I, along with other adopters facing a failed or ‘disrupted’ adoption, will never get over the total injustice, disrespect and callous actions by our respective Social Services departments and staff that have continuously rocked our integrity and damaged our wellbeing and very souls forever.
Adopters are not responsible for the unresolved trauma and developmental issues that our children experienced prior to being placed with us and yet we are left, unsupported or at best, fighting for limited resources to help us. Trauma training is not part of the teacher training syllabus so what hope is there when the establishments taking care of our children are not trauma and adoption aware? This must be improved upon!
Adoptive parents are the most engaged, caring, inquisitive and vocal of parents who fight hard for their children from day one and we often feel abandoned and unsupported from the day of formal adoption. Our lives change forever and hopes and dreams sometimes evaporate along with deterioration in our mental health and relationships with our partners, families and employers.
Even our Independent Review Officer agreed that the Care System is under- resourced and broken.