Tuesday 6th July 2010, Woburn House, London 

Adoptive parents and birth parents join researchers and practitioners to launch the findings from UEA’s adoption research

Over 100 delegates including practitioners, adoptive parents, birth family members, and adoption researchers came to the annual conference of the Centre for Research on the Child and Family, titled “Supporting birth families and contact in adoption: new research and practice”. The conference, held in London on 6 July, featured centre research funded by the government as part of the Adoption Research Initiative. Dr Elsbeth Neil led the team for the “Researching Adoption Support” study which combined an investigation of support for birth parents and support post-adoption contact. This research project employed innovative service user involvement methodologies: groups of birth parents and adoptive parents worked alongside the research team to help plan the study, analyse the data, formulate recommendations for practice, and disseminate the findings. The involvement of birth parents and adoptive parents was a key feature of the conference. The loss and disempowerment that parents feel when their children are adopted against their wishes was vividly illustrated using DVD material from interviews with parents filmed here at UEA. Five birth parents also formed a panel to answer questions from the floor during the conference. The program also included a talk by an adoptive father, Rob Claxton-Ingham, who spoke movingly about the experiences of his two adopted children having contact meetings with their six brothers and sisters.

The conference was chaired by Prof June Thoburn CBE, and in addition to the birth parents and adoptive parent, the speakers were Dr Elsbeth Neil, Jeanette Cossar, Julie Young, and Rob Claxton Ingham.

The conference was also the occasion to launch the first of two books from this project: “Helping Birth Families: costs services and outcomes” published by the British Association for Adoption and Fostering.

Executive Summary - Supporting post adoption contact in complex cases - briefing paper
Executive Summary - Helping Birth Families: A study of service provision, cost and outcomes