, Co. Clare, 1922-1932

The commission estimates that there were between 300 and 400 unmarried mothers and a much larger number of children in the west Clare facility.  It was run by the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy nuns up to 1928, and afterwards by lay staff, and conditions were described as 'very poor', with leaking roofs, no baths, and no inside sanitary accommodation.  The mothers who lived there were also described as neglected, with no proper clothing or comfort of any kind.  The number of child deaths in this institution, however, is not known, but the medical officer described the death rate in 1927 as 'appalling'.

Bessborough House, Co. Cork, 1922-1998

The burial sites of the 923 children who died here still remain a mystery, largely due to the failings of local health authorities.  A total of 9,768 women and 8,938 children passed through the institution's doors, run by the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.  One young mother described how she was stripped of her name, belongings and life's savings when she became a resident.  'It would have been impossible to leave; all of our things had been confiscated, we had no clothes and no money,' she said.

'From time to time we were allowed outside, but were always escorted by nuns.  They marched us around like soldiers.'

Sean Ross, Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, 1931-1969

The Sean Ross mother and baby home was among the homes run by the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.  Within 38 years, 6,414 women were admitted and 6,079 babies were born there.  One such resident was Philomena Lee, whose story was turned into an award-winning film in 2013. During her stay, her son was forcibly taken from her and adopted by US parents in the 1950s. A total of 1,090 of the 6,079 babies who were born or admitted at Sean Ross had died, but the registers of burials were not maintained.  However, there is a burial ground, and the commission has established the remains of some children under the age of one are buried in coffins there.

Castlepollard, Co. Westmeath, 1935-1971

Several women told the commission of investigation that they witnessed nuns leaving the hospital with up to ten dead babies in shoe boxes and bringing them for burial on the grounds nearby. The burial sites were later marked by the presence of nails in the wall of a cemetery nearby.   The facility was run by the Congregations of the Sacred Heart, and a total of 4,559 babies were born here, but there is no register of burials for the 247 infants who died.

Regina Coeli, North Brunswick Street, Dublin, 1930-1998

A total of 734 children had died at this hostel accommodation with the peak of mortalities occurring in the early 1940s.  A 1948 report claimed that infant mortality at the facility was three times the rate in Pelletstown and that the hostel lacked 'almost every proper facility in regard to both nursing and structure'.

Dunboyne, Co. Meath, 1955-1991

The Dunboyne Mother and Baby home had the highest proportion of women under 18, with minors making up 23.4% of admissions.  Over one in ten admissions to Dunboyne were aged between 12 and 16, which was under the legal age of consent. There were a total of 3,156 mothers and 1,148 children, with 37 infant mortalities.

Bethany, Dublin city and Rathgar, 1922-1971

This facility was run mainly for Protestant women, and a total of 262 children associated with the Bethany Home in Dublin died. During its 50-year operation in Blackhall Place and later Rathgar, this mother and baby home accommodated 1,584 women and 1,376 children.  The commission found that the decision to no longer admit Catholic women meant that it was less overcrowded than the other mother and baby homes in the 1940s.

Other homes mentioned in the report included: Denny House (formerly the Magdalen Asylum), 1765-1994; Miss Carr's Flatlets, Dublin, 1972-present; St Gerard's, Dublin, 1919-1939; Cork County Home, 1921-1960; Kilkenny County Home, Thomastown, 1922-1960. 

34

Articles / Woman searching for birth parents found dad was a friend on Facebook

« on: December 02, 2024, 05:37:47 PM »

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c36p9drnrdlo

Woman searching for birth parents found dad was a friend on Facebook

Fay Nurse
BBC World Service

Published 1 December 2024

Tamuna Museridze took a deep breath and made the phone call she had dreamed of since finding out that she might be adopted.  She was calling the woman she believed was her biological mother. She knew it might not lead to a fairy tale reunion but she didn't expect the response to be cold and angry.  “She started screaming, shouting she said she hadn’t given birth to a child. She didn't want anything to do with me,” Tamuna recalls, explaining she felt more surprised than upset by the response.

“I was ready for anything, but her reaction was beyond anything I could imagine.”

Tamuna wasn’t prepared to walk away just yet. She wanted to know the circumstances of her adoption, and there was something else she wanted that only her mother could give her the name of her father.  Tamuna’s search had begun in 2016, after the woman who raised her died. Clearing out her house, Tamuna found a birth certificate with her own name on it but the wrong birth date, and she started to suspect she was adopted. After doing some research, she set up a Facebook group called Vedzeb, or I’m Searching, hoping to find her birth parents. Instead, she uncovered a baby trafficking scandal in Georgia that has affected tens of thousands of lives. Over many decades, parents were lied to and told their newborn babies had died the infants were then sold.  Tamuna is a journalist and her work has reunited hundreds of families, yet until now she couldn’t solve the mystery of her own origins and wondered if she too had been stolen as a child.  “I was a journalist on this story, but it was a personal mission for me as well,” she says.

The breakthrough in her search had come in the summer, when she received a message through her Facebook group. It was from someone who lived in rural Georgia, who said they knew a woman who had concealed a pregnancy and given birth in Tbilisi in September 1984. That’s around the time Tamuna was born a date she had shared publicly.  The person believed the woman was Tamuna’s birth mother and crucially they gave a name.  Tamuna immediately searched for her online but when she couldn’t find anything, she decided to post an appeal on Facebook asking if anyone knew her.  A woman soon responded, saying the woman who had concealed the pregnancy was her own aunt. She asked Tamuna to take the post down but she agreed to do a DNA test.  While they were waiting for the results, Tamuna made the phone call to her mother.  A week later, the DNA results arrived, indicating that Tamuna and the woman on Facebook were indeed cousins. Armed with this evidence, Tamuna managed to convince her mother to acknowledge the truth and reveal the name of her father. It was a man called Gurgen Khorava.  “The first two months were shocking, I couldn’t believe these things were happening to me,” she recalls, “I couldn’t believe I had found them.”

Once Tamuna had Gurgen’s name, she quickly tracked him down on Facebook. It turned out that he had been following her story on social media her work reconnecting families is widely known across Georgia.  Tamuna was amazed to find that he had “been in my friend list for three years”.

He just hadn’t realised he was a part of her story.  “He didn’t even know my birth mother had been pregnant,” says Tamuna. “It was a huge surprise for him."

They soon arranged to meet in his hometown of Zugdidi in western Georgia about 160 miles (260km) from where she lives in Tbilisi.  Looking back, Tamuna thinks she was in a state of shock, but as she walked up to Gurgen’s garden gate, she felt surprisingly calm.  When the 72-year-old appeared, they hugged, then stopped to take a moment to look at each other, smiling.  “It was strange, the moment he looked at me, he knew that I was his daughter,” she recalls. “I had so many mixed emotions.”

She had a lot of questions and didn’t know where to start. “We just sat together, watching each other and trying to find something in common,” she says.

As the two of them chatted, they realised they shared a lot of interests - Gurgen had once been a renowned dancer at the State Ballet of Georgia, and was delighted to learn that Tamuna’s daughters his granddaughters shared his passion.  “They both love dancing, and so does my husband,” she says with a smile.

Gurgen invited his entire family to his home to meet Tamuna, introducing her to a large group of new relatives half siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles. The family agreed there was a strong resemblance between them. “Out of all his children, I look the most like my father,” she says.

They spent an evening sharing stories, eating traditional Georgian food, and singing while Gurgen played the accordion.  Even though she had now met her father, Tamuna still had a niggling question: had she like thousands of other Georgians been stolen from her mother at birth and sold? 

Her adoptive parents were no longer alive so she couldn’t turn to them for answers.  She finally got a chance to ask her birth mother in October. A Polish TV company was filming a documentary about Tamuna and took her to meet her mother, who agreed to talk to her in private.  Unlike many people Tamuna has helped to reunite, she discovered that she had not been a stolen child herself. Instead, her mother had given her up and kept the secret for 40 years.  Her mother and father were not in a relationship and had only had a brief encounter. Her mother overwhelmed by shame chose to hide her pregnancy. In September 1984, she travelled to Tbilisi, telling people she was going for surgery, and instead gave birth to a daughter. She stayed there until arrangements were made for Tamuna’s adoption.  “It was painful to learn that I spent 10 days alone with her before the adoption. I try not to think about that,” Tamuna reflects.

She says that her mother asked her to lie and tell people she had been stolen. “She told me that if I would not say that I was stolen, everything would end between us and I said that I couldn’t do that."

Tamuna feels this would be unfair to all the parents whose babies were stolen. “If I lie, nobody's going to believe those mothers any more,” she explains.

Her mother then asked her to leave the house and they have not spoken since.  “Would I do it all again?” she reflects. “Of course I would, I found out so much about my new family.”

35

Articles / 'We love our adopted children but after years of violent attacks we had no ....

« on: November 30, 2024, 11:49:19 AM »

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-14137979/adopted-children-violent-attacks-care-Shattered-parents-fail-HELEN-CARROLL.html?ico=related-replace

'We love our adopted children but after years of violent attacks we had no choice but to put them back in care': Shattered parents reveal why so many adoptions fail to HELEN CARROLL

By HELEN CARROLL FOR THE DAILY MAIL

Published: 01:58, 29 November 2024 | Updated: 16:13, 29 November 2024

Having met while working at a children's charity, Naomi and Martin were aware of the challenges of adopting children who have had a difficult start in life.  They also believed that, given their experience, if any couple had the skills needed to provide the right mix of love, nurturing and guidance required, it was them. However, 12 years after adopting two young children years in which the parents were beaten and abused so violently they regularly had to call the police, and both suffered nervous breakdowns the children, now aged 15 and 16, are back in care.  They lay the blame for this heartbreaking situation squarely on their local authority which, they say due to a lack of funding and a 'pass the buck' culture totally abandoned them to their fate.  Says Naomi, 45: 'We did our best, but the children desperately needed professional help which, once they were officially adopted by us, was almost impossible to access.  I'm not saying that I thought we'd 'save' them, but I, naively, believed that with love, stability and permanence we were providing an environment in which any difficulties that arose could be worked through.  We never bargained for being kicked, hit, spat at and verbally abused Martin is deaf in one ear after one particularly vicious punch from our son and certainly not for the relationship with our children to completely break down.'

It's notable, and poignantly sad, that this couple still refer to the brother and sister, whom they welcomed into their home aged two and three, as 'theirs'. They love them and feel guilty about what happened.  They'd gone into the adoption process longing for a forever happy family, after learning they were unable to have children themselves.  It's a tragedy shared by hundreds of adoptive parents across the UK, who've been left traumatised, their marriages wrecked and even, in extreme cases, driven to taking their own lives by a system woefully incapable of supporting them.  One support group, PATCH (Passionate Adopters Targeting Change with Hope), which has 700 members, is campaigning for systemic change to address this 'crisis'. Most members share the same grievance: that children are almost always removed from their birth parents due to significant abuse or neglect, which often begins during pregnancy, where they are exposed to drugs and alcohol. This leaves the children with symptoms of extreme trauma.  However, when behavioural issues manifest post-adoption some of which can be genetic the adoptive parents are left to fend alone and, ultimately, blamed when the situation becomes unmanageable.  According to figures from Adoption UK, 65 per cent of adoptive parents experience violence or aggression at the hands of their children. And, based on responses to the charity's annual survey, the number of adopted children leaving the family home 'prematurely' is rising, from three per cent in 2021, to seven per cent in 2023.  'There's a common, but false, belief that trauma is healed through love, and therefore adoption is the happy ever after, which any psychologist or psychotherapist will attest, it is not,' says Fiona Wells, who runs PATCH and is herself a social worker, working in fostering, and also both an adopter and adoptee.

'Social workers are not experts in trauma, they're experts in risk and family life. What these families need is trauma-informed therapeutic, as well as practical, support, but once an adoption is finalised the children, and any issues they have, seem to be considered the responsibility of the adoptive parents.  Support is, technically, available, through regional adoption agencies, but there are often lengthy delays and misdirected guidance towards inappropriate solutions which perpetuate the problems.'

Naomi and Martin's experience was sadly typical. The children, Tamsin and Joseph, had been taken into foster care aged one and two having suffered extreme neglect. Their mother abused drugs and alcohol, and they were not fed or washed. Their biological father was in prison for domestic violence.  Joseph was still a toddler when he started lashing out at them. Naturally, the couple turned to their social worker for guidance.  The only advice was to use 'non-violent restraint', such as changing the subject and distracting the child in a confrontational situation, and 'natural consequences' tactics i.e. leaving it to the child to work out the results of their actions themselves.  Blunt instruments indeed when you are being punched in the head or attacked with a baseball bat.  As one specialist adoption solicitor put it, with highly damaged children the approaches are like 'applying an Elastoplast to an arterial wound'.

Unsurprisingly, things got worse. Their daughter's violent outbursts began after she started secondary school.  Naomi believes this was due to her being dyslexic and on the autism spectrum although she was never diagnosed. Again, the social workers were of little use.  Tamsin was 14 when, after a fall out over something Naomi struggles to recall, she attacked Martin so viciously, biting him and hitting him with a bat, that Naomi had no alternative but to call the police for help.  'They arrested her, keeping her in a cell overnight, which was horrific, but they thought it would teach her a lesson,' says Naomi. 'Sadly, it didn't, and it happened again, two weeks later.'

Then, one day she returned from a brief dog walk to find Joseph and Tamsin brutally attacking one another, close to the top of the staircase, 'biting, scratching, kicking, hair pulling and spraying deodorant into each other's faces'.

After trying, in vain, to separate them, in desperation Naomi called the police again. By the time officers arrived, the siblings had fled and Joseph was later found, sitting on a railway bridge, threatening to jump.  Police managed to pull him to safety, and he was referred to CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services). The couple were told Joseph needed 'dyadic developmental psychotherapy', a specialist treatment for children who have been hurt or neglected in their early years, which would require both Naomi and Martin to attend weekly sessions.  This proved very difficult for Martin. As the family breadwinner, who now works in finance, he was unable to take time off work in the middle of the day. Though evening sessions were available, the couple's request for these was ignored. Social workers were unsympathetic, and highly critical of him in reports.  Both children developed serious mental health problems, and would regularly self-harm, shutting themselves in the bathroom. At their wits' end, the couple took the lock off the bathroom door only to be told by social workers to replace it to 'protect the children's privacy'.  'I was terrified one of them might die and begged social workers to get them urgent appointments with CAMHS, which still felt like our only hope, yet there seemed to be no urgency back then though I understand they've had referrals now, after the adoption has broken down,' recalls Naomi.

Everything came to a head at the beginning of the year when Tamsin had gone missing. Martin was out with Joseph in the car, scouring the streets, when he had what can only be described as a nervous breakdown. He later described how he'd started driving very quickly, feeling like he wanted to die.  'Martin was full of remorse,' says Naomi. 'But we realised we were both so broken we could no longer cope and asked that the children be taken back into care.'

Initially the siblings were taken into care under a Section 20 order, a voluntary agreement between the adoptive parents and the local authority for them to provide temporary care, but now have a 'full care order', which means they will remain in local authority homes until they are 18.  The couple still see the children last week Naomi met Tamsin to go shopping and took Joseph for tea and cake. On another occasion, Martin took Joseph to play pool. The last time the children visited the family home, for Sunday lunch, they stole £100 from a safe. 'We miss them and still consider them our children,' says Naomi.

'And we don't put any of the blame for what's happened on them. They've developed a fight or flight response as a result of their early trauma and haven't had the professional support they need. However, as much as we still love them both, it's a relief they don't live with us any more.'

One explanation for the rise in cases of children having to leave their adoptive home is the effects of widespread cuts in funding to local authorities and CAMHS, says Alison Woodhead, of Adoption UK. 'Adopters often feel quite abandoned, not knowing what they're entitled to or what support is out there.'

This was certainly the case for Stephan, a little boy who, together with his older sister Juliet, was adopted by Sophie Greenwood and her wife, Susie, a schoolteacher, in 2012, when they were aged two and three.  Both children were malnourished, covered in sores and fleas and so terrified of water that Sophie and Susie were unable to bath them, unless they climbed in too.  While Juliet developed normally, Stephan had abnormal brain development that could have been caused by exposure to toxins in the womb, as well as suspected foetal alcohol syndrome. He was diagnosed with autism, ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD).  'We wanted them to stay together, so we could all be a forever family,' says Sophie. 'However, we had no idea what a fight we had on our hands to get our son the support he needed.'

As a toddler, he was easy to pick up and distract, but as he grew bigger he grew increasingly violent biting and kicking his parents and his sister.  Warned not to physically restrain him, Susie and Sophie would hold a kickboxing pad in front of them to soften the blows.  Eventually, when he was eight, they couldn't cope any more.  'A therapist, assigned by the local authority, agreed that our son needed a specialist residential school, but said the only way we'd secure one was to report any significant physically aggressive incidents to the council and the police, so there was a log.  We did this, and the local authority pushed back, placing both children on the child protection register under suspicion of 'emotional abuse'.'

Stephan moved to the residential school aged ten, leaving Juliet at home. In theory, this meant Susie was able to return to work as a teacher. However, she was now on record as being the mother of children 'at risk'.  'The fight for support and the shame just broke her,' says Sophie. 'She was so tired and constantly ruminating over the injustice of it all.'

One evening, in late 2022, Susie took her own life.  Sophie sobs as she recalls breaking the terrible news to their children Susie's death heaping further trauma on top of what they had already endured.  Juliet, 15, is developing normally, while Stephan still comes home regularly but remains prone to lashing out. Although she cannot bear to imagine her life without her two children, Sophie admits that, had she and Susie known what lay ahead, they would have been unlikely to proceed with adoption.  Adoption specialist solicitor Nigel Priestley says the legal firm where he is a senior partner, Ridley & Hall in Yorkshire, is contacted by about 150 adoptive families in crisis a year.  'Long gone are the days when most babies adopted came from teenagers, in mother and baby homes,' says Nigel. 'We have a whole host of children coming through who carry significant issues with them. Specialist support for these children costs local authorities a fortune and, over the last ten years, the services that provide support have been cut to the bone.'

Alison from Adoption UK stresses that this lack of funding is the issue, and that the devastating impact of adoption breakdown on the child should not be forgotten. 'When adopted children and young people leave the adoptive family home prematurely it is devastating for all concerned, particularly the young person.  It's almost always because they are let down by adoption services, by mental health services and by the education system. Most adoptive families describe a constant battle to get the support their children and young people need. When children and young people do leave their adoptive family home prematurely, many return there. And many adopters with children and young people living away from home are still intimately involved in their lives and their care.'

As one mother, whose marriage didn't survive after she and her husband adopted three traumatised, and later violent, siblings who had suffered terrible neglect and abuse, says: 'I don't blame the boys for how they behave if I'd had their start in life, I'd no doubt struggle to control my emotions too. I blame the system for not giving them the help they needed. There should have been ongoing support in place from the get-go.'

Hundreds of devastated parents up and down the country, whose adoptions have been similarly disrupted, agree wholeheartedly.

*  For support, visit the PATCH website at ourpatch.org.uk

*  Names of children and parents have been changed.

36

Adoption Legislation / Supporting adoption: vision and priorities - statement

« on: November 28, 2024, 08:29:32 PM »

https://www.gov.scot/publications/supporting-adoption-vision-priorities-scotland/pages/5/?fbclid=IwY2xjawG1sRtleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHa_BrAHCvMt1hgMtZZAWpyR8MTAdQ4Y2olyQV8GLRmT89BY0U8XFN5mtDA_aem_cPYDJSCEH6idqwpl09Vtyw

Supporting adoption: vision and priorities - statement

This statement sets out our vision for adoption in Scotland, the importance of support for our adoption community, and strategic priorities to achieve this.


5. Supporting Adoption: Recognising Needs

Every child needs ongoing care, love and support. This section gives details of the needs of those impacted by adoption, recognising that everyone’s journey and experiences will be unique and personal to them.

There are common themes in what personal testimonies teach us about the power of adoption. Adoption can offer children a secure and loving environment outside of the care system. This can support their legal, physical and emotional safety and security, including a sense of belonging in a family, as well as their psychological health and wellbeing.
Family who adopted two children separately

“Our decision to become a family came with uncertainty as all life’s major decisions do. No one in our wee family of four shares DNA. However, the love and attachments we share are absolutely no different to biological families. This is adoption’s biggest gift. We will be forever grateful for our wonderful children and creation of our family.”

Adoption can also provide long-term stability through lifelong attachments and a consistent network of support, including into adulthood. This can in turn bring intergenerational benefits, for example, lifelong family can be a huge support at different stages of life, such as if an adoptee becomes a parent themselves.

Research[1] has shown that whilst adoption can improve children’s stability and emotional wellbeing, ongoing support is needed to achieve positive, long term outcomes. The Permanently Progressing longitudinal study explores children’s experiences, their progress to permanence and outcomes at key life stages, highlighting the importance of stability and continuity in relationships. Furthermore, CELCIS’s (Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection) focused mapping review explores different aspects of adoption support across the UK, to assist with understanding what is needed in Scotland to meet the needs of all involved.

All families require support throughout a child’s life, and as part of this all parents will need support throughout their parenting journeys. For some of our adoptees and their families, there may be specific needs, because adoption journeys can involve particular challenges. Whilst adoption can bring significant benefits, it is important to recognise adoption journeys involve early life trauma, grief and loss. This can affect our children and young people, birth and adoptive families and carers in different and long-lasting ways. It is normal for everyone involved to need support to address these challenges.
Supporting birth families

Where adoption is being considered for a child, their birth parents and wider birth family may have specific needs. We have heard that parents at risk of their child coming into care and being adopted are usually navigating multiple challenges, such as poverty and trauma.

Evaluation of services aimed at reducing repeated child removals from parental care highlight that success relies on a combination of sustained emotional and practical support. This support is most effective when delivered flexibly by practitioners who treat parents with compassion and respect.

We also have much to learn from the experiences of birth families to inform and shape proactive, preventative care and earlier intervention.

Our birth families need timely, non-judgemental therapeutic support to navigate the impacts before, during, and after a child or young person is adopted. Birth families may also need support around any keeping in touch arrangements and guidance on managing this and navigating complex emotions and maintaining healthy relationships.

Scotland’s Plan 24-30 highlights we must recognise that all families with experience of the care system may need ongoing, intensive support. This means:

“Scotland will not abandon families if children are removed from the care of their parents. Families will continue to be provided with therapeutic support, advocacy and engagement in line with principles of intensive family support.”
Supporting adopted children and young people

Early life experiences prior to adoption (pre-birth, as babies and beyond) continue to have significant impacts on our children and young people long after they are adopted. These early life experiences can include the trauma and/or neglect that babies and children may have experienced prior to their adoption, as well as the separation and loss that can be experienced during the adoption process.

Our children and young people may require particular support from primary services, such as health, education and mental health services. They might also need appropriate intervention – including timely, specialist support, to help them address trauma and thrive as they grow. We know that positive early life experiences can shape future health and wellbeing. Early intervention can bring lasting benefits for physical, mental and behavioural outcomes.

Sibling relationships must be considered prior to adoption, and where siblings do not live together, these lifelong relationships should be promoted and nurtured. As part of this, time should be given to ensure views from children and young people about the relationships important to them are gathered in a meaningful way.

Adopted young person

“I like learning from people who understand what I am going through. Spending time with other adopted young people means I can help others too. I love meeting other people just like me!”
Supporting adoptive parents

Our adoptive parents may require comprehensive support to help them navigate the unique journey of adoption, at different points in their child’s life. This includes thorough preparation for the emotional and practical aspects of adoption.

It also includes supporting them to be open to the uncertainties of their children’s future needs, which may not be evident at the beginning of the adoption journey.

It also means support to be able to respond to children’s needs in a therapeutic and trauma informed way, especially at key transition points in a child’s life.
Supporting adult adoptees

There are some of our adult adoptees for whom adoption has been a predominantly positive experience. Even for adult adoptees whose adoption has given them the stability they needed, there can be additional challenges to navigate.

Some of our adult adoptees may have had a particularly difficult adoption journey. This may include people who were adopted during the time of historic forced adoption practices, and people who were adopted when it was less common to support adoptees to know their origins, and maintain relationships with birth family, former carers and siblings.

These circumstances can lead to adult adoptees having unique needs and considerations, including: support around identity and self-understanding; search and reunion; help to access records; and tailored emotional and therapeutic support.

Addressing these needs calls for skilled practitioners with expertise in adoption, including an awareness that support might be necessary at any life stage. An understanding of the social and psychological effects of adoption, and the circumstances leading up to it, is also important.

Adult adoptee

“Adoption has brought me love. I know that the love in our families is real. Adoption needs love to survive, but that isn't enough. Parenting traumatised children is highly complex and challenging. It is also rewarding, real and of value to individuals and to society.”

The evidence that we have gathered on the needs of those impacted by adoption has informed – and is reflected in – five strategic priorities which are outlined in the next section.

37

Articles / Uncertainty for families as China ends foreign adoptions

« on: November 23, 2024, 05:20:35 PM »

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crmwrpe3m3do

Uncertainty for families as China ends foreign adoptions

Nathan Williams
BBC News

Published 6 September 2024

China has announced that it is ending the practice of allowing children to be adopted overseas, bringing uncertainty to families currently going through the process.

A spokeswoman said that the rule change was in line with the spirit of international agreements.

At least 150,000 Chinese children have been adopted abroad in the last three decades.

More than 82,000 have gone to the US, a greater number than anywhere else in the world.

At a daily briefing Thursday, foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said in the future Beijing would only allow foreign nationals who are relatives to adopt Chinese children.

She did not explain the reason for the decision, other than saying it was in line with international agreements.

Ms Mao thanked families "for their desire and love in adopting children from China".

The ban on foreign adoptions has created uncertainty for hundreds of families in the US currently going through the process of adopting children from China.

In a call with US diplomats in China, Beijing said it would "not continue to process cases at any stage" other than those cases covered by an exception clause. This position was confirmed by spokeswoman Ms Mao.

Washington is seeking clarification from China's civic ministry.

China's controversial one-child policy, introduced in 1979 when the country was worried about a surging population, forced many families to abandon their children.

Families that violated the rules were fined and, in some cases, lost jobs. In a culture that historically favours boys over girls, it often meant that female babies were given up.

International adoption was formalised in the 1990s, and since then tens of thousands of children have been adopted, with about half going to parents in the US - including celebrities like Meg Ryan and Woody Allen.

However, the international adoption programme has at various times come under criticism. In 2013, Chinese police rescued 92 abducted children and arrested suspected members of a trafficking network.

Critics at the time pointed to China's one-child policy and adoption laws, which they said had created a thriving underground market for buying children.

A number of countries have expressed concerns about international adoptions.

Denmark has closed its only overseas adoption agency, over concerns about fabricated documents. The Netherlands has also said it will no longer allow its citizens to adopt children from abroad.

But Beijing has also altered the way it views children. In stark contrast to the position taken by officials at end of the 1970s, the country's leaders now worry there are not enough babies being born to sustain the population.

In 2016 China scrapped the one-child policy and in 2021 Beijing formally revised its laws to allow married couples to have up to three children.

In recent years, the Chinese government also offered tax breaks and better maternal healthcare, among other incentives, in an attempt to reverse, or at least slow, the falling birth rate.

But these polices have not lead to a sustained increase in births, and in 2023 the country's total population fell for the first time in 60 years.

38

Articles / Adopted girl, 13, found dead wearing just a diaper in unimaginable house.....

« on: November 19, 2024, 04:47:27 PM »

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14098971/Diane-Natasha-Mack-Department-Child-Families-adopted-daughter-dead-diaper.html

Adopted girl, 13, found dead wearing just a diaper in unimaginable house of horrors

By MELISSA KOENIG FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Published: 02:30, 19 November 2024 | Updated: 11:34, 19 November 2024

A former Florida Department of Children and Families employee has been arrested for allegedly abusing her 13-year-old adopted daughter, who was found dead wearing just a diaper.  Diane Natasha Mack, 34, who once worked as a guardian ad litem a person appointed by the courts system to represent the interests of someone who is unable to care for themselves called police to her home in the Sun 'n Lake of Sebring golf and recreation community on Friday at 12.19am to report her adopted daughter dead after finding her 'lying unresponsive' on the floor.  When deputies arrived at the scene, they found the unidentified victim dead next to the front door, wearing nothing but a diaper and showing 'clear' signs of abuse and neglect, the Highlands County Sheriff's Office reports.  'She was extremely emaciated and obviously malnourished,' Sheriff Paul Blackman said. 'Her body was covered in wounds in all stages of healing, including lacerations that were clearly recently suffered.'

The sheriff went on to call the crime scene 'one of the most disturbing I have encountered in more than 30 years of law enforcement.  There are no words I can say that can truly convey the nightmare that this child's life must have been.'

Authorities now claim that Mack initially told officers on the scene she found the girl on Thursday morning but later changed her time of discovery to around 3pm.  Further investigation also uncovered evidence suggesting the girl, who was homeschooled, had been locked up in a garage, the sheriff's department said.  It is unclear how long the girl had been kept inside the garage, officials said, but 'it appears she was secured to the garage door and monitored from inside the home by a security camera that had been mounted in the garage,' officials said.

Deputies also claim Mack left her daughter 'lying dead on the floor,' while she used 'pool chlorine' to try to destroy evidence inside the garage.  She also allegedly took the time to drive at least four other children who were living inside the home with her to another residence in Titusville, before she returned to Sebring to report the girl's death.   Mack is now being held without bail at the Highlands County Jail as she faces charges of first-degree murder while engaged in aggravated child abuse, aggravated child abuse, kidnapping and destroying evidence.  Sheriff Blackman, meanwhile, has insisted the department 'will do everything in our power to make sure that there is justice for this child.  Parents have a duty to love our children and make sure no harm comes this way,' he said. 'To see a child treated this way is not only heartbreaking, it's infuriating.   What makes it even more appalling is that the suspect is a former employee of not only the Department of Children and Families, but also worked as a guardian ad litem.  That someone whose job it was to look after the welfare of children could treat their own child in this manner is simply beyond belief.'

39

Articles / Adopted children to have closer contact with birth families

« on: November 15, 2024, 11:51:38 AM »

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3vl5w3zy2eo

Adopted children to have closer contact with birth families

Sanchia Berg and Katie Inman
BBC News
Published 7 November 2024

Adopted children are likely to be allowed much closer contact with their birth families in the future as part of "seismic" changes recommended in a report published today. Some families say the changes are long overdue but others worry they may deter people from adopting.  Angela Frazer-Wicks' two sons were removed from her care and adopted in 2004, when they were aged five and one. She was in an abusive relationship and had problems with addiction and her mental health.  By 2011 Angela had recovered, she was in a new relationship, and had a baby daughter. The local authority was not involved in her daughter's care.  Angela's sons and their adoptive parents had stayed in touch with her writing letters and sending photos once or twice a year. But when the older of the two boys became a teenager, he told his adoptive mother he no longer wanted to write to his birth mother. Angela carried on sending cards, but heard nothing back for years.  Then out of the blue, in 2020, Angela received an email from her eldest son. It turned out he had been trying to contact her, but the local authority had told him that wasn't possible.  Last month, Angela met her eldest son in person it was the first time she had seen him for 20 years.  "It was amazing for me," Angela says, "even more so for my daughter she's waited her entire life to meet her brother."

Adoption is the state's most powerful intervention in family life. It is a permanent break between a child and their birth family, and alters the child's identity forever. In law they are no longer the child of their birth parents, and most adopted children grow up without seeing or knowing any of their birth family.  Around 3,000 children are adopted in England each year. It's a process that must be authorised by judges in family courts, who set out the level of contact the child will have with their birth parents usually just letters, sent twice a year, via an intermediary.  While adoption law has evolved over the years allowing children to know more about their history than they once did, in some ways, families say, adoption is still very much stuck in the past.  Now a new report from a group set up by the most senior judge in the family court, external says wholesale reform of the system is needed.  "Letterbox" contact between adopted children and birth families is outdated, the report says, instead recommending face-to-face contact where that is safe.  The extremely detailed report is strongly supported by Sir Andrew McFarlane who says there is no need to change the law for this to happen.  The report is likely to influence family court adoption hearings throughout England and Wales.  Angela Frazer-Wicks describes her experience of adoption as a "life sentence without any right to appeal".

As chair of trustees of the charity Family Rights Group, she is pleased mothers like her will have more chance to continue seeing their children after they have been adopted.  "It's a seismic shift," Angela says. "It's been such a long time coming. My hope is that we start to see just a bit more compassion towards birth families they are so often seen as the problem."

While meeting birth family can be very positive for some adopted children, face-to-face meetings aren't good for all children in this position.  When Cassie was adopted aged three, she constantly worried about the mother she'd been take away from.  Out shopping with her adoptive parents Dee and John, Cassie would even ask if she could buy groceries for her birth mum.  Dee was advised it would be reassuring for Cassie to meet her birth mother face-to-face.  Their reunion, in a noisy contact centre, went well but the following day Cassie was very tired, pale and limp. Dee decided to take Cassie to the doctor, and by the time they arrived at the surgery Cassie was trembling and vomiting uncontrollably.  But there was nothing physically wrong the doctor said Cassie was in shock.  For nearly two years Cassie and Dee went to specialist therapy. Cassie still seemed to worry about her birth mother, and would try to call her on a toy telephone.  Another meeting was arranged, in a quieter environment, with support. After that, Cassie, who is now aged 30, says she didn't want to see her birth mother again.  "I never felt a strong urge," she says. "I had all the information about her."

More reporting from family courts

With more recent adoptions, there is a new kind of risk. Children can trace their birth family online and some will go and meet them. That can lead to conflict with adoptive parents, even adoption breakdown.  "The children become very emotionally mixed up," says Sir Andrew McFarlane, the head of the Family Court in England and Wales.

"If you're trying to work out who you are you in the world, and you have some memory of the family you lived with until you were four or five... it's almost natural to try and trace them and be in touch with them."

Without expert help, this can have disastrous consequences.  In 2021 one couple told the BBC it was "devastating" to see their two adopted sons turn against them and get drawn into crime, after they had been reunited with their birth family.  There is no accurate data on how many adoptions break down. The charity Adoption UK has said it varies between 3% and 9%.  Following a four-year review and consultation, the 170-page report published today says greater consideration should be given to whether adopted children "should have face-to-face contact with those who were significant to them before they were adopted".

The report is intended as a review of the adoption process and a "catalyst for positive changes".

Among the dozens of other recommendations are reforming the law on international adoption, and setting up a national register for court adoption records to make it easier for people to find their own files. The report also recommends dropping the term "celebration" for parents' last visit to court with the child they are adopting.  Many adoptive parents agree the current "letterbox" system of contact is not effective.  In a 2022 survey, Adoption UK found that most prospective adopters believed that standardising direct contact would deter people from adopting, at a time when the number of people coming forward to adopt is in decline.  But at the same time, it found that 70% of those looking to adopt believed that direct contact should be standard practice, if considered safe.  Others think it could create further problems.  Nigel Priestley is a specialist adoption solicitor and an adopter himself. He has seen the issues this contact can cause.  "I think it's enormously risky," he says. "In my view there is a grave danger that if you once open Pandora's Box shutting it will be impossible."

A Department for Education spokesperson said the value of children growing up in a loving family "cannot be underestimated".

And for many children in care, "adoption makes this happen".

"We know that adoption has a profound impact on everyone involved, and it's vital that the child's best interests are protected and remain at the heart of the process."

Clarification 8 November 2024: This story has been amended following updated information supplied by Adoption UK

40

Articles / Moment the son of murdered Lord Lucan nanny confronts 'Old Etonian' and ....

« on: November 11, 2024, 10:17:20 AM »

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14050793/bbc-two-lucan-moment-son-confronts-man-accused-lord-lucan.html

Moment the son of murdered Lord Lucan nanny confronts 'Old Etonian' and former female impersonator accused in new BBC series of being the fugitive peer

    LISTEN TO THE GRIPPING DAILY MAIL PODCAST THE TRIAL OF LORD LUCAN: Learn what happened when barristers put Lucan on trial with never-before-heard evidence. All episodes on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

By MATT STRUDWICK and VANESSA ALLEN

Published: 00:18, 7 November 2024 | Updated: 10:17, 7 November 2024

This is the moment the son of a nanny bludgeoned to death by Lord Lucan confronts an 'Old Etonian' who is accused of being the missing British peer.   BBC cameras followed Neil Berriman the son of murdered Lucan nanny Sandra Rivett as he tracked down the man he believed to be the missing aristocrat, now living in Australia.  Mr Berriman accused 'Old Etonian' Christopher Bell, 87, of being Lucan and of having killed his mother on November 7, 1974, before going on the run for decades.  In the new BBC documentary, Mr Berriman has a WhatsApp video call with 'just me and the old man' as he's 'after a confession'.  'Let's do this,' Mr Berriman says before dialling the number.

During the call, Mr Berriman creates the false identity of an aging hippy called Bezza Dugal who has left him a brown envelope after he died that reveals Mr Bell's 'real identity'.   He tells Mr Bell he has been told to 'protect him' and 'that is why I know you are Lord Lucan. That is why I don't want to do anything about it'.

Mr Bell replies: 'Good. Well there actually isn't much you can do about it. It's all in the hands of the divine.'   

But Mr Bell later backtracks and says: 'I do not know who the hell Lord Lucan is.' He adds: 'I can assure you, I'm not that man, never have been, never will be.'

The brutal murder of Ms Rivett in the Lucan family home in Belgravia, London, shocked Britain and prompted a five-decade manhunt for the prime suspect, the 7th Earl of Lucan.  Mr Berriman, who Ms Rivett gave up for adoption as a baby, spent years attempting to trace the missing peer, and the new BBC Two documentary shows the dramatic moment when he confronts Mr Bell.  Mr Berriman, a builder from Hampshire, asks about 'the woman that you killed', and Mr Bell replies: 'She came from a background that was very horrendous. She was in a great deal of pain and stress.'

During the often confused exchange, Mr Bell continues: 'I have no memory of killing anybody, of terminating anybody's life.  As far as I know I've never taken the life of anyone.'

In the documentary images of Mr Bell and Lord Lucan are sent to facial recognition expert Professor Hassan Ugail 'who's never been wrong' to be analysed.  Mr Berriman later stands in a corn field with his arms aloft as he reads aloud an email detailing the results with one image saying there's an 88.5pc 'similarity index'.   The algorithm's creator Professor Ugail says anything above 75pc is 'the same individual'.  The results were sent to two other AI companies one in London and one in America a both came back with similar or higher figures.  Mr Berriman is seen jeting off to Australia in a bid to confront Mr Bell having tracked down his remote home in the city of Bundaberg, Queensland, where he is living as a Buddhist monk.  But he's asked not to have the cameras rolling for the meet in which Mr Bell tells him: 'What if I am Lord Lucan? What the f**k are you going to do about it?'

Mr Bell claims to be descended from English aristocracy, to have been educated at Eton and to have been friends with Princess Margaret.  But he also says he left Britain in 1966, eight years before the Lucan murder, and that he worked as a 'female impersonator' in Canada before travelling to India and meeting the Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.  In the documentary, Mr Bell says he was conceived 'at a magical ritual at Stonehenge', and that his biological father was a puppeteer who performed at Buckingham Palace for Princess Elizabeth (the late Queen) and her sister Princess Margaret.  His birth certificate names him as Derek Crowther, born in Islington, north London, in 1936, the son of a railway carriage cleaner.  At one point Mr Berriman, 57, is convinced his suspicions have been confirmed by artificial intelligence facial recognition technology which matches Mr Bell's features to those of Lord Lucan.  But analysis by a Home Office-approved team of recognition experts ruled him out in 2022. The documentary also showed investigative journalist Glen Campbell telling Mr Berriman he believes they have got it wrong, and Mr Bell's vehement denial that he is the missing peer.  The three-part documentary follows Mr Berriman as he reveals how he learnt he was adopted and that Ms Rivett was his biological mother.  Her battered body was discovered in a mail bag in the blood-stained basement of the Lucan home after his wife Lady Veronica Lucan ran into a nearby pub screaming that their nanny had been murdered.  Lucan's car was found abandoned, soaked in blood, in Newhaven, East Sussex.  An inquest jury later declared him the killer, but he has never been found.

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Articles / Adoption: Welsh young people hope to break identity struggle taboo

« on: November 02, 2024, 02:28:01 PM »

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65858230

Adoption: Welsh young people hope to break identity struggle taboo

Published  12 June 2023

By Liz Clements
BBC Wales communities correspondent

"It's really difficult to know where I belong."

Mimi Woods, from Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, was adopted from Thailand at the age of three.  Over the years she has struggled with issues around identity and belonging, but wanted others to know they were not alone.  The 22-year-old said adoption was a "taboo subject" which "needs to be talked about more".

Mimi and other young Welsh adopted people have created a bilingual podcast episode for the National Adoption Service for Wales about their experiences featuring nine adopted people between the ages of 13 and 26.  Mimi has struggled with her mental health in the past, but said talking to "people who understand what I'm going through" was a huge help and the podcast was an opportunity to "help other people".

Moving from Thailand to Wales meant Mimi dealt with not only a culture change but struggled a lot with her identity.  "I would identify as Asian and I have a lot of connections with my culture, but also with Wales, I love everything about it. Rugby, cawl (soup or stew) all that.  When you look at me, I don't look Welsh. But I speak your language. It's really difficult to know where I belong, but I definitely feel like I belong in these groups."

Tackling common misconceptions around adoption was something discussed in the podcast.  She said people think adopted people are "these 'challenged' children and they grow up to have no jobs and they don't do anything with their lives and that's really not the case".

"I've got friends and family who support me and I'm like no other, just that I had a lot of trauma in my early years of life," she said.

Mimi believes people need to be educated so that adopted people are better supported and know they are not alone.

"I would've loved to have listened to other people's stories growing up," said Ellie-Rose Griffiths from Cardiff.

The 22-year-old said the adopted people bounced off each other while recording the podcast and it made her feel "understood".  The student paramedic said she felt very fortunate having such "amazing adoptive parents who are my parents. I wouldn't call them anything else".

She now wants to encourage other adopted people to share their stories in order for people to learn more about adoption.  "Once they started talking about their experiences and were there together supporting each other, you couldn't stop them," said Ruth Letten, manager of Connected, a service for children and young people by Adoption UK.

Ruth expressed how important it was for adopted people to share experiences to "legitimise how they feel and to help them understand that they are not on their own".

She said adoption has changed a lot over the years, moving on from a lack of support as adopted children became adults.  Ruth said modern adoption was about "placing the child and young person at the heart of everything".  "So it's making sure that we are listening to them and responding proactively to their voices and what they feel is important, rather than just assuming we know what's best."

Adopted people are now given information such as life story books which help them understand why they were placed for adoption so they can "understand their story, so it can become integrally part of who they are".

The youth worker said, for many of the young people, it was the opportunity "to shape and change things and to put things in place for younger adoptees".

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Books / My Name Is Leon: Sir Lenny Henry brings moving adoption story to screen

« on: October 26, 2024, 12:12:28 PM »

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-61730891

My Name Is Leon: Sir Lenny Henry brings moving adoption story to screen

10 June 2022
By Ian Youngs
Entertainment & arts reporter

When Sir Lenny Henry was narrating the audiobook version of Kit de Waal's novel My Name Is Leon, he had decided by lunchtime on the first day of recording that he wanted to make a TV version happen.  Six years later, the result is a 90-minute one-off drama that is broadcast on BBC Two on Friday. It's a heart-tugging story of a nine-year-old boy who's at the mercy of the foster care and adoption system along with his beloved baby brother.  "Often when you do an audiobook, it's like a deep dive because you're playing all the characters and you're doing the narration too," Sir Lenny says before a preview screening in Birmingham, where the story is set.

"I just found myself swept up in this kid's world. And I found myself really moved by his predicament, being a mixed race kid who's got a younger brother who's white with blue eyes, and the threat of being separated from his brother causing him to take certain actions."

Before she became an author, de Waal had worked in family law, served on adoption panels and was a magistrate. The character of Leon was "a sort of amalgam of lots of boys that I worked with in the care system", she says.

She went to meet Sir Lenny that lunchtime on that first day of the audiobook recording, and they got on famously.  The pair both grew up in the West Midlands Sir Lenny in Dudley and de Waal in Moseley. "She was a judge, I was on New Faces," the actor and comedian jokes, referring to the talent show that gave him his big break in 1975.

She gave her approval for his production company to make the TV adaptation, and he was determined that it should be shot in Birmingham.  In the past, shows set in the Midlands have often been filmed elsewhere, Sir Lenny says. But "this needed to happen and be filmed" in the city where it is set.

Both the book and the film are set in the early 1980s, and the drama has an impressive cast including Monica Dolan, Olivia Williams, Christopher Eccleston, Malachi Kirby and Sir Lenny himself. At its heart is the young Cole Martin, playing Leon.  The title character befriends some men from the Caribbean community on an allotment and they take him under their wing. But he also learns harsh lessons about racial prejudice and police brutality.  Sir Lenny grew up 15 years before the fictional Leon but could relate to some parts of his story. He often faced daily racism at school, but says he wishes he had found similar strong male mentors.  "Yeah, I was moved by it," he says of Leon's story. "And I did find that there were things that chimed with me."

The young Lenny also went through family upheaval of a different kind when he discovered at 11 that his dad was not his birth father.
Leon's birth dad is in prison, but the boy eventually finds a father figure in Tufty, played by Kirby, who won a Bafta in 2021 for Sir Steve McQueen's Small Axe.  "What's great about Leon is that he does eventually find people who are his people," Sir Lenny continues.

"Being of Caribbean heritage, I grew up in a house with reggae music and soul music and stuff, whereas Leon has been brought up in a predominantly white house. So when he hears reggae music for the first time, it blows his mind.  "And I love that in this story, you see a boy becoming culturally aware, and you see him eventually standing up for himself."

Reviews of the drama so far have been mixed, with The Financial Times calling it, external "an uplifting tale of foster care", but with political and domestic strands that occasionally "feel awkwardly stitched together".  The New Statesman said, external it is full of "ostentatiously heart-warming" performances, and that it "cannot bear, somehow, to deal with the consequences of the issues it is determined to raise".

De Waal says she didn't set out for the first book to have an explicit message. "But if people take anything away from it, it's that there are a lot of children in the care system that don't get adopted, and whenever possible, siblings should be kept together," she says.

"I worked on the adoption panel and, of necessity, siblings are split up all the time. It still happens today. It's a phenomenon of children going into the care system.  It's not always the wrong thing. But sometimes it's the wrong thing. And it's certainly an important facet of adoption, that siblings that are split up lose each other and feel that loss, as Leon does."

The suggestion in the story is that Leon does not find an adoptive family because he is not white like his brother.  Does de Waal still think about Leon and what he would be doing now? "

All the time," she replies. "He's a real character to me."

In fact, she first wrote Leon as an adult character, then filled in his backstory. That backstory eventually took over and her novel became just about his childhood making it a sort of prequel to the novel she had originally intended.  It worked, being nominated for the Desmond Elliott Prize, the Costa First Book Award and the British Books Awards after it was published in 2016.  She is now planning to publish the story of the adult Leon in a new book, set when he is 43, she reveals.  In the mean time, Sir Lenny hopes the TV drama will have the same effect on viewers as narrating the audiobook had on him. "I want it to be something that people will be moved by," he says.

"And if you can put yourself in Leon's shoes, you'll be thinking, that shouldn't have happened, that's still happening now, what can we do about it?"

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Articles / Identical twin sisters separated at birth finally meet after 30 years only ....

« on: October 24, 2024, 11:42:26 AM »

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13996337/twin-sisters-separated-birth-meet-decide-dont-like-other.html

Identical twin sisters separated at birth finally meet after 30 years only to decide they don't like each other

By Ed Holt

Published: 10:51, 24 October 2024 | Updated: 10:53, 24 October 2024

A pair of identical twin sisters who were separated at birth and by chance met online 30 years later have stopped speaking after they decided they don't like each other.  Zhang Li and Cheng Keke, from Henan, China, met on social media in 2021 after noticing how similar they both looked.  As they exchanged messages the ladies discovered, via a DNA test, that they were identical twins and their families admitted that they had been separated at birth.  The two reconnected and claimed they quickly felt an incredible sisterly connection. However, this would soon transform into a sibling rivalry.  Their story quickly went viral online in China and Li and Keke decided to use their fame and began an e-commerce business.  Over the next few years they worked together, however, their relationship was marked by frequent conflicts and disagreements.  Their relationship ultimately lasted only three years and as of now they haven't spoken in six months.  According to the slightly younger sister, Keke, whenever they live-streamed to promote their products, Li often left without notice, sometimes disappearing for two or three days at a time.  Keke said: 'She never said anything when she left, and I could never find her. That's not the kind of work attitude I like.'

The situation worsened one night when Li secretly moved all their shared belongings out of their rental apartment while Keke was away, leading to a major argument between them.  Although that dispute was resolved, ongoing tensions persisted.  Keke claims that she always had to cover the rent, meals, and other daily expenses whenever they travelled for live-streaming events.  This was despite her sister promising they would split costs equally, which never happened.  From Li's perspective, the two had very different personalities: she was straightforward, while her sister tended to bottle things up and engage in 'silent treatment.'  Li also blamed Keke for the failure of many of their live-streaming ventures, stating that over the years they had lost as much as 600,000 Chinese Yuan (£65,000).  She said: 'So I told her directly that I wouldn't be doing live-streaming with her anymore.'

After their failure in live-streaming, Li decided to open a physical store in her hometown of Dengfeng.  Keke travelled there to support her sister, but their relationship finally collapsed during a heated argument over the store's management and the amount of investment each had contributed.  The relationship between the sisters, already strained, finally broke down completely after yet another work-related fight in January 2023.  Li reportedly had an outburst and yelled at Keke, and although she later regretted it, Keke could not forgive her and never returned.  This incident six months ago was the last time the two sisters saw each other.

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Articles / Forced adoption survivors disappointed at government response to inquiry

« on: October 22, 2024, 05:53:15 PM »

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-22/wa-government-responds-to-forced-adoption-inquiry/104452142?fbclid=IwY2xjawGEtD5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHSlFn4C8pi3n3MPXEjy0KeCkYOFSb1ad1Idlg8Qh3qYrVBZz4TRtNzmA7g_aem_8f51APJ9eh6QdwPZ-MrNXQ

Forced adoption survivors disappointed at government response to inquiry

By Claire Moodie

Topic:Adoption

10h ago

In short:

The WA government has responded to a landmark report into forced adoptions in the state between 1939 until the early 1980s. Mothers whose babies were taken away, as well as people who were removed as newborns, gathered at Parliament House on Tuesday to witness the tabling.  The government said it supported the majority of the report's recommendations, but would give "further consideration" to 14 recommendations including the establishment of the crucial redress scheme for both mothers and adoptees.

Survivors of the so-called forced adoption era in Western Australia have expressed disappointment after the state government failed to commit to a financial redress scheme and end what they call the "ongoing secrecy" surrounding adoption.  Mothers whose babies were taken away from 1939 to the early 1980s, as well as people who were removed as newborns, gathered at Parliament House on Tuesday to witness the tabling of the government's response to a recent inquiry.  The inquiry's 470-page report took aim at both state government departments and private institutions, saying they "funnelled" unmarried mothers into adoption against their will.  It found the women were psychologically abused, coerced into the adoptions of their babies and many endured horrific treatment in private institutions.  The government said it supported the majority of the report's recommendations to address the on-going trauma faced by survivors, but would give "further consideration" to 14 recommendations, including a redress scheme for both mothers and adoptees.  Adoptee Jen McRae, who led the push for the inquiry, said she is stunned that the government can't yet make a firm commitment.  "The state government can totally afford redress for forced adoption survivors and for the stolen generation," she said.

"We can absolutely do the right thing for these people who've had their lives absolutely ruined by government policy."

The government also rejected a recommendation to notify all adopted persons not already aware of their adopted status, saying that it would have the potential to cause significant psychological harm and distress to individuals.  But Ms McRae said people have a right to know the truth. "It's absolutely a human right to know who you are and where you came from and the medical knowledge you need to know as you get older," she said.

The supported recommendations include setting up a forced adoption reference group to guide the improvement of mental health services, access to information and legislative changes.

The tabling of the response comes 14 years after WA became the first state in the country to apologise for the forced adoption practices of last century.

'It's impacted every facet of my life'

At an event to mark the anniversary yesterday, mother Louise Kirk, who became pregnant at 16 and was coerced into signing adoption papers, said redress was long overdue to properly acknowledge the severe lifelong harm caused by the practice.

"Saying sorry is wonderful but you know what's it's like someone says sorry to you prove it, show me you are sorry, show me in your actions. Actions speak louder than words," she said.

"We were just children, we were pregnant children and we had a baby and that was our sin and the punishment has continued.  It's impacted every facet of my life, starting with the total removal of self esteem."

Dire financial position

For 78-year-old Lynne Devine, Tuesday's announcement comes after 40 years of campaigning for justice.  She has been involved in every small step of progress, including a 2013 national apology by Julia Gillard.  Ms Devine said many mothers had already passed away,  but those that remained needed financial help.  "There are very many women in dire straits who've lost a child and have never really recovered and have never been able to pick their lives up. Now they're trying to live on an old age pension and they've got nothing behind them," Ms Devine said.

The report's 39 recommendations included that institutions run by Ngala, the Salvation Army and the Sisters of Mercy participate in a redress scheme.  In February, the Victorian government introduced the first redress scheme for mothers in the country.  It expects more than 3,000 women who were separated from their infants at birth to apply for the $138 million program, which includes access to counselling and psychological support and an individual apology process.  Speaking in  the WA state parliament, Minister for Child Protection, Sabine Winton, said a redress program would be considered.  "The Cook Government recognises that for many people redress signifies an important step in the formal recognition of their experience, to hold responsible agencies and the institutions to account and to support healing," she said.

"The required work is currently being undertaken to comprehensively consider a redress scheme for WA."

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Articles / Survivor demand justice for those affected by Mother and Baby Homes

« on: October 18, 2024, 04:13:27 PM »

https://www.impartialreporter.com/news/24655681.survivor-demand-justice-affected-mother-baby-homes/?ref=twtrec&fbclid=IwY2xjawF_SdNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHXC6ql4Ydut4ClHIti5wMGK0u3mUwoEcWBOcDamfRz8ZVnESxniEtvNpWA_aem_Kr1didb8M3Un9CJYLAkCPA

Survivor demand justice for those affected by Mother and Baby Homes
17th October

“A cold place with an itchy blanket” is how one survivor of a mother-and-baby home described the place where she was born and separated from her mother.

Mechelle Dillon is one of those from this area who is leading the call for justice for thousands of women and children impacted by Northern Ireland'smother-and-baby homes, Magdalene Laundries, and Workhouses.  Mrs. Dillon who lives outside Omagh was born in 1969 in Daisyhill Hospital in Newry after her mother, Brenda was placed in Marianvale Mother and Baby Home at the age of 21 before they were separated.  Mechelle is the Secretary of the Birth Mothers and Their Children for Justice Northern Ireland group which was founded in 2013, the group seeks to get justice for all of those impacted by institutions such as mother-and-baby homes.  The Executive Office of Northern Ireland is currently working toward a statutory Public Inquiry and Financial Redress Scheme for those impacted by mother-and-baby homes, Magdalene Laundries and Workhouses.   She said: “We speak for the dead as well as the living, the dead don’t have a voice anymore. They were failed in life and they can’t be failed in death either.”

The scale is large and the group believes that there are survivors everywhere.  She said: “If you went out and spoke to people about this, every person you speak to would know someone who has been affected or was adopted. Nearly every other house would know someone.”
 
Citing a report from Queen's University, Belfast, she said: “At least 10,500 women and young girls, some as young as the age of 12, had passed through the homes and institutions.”

Other figures suggest there could be as many as 13,500 women impacted by the homes.  Reflecting on the scale of the institutions, Mechelle noted that the institutions were run on “both sides of the community” and there were around a dozen in Northern Ireland.  However, there were none in the Fermanagh and Omagh area.  Reflecting on the experience of her family, she said: “We call them homes, but they wouldn't really be homes, homes are somewhere nice, warm and comfortable, these were called cold places with itchy blankets".

She added: "I was in the home with my mother for about six weeks, until my mother then was passed on back home again, and I was placed into foster care and children's homes.  In and out, in and out.  Eventually, my mother met somebody, and he said that he would take her to England and get married so that she could get me back. He wasn't the father.   I was about two when she got me back."

Brenda, Mechelle's mother has since died and she described her death as another trauma following their separation at birth.  She said she is "determined" to get justice for anyone who has been affected, particularly those living within Fermanagh and Omagh.  "We want to try and reach out to any older generations, let them know that there's an inquiry happening and that anyone is that's been affected is entitled to their justice so that there's no more shame or stigma", she said.

Noting there is a cross-Border element to how the institutions were run, Mechelle said: “There were a lot of women who taken from the north to the south to have their babies.  hey wouldn't be included on this because it's only if you had your baby [or were born] in the North.   Anyone that had their baby in the South needs to contact the commission in the Republic.”

Fermanagh and Omagh District Council responded to the Executive Offices consultation on behalf of survivors living is the district.  In its response, the Council expressed its disappointment at the length of time taken for an Inquiry and Redress Scheme to take place, with 34 years having passed since the last mother-and-baby home closed.  The Council states that women and children impacted by these institutions, including those in very rural areas within Fermanagh and Omagh, must receive fair, generous and sincere justice promptly and effectively.  It also puts forward a number of recommendations on appropriate acts of remembrance, memorialisation and acknowledgement.  The Council’s response also states that an apology is needed from government and the organisations that ran those institutions.  The response also calls for the government and relevant organisations to admit that pregnant women should have had the right to give birth to and care for their baby, and that the stigma and shame for these women needs to be removed and replaced with the compassion they were denied.  Birth Mothers and their Children for Justice are encouraging people to contact the enquiry and other relevant bodies if they have been affected by institutions such as mother-and-baby homes, Magdalene Laundries and Workhouses.

You can contact the Birth Mothers and their Children for justice via birthmothersforjustice.n.i@hotmail.com or 07513874371.