The Life Changes project was set up in 2008 to fulfil two primary needs - one for birth parents (and relatives) of children placed for adoption and one for the children themselves.
For birth parents and relatives the project provides the opportunity to review their life to date and to ultimately acknowledge the part they have played in the child’s placement for adoption. Importantly, it allows members of the child’s birth family to contribute (if they wish) to the child’s Life Story either through narrative information (telling their story), photographs, audio or video recordings, and letters for the child to read as they reach adolescence and adulthood.
The project also helps monitor and review contact arrangements and to provide a conduit between birth parents and adoptive parents to help answer any questions the child may raise over time, and which the adoptive parents may not be able to answer.
The second major strand of the project is the collation and presentation of information about the child’s life from conception to placement with his adoptive parents, and also about his family of origin.
Information is collected from as many sources as can be located – birth parents and relatives, foster carers, nursery, school, health services, childminders, family centres, social workers and social services files. Children usually receive a minimum of 2 books – the first, in more pictorial form, covering their life from conception to placement (and often accompanied by a book prepared by the child’s foster carers of the time spent with them). The second is compiled for the child as a young adult, and for the adoptive parents to use throughout the child’s growing years. This contains information about the original family, the circumstances by which the child came into care and was ultimately placed for adoption, and a series of “later life letters” written personally by those who were involved with the child up until his placement for adoption. There is also more general information about the court process and a copy of the Child’s Permanence report.
For children who are leaving the island to live with new families elsewhere in the British Isles, we provide a third book about the Isle of Man, with work sheets for the child to complete. Each book is individually made from available island material and covers both the history of the island, the Manx language and the island lifestyle.
Finally, all the above are placed in a specially made Memory Box – the child’s name engraved into the lid – a repository for any memorabilia which we may have collected for the child along the way – a special book read during contact visits, first shoes, a favourite toy left behind. The box allows room for these but also for other special items precious to the child as he grows.
We believe it is important for any child moving into adoption to have access to information about his past life, and his family of origin – as and when he needs it, rather than having to wait until adulthood before accessing complex information all in one sitting. By providing adoptive parents with as much detailed information as it is possible to collect, adopters can talk to the child at his own pace, allowing him to test out part memories against factual information. Where the child’s questions cannot be immediately answered, the Life Changes project provides a means of accessing this information wherever possible direct from parents.
The Life Changes project does not form part of our contract with the government. It is separately funded by the agency, at a cost of approximately £60,000 each year.
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