Who to include in staying in touch plans?
Part of Staying in touch: Contact after adoption > Planning for staying in touch
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This section will help you to think about who might be included in staying in touch plans. It includes examples of using genograms and eco-maps, guidance on how to work with birth relatives and downloadable practice guides considering contact with foster carers, fathers and siblings.
Who to include in staying in touch plans?
When making staying in touch plans it is important to think about:
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People who have a positive relationship with the child and where there is no good reason for this relationship to end.
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People who care for/love or want to support the child throughout their life.
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People who are (or may be in the future) important for the child to know about or receive information from, either for reassurance or future understanding of their life story and identity needs.
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What connections and staying in touch arrangements can be realistically maintained by the family to ensure the most important relationships are prioritised and social exhaustion does not occur. It may be important to prioritise people the child has known, as well as those who can help the child with their story/understand that they were not rejected.
Visual diagrams to represent family and social networks
Genograms and eco-maps can be useful to assist practitioners in their exploration of people’s social networks and important relationships within their families, friends and communities.
Genograms can be useful for mapping biological family links, as in this example.
Pippa was recently placed for adoption. The genogram highlights five known biological siblings of Pippa, but there are other possible siblings, and also children that will be or could be viewed as siblings by Pippa. All of these children/young people may be important for Pippa to maintain a relationship with or be able to contact in the future. Regular face-to-face meet ups may be important for Pippa to maintain some positive relationships and build childhood memories and experiences with brothers and sisters she has known. For some of these siblings, just obtaining contact details and names and dates of birth may be enough for now so that Pippa’s adoptive parents don’t experience social exhaustion. It is important to keep the door open for connections to be made later if Pippa wishes/needs to explore her family network.
Reflective Questions
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Looking at the genogram, who are the key people that you think Pippa should maintain a connection with in the short- and long term?
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What further information would you need to gather to help with planning keeping in touch arrangements for Pippa?
Eco-maps provide a template for consideration of more peripheral family members that may (or could) be important in the child’s life, as well as parent-like figures, carers or other children that they may have lived or spent considerable time with. There may also be important people who have known the child or their parents within their wider community and may help them with life story information.
Here is a possible template to assist thinking about the different layers of relationships.
For each person highlighted, it’s important to think about how they can best be included in the child’s life. If there are people with whom the child has a positive relationship and where there is no good reason for this relationship to end, continuing the relationship can help mitigate loss and children feeling that important and loved people have just ‘disappeared’ or appear to have rejected them.
Connections with some people may still be beneficial even if only occasionally, perhaps to provide reassurance, information or answer questions. Even a one-off ‘later life letter’ provided by a family friend or community leader may be helpful.
In many cases options may need to be kept open for further communication in the future if required.
'Just knowing that they are still thinking of you – that’s what makes me happy…I get this first letter and its ‘oh, they still care about me and think about me and everything’, which I found really heartwarming'.
(Adopted teenager)
Planning contact with different people who are important for the child
Working with birth relatives when making contact plans
This practice guide supports practitioners to work effectively with birth relatives and understand their needs when making staying in touch plans.
Fathers are frequently not included in contact plans for adopted children
'He’s always been the one that I haven’t been allowed to see, it makes you want to know more and see them more.'
(Adopted young person)
This practice guide provides information on supporting fathers to maintain relationships with their children after adoption.
Staying in touch with foster carers after adoption
Staying in touch with foster carers after being placed with adopters can help children to settle in their new families. It does not stop children from forming new attachments. Continued contact with familiar people and things and maintaining reassuring routines helps children to feel safe when they must move.
This practice guide summarises the evidence to increase understanding of the benefits of ongoing contact with foster carers. and provides suggestions for practice around children’s contact with foster carers post adoption.
Read the Mikey Maddox case study and consider the following questions:
- Who and what is important and familiar to Mikey in his current situation?
- Who is Mikey’s primary attachment figure?
- How will he feel if this person is not there?
- By the time Mikey is 14, how likely is it that there will be somebody still in his life who knew him when he was a baby?
- How could the foster carers support the adopters to help Mikey settle?
Staying in touch with siblings
There is strong evidence that, in most cases, contact with brothers and sisters is wanted by children and can be rewarding and beneficial. It should generally be considered, promoted, prioritised and supported (at least with key siblings), unless there is good reason for it not to occur.
This practice guide summarises the evidence and key factors to consider when planning staying in touch arrangements for brothers and sisters.
Staying in touch: Contact after adoption
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