How can we prepare for our fostered children leaving for their adoptive home when strong bonds have been made, particularly with my birth children?

Whenever I am asked this question, my first thought is ‘Can we ever fully prepare a family for this traumatic event?’  We are talking about a major upheaval in these children’s lives and in your own lives, too. Being a foster carer can be a tricky balancing act. You need to teach a child how to build a good attachment but the consequence of building up strong feelings will make the move to permanence more difficult.  A good foster carer will involve all the family members and will have created an atmosphere of total acceptance for the looked after children which will make developing bonds easier, but moves away much harder.

What a child needs to hear

So we are talking about damage limitation and giving the best messages to the children who are leaving. They are likely to experience a whole range of feelings, including happiness, excitement, confusion and grief.  What they need to hear is that you see this as the plan for their lives, that they will be all right and that they will have security. If you have any doubts about the adopters, do not say so to the children or to your own children. If they are grave doubts, you will need to speak to the social worker involved.  Remember, though, that no-one will seem good enough for the children you have nurtured, especially if you have had them for a long time or have been instrumental in helping them to overcome major problems and become settled, accept love and develop in other ways.

The curious thing about attachment is that once a child has learnt how to become attached to an adult, it is generally easier for them to build emotional bonds afresh with new adults who care for them. This obviously depends upon the skills and feelings of the adopters, but you have probably equipped your looked after children to form good relationships in the future. They are likely to grieve for you, at first, and for your children, but what you have given them will never be wasted.

Practical Pointers

• Give them clear explanations about why they are going making sure that they know it is not because they have been naughty.

• Celebrate with them that they have found a ‘forever’ family.

• When they have visits to their new home, ask them what they liked best – be excited with them about this.
• Talk positively about the move, talking about what will go with them and what will be the same.

• Add pictures of yourselves to their life story book and, if possible, one with you and the prospective adopters.  This will help the children to feel that they are leaving with your blessing.

• Let your children make goodbye cards and encourage the looked after child children to do the same.

• Have a goodbye and celebration party, inviting friends from their school, Church and any organisations and clubs they have attended.  Don’t forget to invite friends of your own children, too.

Listen and Acknowledge

Needless to say, never compare yourselves to the adopters.  If any of the children do it, then emphasise the good things about the adoptive parents and how much fun the children will have.  But do recognise that they may feel very anxious about the move.  If they say they will miss you, and become upset, then just listen and acknowledge their feelings.  Let them know that it is normal to feel sad or angry, even though something good is happening.  You can tell them you will miss them too, but be careful not to make them feel torn between you and the adopters.  Remind the children that you are happy for them.  They need to know that this is the next right step for them and it is what the adults in their lives have decided is best for them.

Flowing On

An activity you can do with them to discuss their feelings of loss is one that is in my book ‘Creative Therapy for Children in New Families.’ The activity is called ‘Flowing on’ and is based on drawing a river with little islands and rocks on it. The banks, rocks and/or islands stay where they are while the river flows by. Talk to the children about how some people and places in their lives will be left behind while the children are moving on to fresh experiences and relationships.  Write some of the losses on the banks of the river and talk about how some of the memories will go with them.  Finish by drawing where the river is running to, with all the good things that you know about the adoptive parents and their home written on it.  In this case, draw the end of the river as a pool.

Your Own Family

This activity may help your own children to understand the loss as well.  Your family will need to re-form once the looked after children have moved on.  So this is a special time when it is important that you have some family occasions and some individual time with each of them.  Make sure your children have photos and even memory books of the time when the other children were in your family.  Let your children see that you are upset, but explain that it’s because you miss the other children.  Help them to understand that you are a strong family who will cope with this together.  Whatever age your children are, they may feel insecure at this time so they need to know how important they are to you.  Avoid taking more looked after children immediately, as your children will need to regain their sense of security before this happens.

Future Contact

If you are able to send messages as a family or to have some face-to-face contact, this can work well.  But do allow time for the children to settle in their new home and begin to feel as if they belong. Vera Fahlberg reminds us that it is better to have contact with the children once things are going well in the new family.  However, before this the new carer may want to ring you for advice and if the social workers are happy this can be very useful.  Be careful how you do this – try to help the adopters to build up their own expertise rather than give all the answers.  Children nearly always regress when they move, so allow for this and emphasise how well they are coping.

Support

Use your support networks to help you re-establish your family.  It’s a time for forming stronger links, for example with your extended family and your Church family.  Make sure that you and your children still have time with those in the Church or among your friends who were closest to the looked after children, because they will be feeling the loss too.  It may be that there is someone in the Church for you to talk to about your own feelings of grief and loss at this time, so that you are more emotionally able to help your children. Finally, through your example, create an atmosphere at home where everyone knows it is all right to talk and pray about their feelings.

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