parents
Adopted children to have closer contact with birth families
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
‘I knew there was something missing from my life’: The incredible story of three siblings who met for the first time in their sixties after being given away for adoption to three different families
‘I knew there was something missing from my life’: The incredible story of three siblings who met for the first time in their sixties after being given away for adoption to three different families
Episode six of Long Lost Family airs on ITV1 and ITVX tonight at 9pm
By Emma Pryer
Published: 16:55, 25 August 2024 | Updated: 08:44, 26 August 2024
When Mary Arbuthnot opened a letter from her dying father, Richard, more than 20 years ago, she had no idea it would change the course of her life. The sealed, brown envelope with ‘Mary’ on the front contained some paperwork and a note, reading: ‘Alright Queen. If you want to find out any info, here are the numbers. Love always, Mum and Dad.’
One of the phone numbers her father had provided was for a Liverpool adoption agency a call to them began what turned out to be a long quest to find her birth family. The agency’s records revealed that Mary’s birth mother was an unmarried Irish woman called Rita O’Reilly, who had been living in London but for some reason travelled to Liverpool for Mary’s birth in 1965 and that Rita had also given birth to two other children, a girl born in 1960 and a boy born in 1962. Mary, from West Derby, a suburb of Liverpool, was stunned. ‘I’d known since I was seven that I was adopted as a ten week-old baby, but I’d had such a great childhood with my brother, who was also adopted, that I never thought any more of it.’
So happy was she, that she had often yearned for other siblings. Now she was left overwhelmed by the news she actually had two she’d never met. Named Bridget and George, they were born in London. And, like her, they had been adopted, each to a different family. Unusually, they shared the same father, an Irishman called Jim Melody. ‘I was so shocked. It was a strange feeling because I’ve had a happy life, but there was always this thing that something was missing,’ says Mary, 58.
Meeting her brother and sister, she felt, would make her life complete. That same year, 2002, she spoke to a counsellor at the Nugent Adoption agency, who was able to give her some more information about her birth parents and siblings. It threw up a mix of emotions. Mary had always imagined her birth mother as a vulnerable teenager, forced by poverty or family disapproval to give up her baby. ‘Back in the Sixties, it would have been hard under those circumstances,’ says Mary, 58.
Instead, she discovered that her mother was 34 when she had given birth to her and had already given two babies away. ‘That didn’t sit well with me. I’m not angry at all, I just can’t fathom how any woman can give a whole family away. She was offered help by the Church but still chose to give us away.’
For the first time, Mary began to have doubts about trying to find her brother and sister: would they even want to be found?
‘Did they know about me and, if so, why hadn’t they come searching?’ she says. ‘Part of me thought that if I started looking and they didn’t want to be involved, I’d be sorry.’
For the time being, Mary busy with her career as a hairdresser and her role as a mother to Stephanie, now 38, and Richard, now 30 put the search out of her mind. Then, three years later, her father died. That loss seemed to trigger an even more powerful longing for the siblings she had never met. She found herself glued to the heartbreaking stories of adoption and reunion on ITV’s Long Lost Family, the programme that reunites relatives separated by adoption. In 2022, after yet another tear-jerking episode and a full 20 years since her father had given her the letter Mary finally decided to take a chance. She filled out an application to the show and then, as life got busy, almost forgot about it. Five months later, she received an unexpected phone call. ‘It was one of the Long Lost Family team who wanted to ask some more questions. I nearly dropped the phone!’ she says.
Because she had her siblings’ dates of birth, the team was able to make a quick breakthrough. They found her brother George and sister Bridget who was now called Andrea. Not only were they both alive and well, but were living just 40 miles apart from one another, 240 miles south of Mary. In an upcoming episode of the series, co-host Davina McCall breaks the news to Mary at her home in Liverpool. ‘It was just unbelievable,’ Mary recalls. ‘It was a life-changing moment, that’s the only way I can explain it. I started shaking because even though I’d known about them, it was another thing to actually be told “we’ve found them”.’
George and Andrea, meanwhile, were dealing with their own sense of shock after each receiving a letter from Long Lost Family explaining they had a sister who was trying to trace them. Andrea Tovey, 64, a former civil servant from Gillingham in Kent, initially thought the letter was a scam. ‘I was a bit suspicious. It was just such a shock to get a letter saying my sister was wanting to find me when I never knew I had one,’ the mum of two admits.
It was even more of an ‘unbelievable, wonderful shock’ to be told that she also had a brother. Today, as the three of them speak, there is an undeniable ease and warmth between them. They fall into a casual, comfortable patter as if they’ve known each other for decades, not months. With similar laid-back demeanours and endearingly gentle laughs, only Mary’s soft Liverpudlian accent gives away the fact the trio didn’t grow up together.nnAs Mary jokingly cuts across from George as he proudly claims responsibility for the reunion he had been looking for his two sisters for more than four years and was just days away from finding them himself before Long Lost Family got in touch you can see they have already developed that unmistakable knack for jovial sibling bickering. They chuckle about the obvious physical similarities: ‘We are all very pale,’ laughs Mary, ‘and if you look at the shape of our eyes and mouths I think it’s the same’.
Unlike Mary, both George and Andrea were raised as only children. Born in Highgate, London, and raised in Gillingham, Andrea had always known she was adopted. Like Mary, she had a blissfully happy childhood, brought up principally by her father, Leonard, after her adoptive mother Betty died of cancer when she was just six. Andrea had pulled her birth records as a young adult, but as she was the first child to be born to Rita O’Reilly, there was no mention of a younger brother or sister. Life was busy and fulfilling and she decided not to chase after her parents in case they weren’t interested in meeting. Born in Hackney and raised in Loughton, Essex, George Buttwell, 62, had also known he was adopted as long as he could remember. Like his sisters, he had a happy childhood, leaving him with little urgency to uncover his past. In 1998, his wife, Lesley, saw a programme about accessing adoption records, which piqued steel fixer George’s interest. He applied for his adoption paperwork and original birth certificate, which provided brief details about his birth parents. But it was really only years later in 2019 that his search got going. George’s youngest daughter, Lindsey, 34, bought him a DNA test as a gift. The results opened a new chapter, throwing up relatives he never knew he had in Ireland and London. He began to discover more about his past than he had ever imagined. George’s DNA test linked him to a second cousin in Ireland and through him and another member of his extended family, he heard he had two sisters for the first time. ‘Knowing that, I became determined to find them,’ says the father of three.
He then decided to explore a hunch that his sisters might have been born at the same Catholic nursing home in London as him. St Margaret’s no longer existed, but he was told he might be able to find out more about his sisters through the Catholic Children’s Society in Westminster. Its records contained the full names and dates of birth for his sisters. His local council adoption service agreed to contact his sisters on his behalf and was just doing some final legal checks when the letter arrived from Long Lost Family. ‘I’d been looking for four years by that stage. I told [the adoption service] to call off the search. It was amazing news but perhaps not as much of a surprise as it was to Andrea, who didn’t know about either of us.’
Last November, the three siblings finally came face-to-face in a Liverpool hotel in emotional scenes which will be broadcast tonight. As Davina explains as they wait to meet: ‘It is very rare for Long Lost Family to find and bring together three full siblings all of whom until today have been complete strangers to one another.’
Andrea was first in the room; her heart in her mouth. ‘It actually felt like quite a while before they came in and I started getting emotional before,’ she recalls. ‘It was something I’d never believed could happen after all this time but it was so nice. We held hands as we talked and we just seemed to get on straight away.’
George agrees. ‘It did feel like we were all family. You could feel that straight away that we’ve got this thing in common, no matter how far we’ve drifted.’
Now, though, the sibling bond appears to be growing stronger with every passing month. They have an official family WhatsApp Group called O’Reilly Melody after the surnames of their birth parents. In January, less than two months after the show, they came together again at George’s Essex home, where a picture of the three of them now takes pride of place in the living room. A second reunion followed in June, with a pub lunch in London and another trip to George’s house to share notes on their histories and meet extended family. Just this week, George’s daughter Sarah, 38, flew in from Spain and Andrea was there to meet her. Small things mean a lot: for Mary, it’s been a thrill to send birthday and Christmas cards to her brother and sister for the very first time. The growing bond feels so natural that Mary has even taken to cutting Andrea’s hair. ‘Every time I’ve seen her she’s blow-dried my hair and last time she actually cut it. I’ve never looked so glamorous,’ smiles Andrea.
But for all the joy of getting to know one another (Andrea even jokes she shares the same love for the TV detective, Columbo, as George) there is sadness for the missed years they could have had together. ‘I know that my parents would have adopted the other two if they’d have known and we could have all been together, as we should have been,’ says Mary.
The siblings have discovered that Jim Melody passed away around 20 years ago and Rita O’Reilly around ten years later. As they were unmarried, Jim was buried in Ireland and Rita in Finchley, North London. From what they have gathered from relatives, the siblings understand that Rita and Jim lived together on and off for 40 years, but the real nature of their relationship remains a mystery: the pair have taken to the grave many unanswered questions for Mary, Andrea and George. ‘For the time they were living in, for their background, it would have made a lot of sense to get married, so why didn’t they?, George, who has visited his mother’s grave, has often wondered. Why did their mother have them adopted, and to different families?
And why, when Rita and Jim appeared to travel from Dublin to London together, did Rita keep leaving their London address and flitting to different areas?
For now at least, the unresolved questions are overshadowed by the joy of finding one another. ‘I’ve got ideas of what I’d like to do if I get to the point of retiring, but this has given me this extra positive feeling. It’s this happy unknown future now and there’s already this genuine love there with us,’ says Andrea.
‘It’s a feeling you can’t really describe because it’s something I’ve never experienced before,’ says Mary. ‘It was like I’d already known them forever.’
Episode six of Long Lost Family airs on ITV1 and ITVX on August 25th, at 9pm
Almost a volatile time
It felt strange talking about Anthony with my cousin as I didn’t say much about him when sending letters to my parents who rarely mentioned him. Of course my mum was extremely annoyed about Anthony wanted me and my family in his life but the extent of this came out over the next year or so. My sister and I hadn’t had any contact for six years by this time and it would another five years and our mum dying before we did.
Rick had joined the site that Anthony had set up and he had included Rick’s family tree on the site, we were administrators of that side. When I thought about the early days it was difficult as Rick had his issues to deal with and Anthony had problems accepting him. Rick wasn’t his father who wouldn’t accept Anthony but it got easier.
Anthony and I started chatting on msn messenger as we had fallen out over the adoption papers a few weeks previously although we have been sending the occasional email. We could both be stubborn at the best of times but I was relieved we talking again. The fall out with Anthony at that time was due to Anthony wanting to ask questions about the adoption papers but as I had never seen them I couldn’t answer him. When I tried to talk to him about the papers he kicked off so I sent him an email stating why certain things had been crossed out and replaced with other words. I also let him know what was true and what wasn’t.
*This was a period when life was good with the occasional hiccup. I was getting used to the occasional bad times from my son and was just letting it go over my head. At times I would be bewildered why he would suddenly be angry. I also knew I wouldn’t get a reasonable response back if I asked as I was expected to be psychic and just know. Eventually I found out he had been as bad with my family although by 2006 I saw it as understandable with my mum as she had lied to him. Me knowing my parents could have been honest to both of us since late 2001 contributed to this. My dad was forgiven much quicker as he knew exactly what my mum was like so it was easier than dealing with her wrath.
At this time I couldn’t stop thinking about why I couldn’t remember signing the Consent to Relinquish form. A friend from an online group, Empty Arms, seemed to think we possibly signed the form at a magistrate’s home rather than at court but I was sure I hadn’t done either. If I did go to a magistrate’s home or court then I certainly had a big whole in my memory – it was almost scary.
*As it turned out I didn’t get the Consent to Relinquish form and eventually I just gave up. I kept trying periodically but was constantly given the run around so in the end I got tired and fed up of the stress it was causing.
Adoption Paperwork
I remember when I first received a copy of the adoption papers which I should have received when my son was adopted. On reading them it was no surprise to realize that I had a ‘hole’ in my memory I hadn’t given information on them. It was still a bit irritating to read half-truths and lies though, the only absolute truth was descriptions of myself and my ex. The only other bit of truth was about my mum being asthmatic and that she had been in contact with Rubella so I’m partially deaf and a hardly noticeable speech defect. The only thing that really disappointed me was that I thought there would be a copy of the consent to relinquish form and nobody told me that it wouldn’t be included even though I had mentioned not remembering signing the form so wanted to see a copy.
When I saw my counsellor, from After Adoption, for the last time which was the same day as I got the copy of the adoption paperwork I mentioned this. All she could do was mumble was something about the consent to relinquish form being at the court that dealt with the adoption. I left it that as she had never been very helpful about explaining my rights so just didn’t know what to say but it has been on my mind since then.
The subject was brought up in another online group I belonged to specifically for women who have had a child adopted but haven’t had any more children. Some of the others said they have copies of the consent form so it has got the rest of us thinking about this so we are going to try and get copies as well. Yesterday I emailed my contact at the Adoption Resource Centre thanking her again for being so helpful before over the other paperwork then went on to explain what I was after this time.
I hated this feeling of having holes in my memory from that time and I couldn’t ask my parents as it had never been open to debate to discuss Anthony’s adoption. The only person I discussed Anthony with was my dad, post reunion, and then it was stilted, he only mentioned Anthony when they had spoken to each other – I hated that so much. I got more support from my in-laws and they openly admitted they didn’t understand what I have been through. Rick’s eldest sister and brother in law were fine about meeting Anthony the last time we saw him and they often asked after him. One thing that cheered me up is that Rick had second thoughts about viewing the flat of the lady who wanted to do a mutual exchange with us. I wanted to get back down south but I didn’t really want to give up a house for a flat as we had dogs and it wouldn’t be fair on the cat even though she was a ‘house’ cat as she liked sunning herself outside.
Talking
Recently I made a new friend connection on Facebook who is an adoptee and has written Your Secret My Story. I do want to get the book as from the little I know about it has helped me to talk a bit more to my sister.
Back in September we went down south to see family and give one of my sister’s granddaughters, our great niece, her birthday present. Before we came back my sister and I went through some crates that had come from our Dad’s home after he passed on. We came home with two crates of photographs and a few pieces of paperwork as my sister knows we are into family history/genealogy. Anything we didn’t want she said to chuck.
While we were going through the paperwork there were a couple of photographs of my son there so we talked about him. She feels bad because she feels she should love him as he is her nephew but doesn’t like him. I can understand where my sister is coming from as he can be very charming one minute then be angry when he doesn’t hear what he wants to hear. I told her not to feel bad about it as we had the same attitude and whilst I love him because he is my son and always will, I struggle to like him at times. We are so much alike with likes and dislike, even mannersisms, but adoption wrecked any chance of a happy reunion.
When we went back down south in November for my birthday the subject came up again. This time my sister mentioned that she and my parents refused to give my son any information as I was the one whom he needed to talk to. At the time when my son found my family I wasn’t talking to them due to an argument but two years of not talking to my parents I got back in touch with them. Instead of being honest with my son they continued to tell him they didn’t know where I was. My sister didn’t know where I was so she was honest. She told me that our parents told him the same and if they found out where I was they would let me know he wanted contact. I told my sister they never said a word to me so delayed contact for three years. It would have continued if I hadn’t found him.
I also told my sister of a conversation I had with our Mum over the phone back in 2006. She was visibly upset when I told her our Mum had said she couldn’t understand why my son wanted to know me as I was nothing to him and his only family was his adoptive one. My sister said it was cruel of our Mum to say that. I haven’t told her of the letter our Mum wrote to my son telling him to accept that I didn’t want to be found.
My sister needed to be told of both as she believed our parents would be honest with me about what actually happened. She has a better idea why I was so angry at that period in my life.
But I adopted my child at birth. What do you mean trauma?
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-adopted-my-child-birth-what-do-you-mean-trauma-alex-stavros/
But I adopted my child at birth. What do you mean trauma?
Published on June 10, 2015
Alex Stavros
CEO, Embark Behavioral Health // Creating Joy // Business As a Force for Good
BY: ALEX STAVROS, President and CEO, Calo Family of Programs
It is not uncommon for adoptive parents to come to us feeling out of options for their difficult child and overwhelmed about what could have created all of these DSM diagnoses and intense feelings and behaviors. Especially if the child was adopted at or near birth. “We adopted our son at birth. We brought him home from the hospital ourselves and have done nothing but love him.”
Does this sound too familiar?
If so, then why are you now being told that all of that had something to do with the issues today?
First and foremost, it is important not to be too hard on ourselves or even our child’s birth parents. At this time, it is most important to find our child the help that they need. Understanding the diagnosis and its origins may help one decide on the most appropriate course of treatment. Quality and traditional parenting techniques may no longer be a solution our child’s condition will likely require trauma sensitive interventions to heal.
Fetal Trauma
First we need to understand there are many developmental milestones for your child that occur prior to birth. Your child began feeling and learning in the womb. According to Samuel Lopez De Victoria, Ph.D., your baby learned to be comforted by the voice and heartbeat of his mother well before birth[1] a voice that was not yours. In the case of adoption this connective disruption has an impact on the brain and body.
Paula Thomson writes for Birth Psychology, “Early pre- and post-natal experiences, including early trauma, are encoded in the implicit memory of the fetus, located in the subcortical and deep limbic regions of the maturing brain. These memories will travel with us into our early days of infancy and beyond and more importantly, these early experiences set our ongoing physiological and psychological regulatory baselines.”[2]
Clearly, chaos outside of the womb, for example, may affect children in utero. This includes arguments, a chaotic home environment or an abusive spouse, and other rambunctious noise that may seem harmless to the fetus. If the mother drinks or smokes, or is generally unhealthy, this also impacts in-utero development, including the sense of safety and self-worth for the child. Critical brain development is also stunted. Mothers that end up placing their child with adoptive parents are also likely to feel increased stress during their pregnancies. Many are very young, have many other children or are emotionally or financially unable to support a child. Each of these stressors could expose unborn babies to cortisol, making them also stressed. The baby is then born anxious. Surprisingly, babies are also able to sense a disconnection or lack of acceptance from their mother while in the womb leading to attachment issues and developmental trauma down the road.
Genetic Memory
Beyond these connection concerns, trauma can also be an inherited condition. Recent studies indicate that trauma resides in the DNA, allowing mental disease and behavioral disorders to be passed down for generations. In the end, adoption itself is a form of trauma. Without the biological connection to their mother, even newborns can feel that something is wrong and be difficult to sooth as a result. This effect has the potential to grow over time even in the most loving and supportive adoptive homes.
Summary: Humans, and the brain, develop through experience. Adverse experiences stunt this development. And development starts way before birth even before conception.
[1] http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/06/29/emotional-trauma-in-the-womb/
BY: ALEX STAVROS, President and CEO, Calo Family of Programs
About Calo
Calo (“kay-low”) is a behavioral and mental health provider that specializes in healing the effects of complex developmental trauma. Calo is comprised of Calo Teens (www.caloteens.com), Calo Preteens (www.calopreteens.com) both residential programs predominately serving adoptive families – and New Vision Wilderness (www.newvisionwilderness.com “NVW”).
NVW is a wilderness therapy program based in the North Woods of Wisconsin and the Mountain Desert of Oregon. NVW offers one of the most clinically intensive models in the country specializing in a Trauma Informed model.
The Calo programs implement a unique and truly relational treatment model based on evidence-based attachment treatment research. Calo’s proprietary treatment model is pervasive throughout the programs. The unique model facilitates establishing, deepening and maintaining healthy and safe relationships that ultimately lead to co-regulation and Joy.
The clinical modalities across the programs include, but are not limited to, Brainspotting, HeartMath, EMDR, Neurofeedback, Trauma Sensitive Yoga, Transferable Attachment Canine Therapy, Adventure Therapy, Play and Sand Therapy, and Sensory/Occupational Therapies.
Published on June 10, 2015
Alex Stavros
CEO, Embark Behavioral Health // Creating Joy // Business As a Force for Good
BY: ALEX STAVROS, President and CEO, Calo Family of Programs
IBY: ALEX STAVROS, President and CEO, Calo Family of Programs
It is not uncommon for adoptive parents to come to us feeling out of options for their difficult child and overwhelmed about what could have created all of these DSM diagnoses and intense feelings and behaviors. Especially if the child was adopted at or near birth. “We adopted our son at birth. We brought him home from the hospital ourselves and have done nothing but love him.”
Does this sound too familiar?
If so, then why are you now being told that all of that had something to do with the issues today?
First and foremost, it is important not to be too hard on ourselves or even our child’s birth parents. At this time, it is most important to find our child the help that they need. Understanding the diagnosis and its origins may help one decide on the most appropriate course of treatment. Quality and traditional parenting techniques may no longer be a solution our child’s condition will likely require trauma sensitive interventions to heal.
Fetal Trauma
First we need to understand there are many developmental milestones for your child that occur prior to birth. Your child began feeling and learning in the womb. According to Samuel Lopez De Victoria, Ph.D., your baby learned to be comforted by the voice and heartbeat of his mother well before birth[1] a voice that was not yours. In the case of adoption this connective disruption has an impact on the brain and body.
Paula Thomson writes for Birth Psychology, “Early pre- and post-natal experiences, including early trauma, are encoded in the implicit memory of the fetus, located in the subcortical and deep limbic regions of the maturing brain. These memories will travel with us into our early days of infancy and beyond and more importantly, these early experiences set our ongoing physiological and psychological regulatory baselines.”[2]
Clearly, chaos outside of the womb, for example, may affect children in utero. This includes arguments, a chaotic home environment or an abusive spouse, and other rambunctious noise that may seem harmless to the fetus. If the mother drinks or smokes, or is generally unhealthy, this also impacts in-utero development, including the sense of safety and self-worth for the child. Critical brain development is also stunted. Mothers that end up placing their child with adoptive parents are also likely to feel increased stress during their pregnancies. Many are very young, have many other children or are emotionally or financially unable to support a child. Each of these stressors could expose unborn babies to cortisol, making them also stressed. The baby is then born anxious. Surprisingly, babies are also able to sense a disconnection or lack of acceptance from their mother while in the womb leading to attachment issues and developmental trauma down the road.
Genetic Memory
Beyond these connection concerns, trauma can also be an inherited condition. Recent studies indicate that trauma resides in the DNA, allowing mental disease and behavioral disorders to be passed down for generations. In the end, adoption itself is a form of trauma. Without the biological connection to their mother, even newborns can feel that something is wrong and be difficult to sooth as a result. This effect has the potential to grow over time even in the most loving and supportive adoptive homes.
Summary: Humans, and the brain, develop through experience. Adverse experiences stunt this development. And development starts way before birth even before conception.
[1] http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/06/29/emotional-trauma-in-the-womb/
BY: ALEX STAVROS, President and CEO, Calo Family of Programs
About Calo
Calo (“kay-low”) is a behavioral and mental health provider that specializes in healing the effects of complex developmental trauma. Calo is comprised of Calo Teens (www.caloteens.com), Calo Preteens (www.calopreteens.com) both residential programs predominately serving adoptive families – and New Vision Wilderness (www.newvisionwilderness.com “NVW”).
NVW is a wilderness therapy program based in the North Woods of Wisconsin and the Mountain Desert of Oregon. NVW offers one of the most clinically intensive models in the country specializing in a Trauma Informed model.
The Calo programs implement a unique and truly relational treatment model based on evidence-based attachment treatment research. Calo’s proprietary treatment model is pervasive throughout the programs. The unique model facilitates establishing, deepening and maintaining healthy and safe relationships that ultimately lead to co-regulation and Joy.
The clinical modalities across the programs include, but are not limited to, Brainspotting, HeartMath, EMDR, Neurofeedback, Trauma Sensitive Yoga, Transferable Attachment Canine Therapy, Adventure Therapy, Play and Sand Therapy, and Sensory/Occupational Therapies.
Wearing my mask
Not talking about a baby being lost to adoption is a bad idea but it was my way of coping for too many years. When a mother loses her baby to miscarriage, stillborn, or genetic condition people can be supportive even though they don’t understand the (personal) loss. Of course today there are different charities that offer support which is priceless. One of our nieces and nephew-in-law lost their second child to Trisomy 18 (Edward’s Syndrome) when she was a day old. They were well looked after by their midwife and ARC but it doesn’t make the loss any easier. They were given a card with their daughter’s hands and feet imprints on it. They also received a teddy bear with the name of another baby’s name on it and one day parents will receive a teddy bear with their daughter’s name on it.
When it comes to adoption people think it’s wonderful, farting unicorns and in the child’s best interests. In reality, it isn’t and unless the child is at real risk of any type of abuse it’s better to keep the child with his or her mother/father. If the parents die then special guardianship with the child’s family member is the next best thing otherwise with another guardian. I am not completely anti-adoption as there are other ways a child can be raised in safety and retain their name.
What people don’t understand is that when a mother is forced to let her baby be adopted it is loss and the mother suffers for the rest of her life. Her baby is still alive but she will never raise her child. It is a different type of loss to mothers whose babies have died but the result is the same both types of mothers never get over it and just learn to live with the loss.
I lived too many years hiding my pain as I was never offered any counselling so I put on an act. Eventually, I did find my son without actively searching for him when he had just turned 23 years old on Genes Reunited. The rage and pain I actively controlled came out finally but I still mourn the loss of my baby, I will never get him back. My son was shocked I found him without actively searching and had been searching for 5 years. He found my family but at that time my family didn’t know where I was due to a massive argument I’d had with my sister and by this time we had moved. My son was hurt that my parents hadn’t told me they had contact with him for two years when I got back in touch with them. There was absolutely no good reason why they didn’t tell me and the poor excuse was they didn’t know if my husband knew about him. My sister told me they didn’t know where I was so I don’t know what they were telling her – I didn’t have contact with her for 12 years. I didn’t want to fall out with her again as we have got on better since our dad died.
My son and I don’t talk now. We both made mistakes but he won’t accept he was just as much to blame as me when we had disagreements.
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