Adoption and Fostering round-up

Well it’s been a busy old month. The first half term is over and if your children are anything like mine, then there’s a lot of Hallowe’en talk in the air, and excitement over which costumes to wear. We’re also planning *whispers* Christmas already, can you believe it?

In fact, on The Adoption Social this month, we’ve already published our first festive themed post, with tips on how to have some calm time each day throughout December. It seems a little early I’ll admit, but this particular activity requires a bit of planning, shopping and forethought.

But most of the blog posts I’ve come across this month, have been about #TakingCare – a conference that took place this month, run by The Open Nest. Sarah and I are trustees of this adoption support charity, and spoke at the event. So for us it’s great to see so many people talking about the conference, both before and after, and it was a wonderful opportunity to put faces to Twitter handles. Here are some of my favourite posts on #TakingCare:

Al, who blogs at Misadventures of an Adoptive Dad spoke at the event, and here he considers why most of the attenders were women.
Amanda, founder of The Open Nest, reflects on the conference on her blog – All Aboard The Trauma Train.
There’s a great summary on Stickleberry’s blog about the best bits of #TakingCare
The lovely Honey, from 3 Bees and a Honey, in this post, describes both the conference and the after effects on her family.
Sezz talks about the conference and how inspired she now feels in this post on Dear Daughter: Our Adoption Journey.

So there’s a little round-up within a round-up of something big and positive that happened for adoptive families this month.

But what else? What other posts have there been in the adoption and fostering community this week?

Well, Suddenly Mummy has been keeping us all up to date on the progress and soon-to-be adoption of Baby Girl. This week we’ve all been on tenterhooks, waiting with Suddenly Mummy for appropriate paperwork to be signed, sealed and delivered. And….well, you’ll have to read this post if you want to know what happened!

We Are Family is an amazing group of people who are providing post adoption support groups within London. On their blog, they describe the times that family resemblances have been questioned and discussed – a difficult topic for many adoptive families. If you’ve ever received one of those ‘who does he look like most’ comments, then this post is for you.

There have been tough times for Gem at Life With Katie and Pip recently. We want to send her love and hugs, as well as condolences for her family’s loss. Read about what’s happened here, and show her your support. Much love Gem.

I recently met the lovely blogger behind Love In The Clouds – and hope to have a proper catch up soon. In this post, she writes about the court process – that’s the bit where you formally apply to adopt the child that has been placed with you. If you’re getting to this point of adoption, then do have a read as Love In The Clouds highlights the differences between local authorities, and the financing of this court process.

Identity is super important in the world of adoption. It’s talked about a lot, and often with reference to the child’s name. Because it’s said that name is so integral to identity and belonging, and the very fact that their name is the only thing that comes from their birth parents, it’s generally recognised that changing an adoptive child’s name is inappropriate. However, for some (like us) it was suggested that we did change it, but purely for safety reasons because the original name was so unique. In this post, 4 Relative Strangers describes an interesting conversation about names, and considers how much KC wants to please his parents.

And my final post this month comes from GracePonders – who shares a self/non-self concept that helps her in everyday adoptive parenting. I think it’s something that we need to explore further in our own family.

We’d love to hear from more adoption and fostering bloggers. If you’ve found a blog you think should be included here but isn’t, please drop us a line to let us know.