On Tuesday we wrote about our research for the Guardian's social care blog: gu.com/p/4ejkp/stw
Reading the lively set of responses we were struck, as always, by how emotive and complex this topic is, and how much passionate feeling it can provoke - strong agreement and equally strong disagreement. It is always humbling to hear from people who have direct personal experience, and to remember again and again that each case carries so many contradictions, complexities and individual personalities that there can never be a one size fits all solution.
The strong reactions to the piece also gave a snapshot of just some of the intense feelings we encountered in our research, as well as in our own experiences of adoptive moves. Intense feelings among and between the adults can become all-consuming when children are being moved into their adoptive homes. There is the inevitable anxiety and tensions between foster carers and adopters; it is very hard for one group not to feel undermined or under threat from the other, given the circumstances. Also the opposing and strongly held schools of thought about whether it is better to keep alive old attachments or to close them off when separation occurs.
Adult adoptees express very different reactions to this, as seen in some of the responses - some are full of grief about painful losses not being recognised; others feeling they should be left to attach to adoptive parents without being forced to remember their past lives. The array of differing responses to this question are crucial to try to understand, they can only deepen our knowledge and understanding of the adoptive process and are invaluable in developing better guidelines in this area.
We are grateful to The Guardian for giving us a platform to share our research and help to keep alive this very important and complex debate.
Please continue to contact us with your own responses. We are keen to hear from people across the field who have some insight or experience to share with others.
Reading the lively set of responses we were struck, as always, by how emotive and complex this topic is, and how much passionate feeling it can provoke - strong agreement and equally strong disagreement. It is always humbling to hear from people who have direct personal experience, and to remember again and again that each case carries so many contradictions, complexities and individual personalities that there can never be a one size fits all solution.
The strong reactions to the piece also gave a snapshot of just some of the intense feelings we encountered in our research, as well as in our own experiences of adoptive moves. Intense feelings among and between the adults can become all-consuming when children are being moved into their adoptive homes. There is the inevitable anxiety and tensions between foster carers and adopters; it is very hard for one group not to feel undermined or under threat from the other, given the circumstances. Also the opposing and strongly held schools of thought about whether it is better to keep alive old attachments or to close them off when separation occurs.
Adult adoptees express very different reactions to this, as seen in some of the responses - some are full of grief about painful losses not being recognised; others feeling they should be left to attach to adoptive parents without being forced to remember their past lives. The array of differing responses to this question are crucial to try to understand, they can only deepen our knowledge and understanding of the adoptive process and are invaluable in developing better guidelines in this area.
We are grateful to The Guardian for giving us a platform to share our research and help to keep alive this very important and complex debate.
Please continue to contact us with your own responses. We are keen to hear from people across the field who have some insight or experience to share with others.
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