For the past five years my family and I have been sharing our personal fostering and adoption story on a sister blog site. It’s been a way in which we could contribute to discussions around fostering and adoption and has allowed my boys to have a much needed voice within a system that has frequently not heard them.
The blog was more popular than we had ever thought possible. Thousands of people subscribed to it and it was read in over 50 countries in the world. We were blessed to receive some amazing correspondence from fostered and adopted children, their parents (birth, adoptive and fostered) and professionals. It was in addition a great way for the children to express themselves through writing content and responding to feedback. It became one of many parts of their healing journeys.
What we saw was that when we were vulnerable with our fostering and adoption story other parents, professionals and children engaged with the blog. As we discussed the highs and lows of parenting traumatised child and showed what was working for us a community of people shared similar stories.
However, my ‘boys’ are no longer really boys. They are grown men (17-21yrs) entering into the next phase of their lives and moving towards increasing independence. We reached a point where the blog no longer met a need for them. In addition, after more than 30 years of working with Looked After Children, it was also time for my wife to move on to new ventures.
And so, at the beginning of 2019 we decided to sadly say goodbye.
That has been the right choice for my family but it is not necessarily right for me. I am so passionate about fostering and adoption and in particular about creating safe spaces for parents and professionals to learn, grow, express themselves and be supported in doing so.
For that reason, I have decided to build a blog into this website. I wish to continue to provide an honest account of the highs and lows I have experienced in my journey in a way that other foster/adoptive parents can relate to. I want to give back to the blogging community some of what I have gained from them. And I wish to share what I have learnt both as a parent and as a psychotherapist and learn from what you are willing to share back with me.
I really hope that you enjoy reading my blog. We would love to hear any thoughts on topics you would like me to cover. I aim throughout 2019 to write a new post weekly so please do subscribe to make sure you don’t miss any of them.
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