Seeking Research Participants for a New Adoptee Study!

Please share and participate!

All three research partners involved in this study are adult adoptees.

{quote}
Seeking Research Participants!

Are you an adoptee?

If so, and you:

1. Were adopted before age one.
2. Were adopted by non-biological parents (neither parent was related to the child by blood)
Were told or discovered you were adopted at any age. We have a special interest in 3. those told after age 18.
4. Are willing to take a 25-minute online survey.

We are researchers who are studying adoption. The researchers are from Montclair State University and a group of independent researchers. We will ask you about your adoption history and your well-being. The information we learn will help us to improve research, training, practice surrounding adoption. For more information, contact:

Dr. Amanda Baden, Associate Professor, Counseling and Educational Leadership at Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ (973) 655-7336, badena@mail.montclair.edu.

To take the survey, go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LDA2013

IRB Approval #001375

This entry was posted in Late Discovery Adoptee Research, Late Discovery Adoptees on August 17, 2013.
{/quote}

While the write-up I’ve c’n’p’ed suggests this is only for LDAs, it has been clarified elsewhere that ALL adoptees can go and answer, but may not find so many of the questions relevant.

Is Your Blog On Kindle? A Quick ‘How To’ Get Your Blog On Kindle.

A useful, easy to understand guide to publishing a blog on Kindle.

Ruth Nina Welsh

Is your blog available on Kindle? If it is, that’s excellent! If it’s not, maybe you haven’t thought about it yet. Or, maybe you’re thinking it’s a complicated process. In fact, it’s really easy. I recently made my Be Your Own Counsellor & Coach website available to subscribe to on Kindle and it was a simple task.

For those of you who might be interested in doing something similar, here’s how to put your blog on Kindle in a few easy steps:

• Visit Kindle Publishing For Blogs and set up an account.
• When logged in, click ‘Add Blog,’ and complete the sign-up form. You will need your RSS feed, blog description, tagline and a picture to display on your Amazon page. I chose a screenshot of my website:

• With all of your information filled in, click to ‘Generate Blog Preview’ and remember to hit ‘Save’ in case it doesn’t go…

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Adoption: National Minimum Standards

Accessed from: https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/standard/publicationDetail/Page1/DFE-00028-2011

Reference:DFE-00028-2011
Published:March 2011
Publication Type: Guidance
Audience: Lead Member for Children’s Services, Local authorities and key statutory agencies, Social workers

This document contains the National Minimum Standards (NMS) applicable to the provision of adoption services. The NMS together with the adoption regulations form the basis of the regulatory framework under the Care Standards Act 2000 for the conduct of adoption agencies and adoption support agencies.

The NMS for adoption are issued by the Secretary of State under sections 23 and 49 of the Care Standards Act 2000. The Secretary of State will keep the standards under review and may publish amended standards as appropriate.

Minimum standards do not mean standardisation of provision. The standards are designed to be applicable to the variety of different types of adoption agencies and adoption support agencies. They aim to enable, rather than prevent, individual agencies to develop their own particular ethos and approach based on evidence that this is the most appropriate way to meet the child’s needs.

Includes:
* General introduction
* Standards

PAGE 31

Adoption Agencies
Adoption Support Agencies

STANDARD 15 – Adoption support

UNDERPINNING LEGISLATION

The Adoption Support Services Regulations 2005

The Local Authority Adoption Service (England) Regulations 2003
Regulation 9A – Provision of services

The Voluntary Adoption Agencies and the Adoption Agencies (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2003
Regulation 24F – Provision of services

The Adoption Support Agencies (England) and Adoption Agencies (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2005
Regulation 13 – Provision of services

FURTHER GUIDANCE
Adoption and Children Act 2002 Guidance – Chapter 9
Practice Guidance on Assessing the Support Needs of Adoptive Families

OUTCOME

• Children and adults affected by adoption receive an assessment of their adoption support needs.

• Service users confirm that the adoption support service provided met or are meeting their assessed needs.

Standard

15.1 Where services are commissioned by an adoption agency, a three-way working relationship is developed with the adoption agency and the Adoption support agency working in partnership to most effectively meet the needs of the service user. Commissioning arrangements are underpinned by a written agreement and are reviewed at regular intervals.

15.2 When deciding whether to provide a service, or which service to provide, the agency has regard to the assessed needs for adoption support services, listens to the service user’s wishes and feelings, and considers their welfare and safety.

15.3 The service user knows, and receives written information about, the service they are to receive; what the service is designed to achieve; what is involved in the particular service provision and how the service will be monitored to ensure that it is delivering the intended outcome.

PAGE 32

15.4 Prospective adopters and adopters are made aware of, and encouraged by, the Adoption Support Services Adviser to access support services, and apply for tax credits and welfare benefits which are available to them and advise them of their employment rights to leave and pay.

15.5 The Adoption Support Services Adviser assists prospective adopters and adopters through liaison with education and health services; across local authority boundaries and between departments within the local authority.

15.6 Adoption agencies seek feedback from service users on the success of the service provision. This feedback is recorded centrally and on the case record of the service user.

PAGE 33

Adoption Agencies
Adoption Support Agencies

STANDARD 16 – Intermediary services

UNDERPINNING LEGISLATION

The Adoption and Children Act 2002 – sections 9 and 98
Adoption Information and Intermediary Services (Pre-commencement Adoptions) Regulations 2005

FURTHER GUIDANCE
Adoption and Children Act 2002 Guidance – Chapters 10
Practice Guidance on Adoption: Access to Information and Intermediary Services

OUTCOME

• Adopted adults and birth relatives are assisted to obtain information in relation to the adoption, where appropriate, and contact is facilitated between an adopted adult and their birth relative if that is what both parties want.

Standard

16.1 Information is provided about the Adoption Contact Register and how to register a wish for contact or no contact; and about absolute and qualified vetoes and the potential benefits and disadvantages of registering a veto.

16.2 The applicant is met and their identity verified before any information is disclosed to them, contact facilitated; or a veto is registered.

16.3 The Appropriate Adoption Agency and the Intermediary Agency agree a timescale for responding to an enquiry and keeps the Intermediary Agency informed of the progress (or lack of progress) of their enquiry.

16.4 Service users are helped to understand the possible effects on them and their family of the outcome of their search.

16.5 Service users are consulted on decisions made in relation to their service provision. Consultation with service users is recorded on their individual records.

16.6 Agencies seek feedback from service users on the success of the service provision. This feedback is recorded centrally and on the case record of the service user.

English Councils’ Support for Adopted Adults

For many adoptees, their initial contact when attempting to ascertain information about their own adoption may well be through their own area authority. Thus this post lists all links to local authorities ‘adoption help pages’ that I have been able to find through a basic Google web search.

Wikipedia lists 9 regions in England, which are further broken down into counties and districts. It is from the county authorities that I have strived to glean information.

PLEASE NOTE: This post is still in the process of creation as finding the information is not always ‘just’ a ‘simple’ web search. Not only is the information from each authority needed, it is first necessary to establish which area authorities exist.

List of English County Councils obtained from: http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/cc.htm

Page title ~ in area

Support for adopted adults ~ in Buckinghamshire
Support for adopters ~ in Cambridgeshire
Support to Adopted Adults and their Birth Families ~ in Cumbria
Adoption Support Services ~ in Derbyshire
Adult Adoption Counselling Service ~ in Devon
No obvious help found ~ in Dorset
Tracing your birth parents ~ in East Sussex
If you have been adopted ~ in Essex
Services for adopted adults who want to trace birth relatives ~ in Gloucestershire
About your Adoption ~ in Hampshire
Adoption Support ~ in Hertfordshire
Support for adults who have been adopted ~ in Kent
No obvious help found ~ in Lancashire
I’m Adopted ~ in Leicestershire
An adopted adult ~ in Lincolnshire
How to obtain birth records ~ in Norfolk
Tracing your birth family ~ in Northamptonshire
No obvious help found ~ in North Yorkshire
I am adopted ~ in Nottinghamshire
Advice for adopted adults ~ in Oxfordshire
No obvious help found ~ in Somerset
Adoption affects 1 in 5 people in Staffordshire. Are you affected by adoption and living in Staffordshire? ~ in Staffordshire
Supporting people affected by adoption ~ in Suffolk
Information and support for adults who were adopted ~ in Surrey
Support for adopted people ~ in Warwickshire
Adoption support ~ in West Sussex
Adoption Support ~ in Worcestershire

Laying the foundations

The trenches have been dug, and now the foundations can start being poured.

I have an appointment on Wednesday at the bank with the business advisor so that I can open an account for PostAdoption Charity.

I have a Trustee, and I have someone willing to be Patron.

I have a CafePress store with at least two designs stocked.

I hold both http://postadoptioncharity.org.uk/ and http://postadoptioncharity.co.uk/ domains (both of which need re-directing to here).

I have the @PostAdoption Twitter account.

I need to work out a business plan, I think.

I also need to work out what criteria people are going to have to fit into in order to be able to obtain the funding that I’m hoping to raise so that people can get the help I’m hoping to be able to give.

Being entirely new at this, I’m not really sure what else I need to get going effectively, so all pointers appreciated. Until then, I’ll be found browsing through pages like How to write a business plan and Recipe for success: Business plans while trying to work out how to build this into viable concern.

Oh, and I have also asked Daughter to create a logo for me, however she’s not convinced that she will be able to pull it off. She needs to stop doubting herself so much. </Pot meeting Kettle> ;)

[Reblog] Labelling

*nodding* all the way through.

The Life Of Von

Most of us go through life being labelled many, many times. For adoptees there are additional labels – bastard, illegitimate, ungrateful, needy, evil, speaker of vile words and so on. Those who frequent the blogosphere, facebook etc will be more than familiar with them and with the insults and ridicule which regularly come our way when we speak out about the truth of adoption for adoptees or express a view about some aspect of our lives. For instance as someone who accepted the South Australian Apology for forced adoption, not just for myself, but for my deceased mother, since no-one else was entitled to do so, I have been the target of sustained criticism and insult, all from parents or fellow adoptees. I have been labelled as having a psychiatric disorder for my beliefs and for expressing them honestly and openly. I have received instructions on how I should conduct…

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Moving along

Not very quickly, I admit. Much of that has been to do with the hassles I’ve been having in dealing with the whole being adopted part, still. Last night, Bestest-Wifey asked me how far PAC had come on since its inception, and I had to own up to having let things slide whilst trying to fight my own battles as well as the battle to get the adoptee voice heard.

Having suddenly discovered Twitter – correction, not discovered ’cause I’ve had an account for ages, but suddenly started using Twitter last week (after discovering it gave me pretty much direct access to the UK’s “Adoption Czar” <vom> @martinnarey), I did my usual going through and nabbing my usual blog/page names, and since Bestest-Wifey reminded me of this charity (not that I’d really forgotten it, just haven’t really had time/energy to deal with it), I got to work on creating the PAC Twitter account. In order not to annoy too many people by random spammings with this new account, instead of pimping PAC outwardly, I instead decided to kinda reverse-engineer my spamming, and so went through and added ten ton of accounts that used or posted with the words #adoption, #adoptee, or #adopted in their whatever-it-is-Twit-searches. Hence currently, PAC Twit is now following almost 1000 accounts.

Which kinda leads us to where we are now…

In one of the accounts, my eye caught a link that I decided to follow, which led me to the APRC (Adoption Policy And Reform Collaborative) site (that I’m guessing is also pretty much in its infancy, although far surpassing this (currently) miserly effort of a site) via Adoption Echoes A Perfect Storm post. It was at this point that I gave up waiting to make a stand-alone web-site for PAC, and instead decided to migrate this-a-way over to WordPress. Opened up, logged in, clicked “Create a New Blog”, typed in postadoptioncharity for the new name, and was subtly reminded by WP that a blog of that name already existed. Yup, it’s been that long since I started trying to throw this charity together that I actually forgot that I’d already created a WP blog for it. Thus, today is HOPEFULLY heralding in a new era in which PAC actually begins to move forward as a serious concern, and can hopefully start making some money to help fund me and all the other adoptees who need the psychological help that’s (at least currently) unavailable on the NHS, despite it being the Government, the Law Makers, and their Social Services that did this to us in the first place.

Even if PAC doesn’t make a single penny though, it’s less important than fighting to get adoptees’ voices heard, and to get funding somehow so that adoptees can actually get in to see specialist adoption therapists who actually understand all the inverse realities that being adopted can convey upon a life.

So begins the long and arduous task…

So begins the long and arduous task of attempting to create a charitable organisation designed – at least initially – in an attempt to help raise funds in order to assist adoptees to obtain the oh-so horrendously expensive psychological/mental health/however you wanna describe it help that so many adoptees have demonstrated needing.

Of course, if it does take of properly (no promises yet, hence why I’m not asking for money yet), then it’s possible to widen the scope of ‘help’, but for now, it’s definitely the psychological stuff I’m aiming at.

This blog will – hopefully – chart the challenges I (and the organisation) face in becoming a recognised charity, potentially along with links and comments and reactions to a variety of adoption-related literature and Internet discussions, questions, and debates.

I do not intend this blog to become a personal blog concerning my own adoption issues, however it’s absolutely certain that my own adoption issues will colour the reactions and comments made.