However what also needs to be stressed, and seems to be constantly overlooked is a greater need for support post adoption and not just for the first 3 years. In addition what is also needed is greater understanding amongst professionals and regular updated training. It is a myth that once children are adopted all their problems disappear. It is often the case that when a child feels secure they are able to show their true feelings and it is at this point that support is needed by the family and children. A first point for gaining that support can often be an understanding school.  This website and award was set up to celebrate schools that do their best and go the extra mile to support the child and family without judging, and too aid this the website aims to be a source of support for both schools and parents.

It has been nearly 2 months since the award opened and in that time the website has welcomed just over 1500 unique visitors and celebrated three schools who have shown they go the extra mile.

Carr Junior school (Ascomb) was the first to receive the award followed quickly by Knayton Church of England Primary school (Thirsk) and Paisley Primary School (Hull). These schools haven't claimed to always get it right, but have received attachment training and have done their best to embed their learning and understanding in the school ethos.  They have shown that they care and are willing to listen and learn. The head teacher of Knayton C of E has even offered to support other schools in working and understanding children who have attachment issues, a link to her school can be found on the resources page of the website.  In addition to the schools we have received notes of support from many individuals and agencies and notably two LAs.  From messages that we have received it has also been made clear that there is a great misunderstanding in to attachment, with the belief that it is only children who are adopted that can have this difficulty.  Yes it will probably be more prevalent in looked after children and adopted children, but from my experience many children can have attachment difficulties, or traits.  I would like to see all schools receive Attachment Awareness training, maybe in the same way they receive regular safeguarding training, and for it to be given greater importance in teaching alliances and universities.

Finally, all we ask is for you - schools and professionals - to seek training to fully understand the issues and embed this in your practice.  This national adoption week and beyond - be a voice of support for adopted children and children with attachment difficulties. 

We are not trainers.  If you would like to source training for your school or organization the links on the resources section of the website may help find the right one for you.  If you are a school your local Virtual Head may be able to help you find the right training for your setting.

We look forward to hearing about your journey.

I was lucky to get a place at the recent Kinship carer event hosted by Children 1st.

I was delighted as I love the work of Dr Suzanne Zeedyk, she has an amazing way of helping us understand our children and the importance of connection to help build our children’s brains.

Every time I hear her speak or read something she has written I take something different from it.  The phrase that had an impact on me at this event was when she changed the description of children’s behaviour  from “challenging ” to “distressed”

This really hit me, and here is why.

I often reflect and share my initial understanding of “attachment issues”, (or lack of understanding).  When my girls first came to live with me, professionals used the phrase freely.   “She has attachment issues”

 I didn’t really understand what it meant.  I was already mum to 2 teenagers,  I was doing ok.  So these issues didn’t worry me.

 

It didn’t take me long to see first-hand the reality Initially I saw extremely distressed child, heart breaking to see a child in such distress, even more heart breaking that  she did everything in her power to keep me at arm’s length,  all I wanted to do was sooth her distress.  I then saw this distress turn to frustration, the frustration turned to anger then the anger to aggression.

 

As I reflect I wonder, what were the changes in behaviour that led me to the change of description?

I realize the behaviour was the same it was me that perceived it differently probably due to my frustration and lack of understanding, but I realize now it was always distress.  As the distress increased and she couldn’t communicate verbally she communicated her distress her fear through her behaviour.

We need to be aware that the language we use to describe our children can influence our attitude and our intervention.

If we are faced with aggression how does that make us feel, the emotions that are stimulated influence our reaction.  We take a step back, less able to connect, our emotions can make us reactive.  Im the adult you’re the child and you WILL do what you’re told.

If we are faced with distress how does that make us feel, the emotions stimulated are completely different and again influence our reaction we are more open and willing to connect, to interact to ease the distress, to strengthen the relationship. 

Thank you once again for reminding me why the language we use is so important, it influences our ability to connect to our children.  Our children crave connection to help them heal.  They just struggle to communicate this deep need they fear us leaving them so they push and push and push as in their wee minds we will leave them too.

I focus on strengthening the relationship which has proven to ease the distress.  Yes we still have incidents, however what family doesn't

 

Tina Hendry  Feb 2015

Being a therapeutic parent to children with attachment difficulties means that we deal with, as Herding chickens say: Lying, stealing, manipulation, and aggression towards caregivers are just a few common characteristics in the home. But on the flip side we also have children who as 2 out of 3 say: Are sweet, kind, affectionate and very funny... who are trying very hard to find their way in the world with the odds pretty much stacked against them. If there’s one thing that’s always true of them, is they have a spirit and determination it’s impossible not to admire.

BUT what do the outside world see (by that I mean schools; friends; extended family; and yes, at times, the therapeutic services that are there to support and help us) - they see a child who comes across as happy, is compliant, sometimes can have conversations (although often they are a learnt series of words - we see this with our eldest who gets very confused if the recipient goes off script), and seems to succeed in school. In reality the negative behaviours are only revealed to primary caregivers.

In the blog, linked with permission, from 2 out of 3 she talks about what could be described by many adoptive parents as a typical day.  This story and many others are the reason we have created this website and award.  We, adoptive parents, want everyone to accept that we are the experts when it comes to our children.  We don't want to be belittled, we don't want to be named, blamed, and shamed when things don’t work out - we wont people to listen even if they can't understand. At the end of the day, if where not parenting therapeutically , we are still good parents who give our children much more than any service or money can buy - love, unconditional love and it is exhausting,please forgive us and don't blame us if we don't parent therapeutically or in a PACE way all the time.

Experiences as a service user.

On September 1st the application opens for schools to receive the award.  Remember this is not onerous and is a simple process of receiving training and getting a supportive statement from your parents of adopted children.  Alternatively you can look at the criteria on the award page and show what you are doing.  The award, and website, exist to help us all work together to support children with attachment difficulties and to highlight nationally the importance of attachment training for schools and other professionals.
You can continue to support this site by forwarding any resources or offering your support by promoting the award and website in your blogs, newsletters and websites.  We would love to see the award become a national initiative.

Having learnt about the importance of  attachment and how trauma in children affects their learning and emotional growth during our adoption preparation, I have gone on to actively seek out as much information as I can, reading books such as The Primal Wound, Bubble Wrapped Children and the Science of Parenting I have sought out media articles that highlight the new research investigating how trauma can have a huge impact on the develpoment of children in our society. I have attended therapeutic parenting courses run by followers of Dan Hughes and I have tried and tried to share that knowledge with those around me, particularily in school. I have found the lack of interest or desire in teachers to even give much more than a cursory glance my way disheartening. And I honestly believe that this is because I am viewed as "just" a mum, who is over protective of her youngest child. So I now back every theory I share with specific research to show that it's not me just talking rubbish.

Whilst on the conference I found that my basic background knowledge into trauma was far superior to the many teachers, school leaders and teacher assistants who attended. I have a better grasp of how the brain develops and why some children struggle in school. With the knowledge I also understand that for our traumatised children to achieve in school we need to change how we talk to them. I was shocked and saddened that all the research and knowledge that is only a few clicks away using the Internet is pretty much unknown by many of those who are working in our education system.

When I listened to those who have heard, who have understood, share their stories of success in helping children  in schools using therapeutic methods and emotion training I felt that the sun had come out but, it's not happening everywhere, this conference was shouting from the roof tops about "Play, Love, Acceptance,Curiosity and Empathy" it was showing that these new methods were changing lives. In Stoke On Trent an area full of children living in poverty, a council who have suffered huge financial cut backs have by using therapeutic methods reduced Behaviour incidents by 80%, violence in schools by 50% and have not permanently excluded a looked after child in the last 6 years. Absolutely EVERYONE who talked about attachment and supporting children with that as the central theme talked positively.

Tony Clifford shared a wonderful analogy. If a child comes into school with a nut allergy, every member of staff, including the lunch time staff will be trained in what to do in the event that the child comes into contact with nuts and parents will be asked not to send any nut related products in lunch boxes. Schools have the same responsibility to look after traumatised children, these children will be the runners and if they do go into flight mode nothing will keep them in a school setting, not fences or gates and if they can get out then they are at as much risk as the child with a nut allergy.

We need our schools to understand the importance in using new ways of educating children, they are not all the same and we HAVE to ensure that they feel safe before we can look at academia. The government are certainly aware that there are issues, which is why all looked after children are eligible to claim pupil premium and the new adoption fund has been released to support traumatised children should they need it. None of this will help our children achieve their potential if our educators don't understand trauma or worse don't realise that it exists. It still remains for the parents to educate them and I am finding that really really hard.

Five years ago his son was pinned down to the ground by three teachers - that's what one of our members told us happened to his adopted son at primary school. Relations with the school broke down further to the point where they asked for his son to stay off school during an Ofsted inspection. Things have moved on and this child is at a secondary school where his teachers have a better understanding of his complex needs and early trauma. This is an extreme example but shows what can happen with a lack of understanding of the needs of an adopted child who has already experienced trauma and neglect in their early years.

Adoption UK recognises the difficult and stressful job that teachers do. We acknowledge that disruptive pupils can wreck carefully planned lessons and curtail other classmates learning. So what we are hoping to achieve is a better understanding of the needs of adopted children in schools so that staff are aware as well as better equipped to meet those needs.

A good education is vital for all adopted children - trumped only by them securing a loving and 'forever home'.

One of our campaigns at Adoption UK is to call on policymakers to ensure ring-fenced additional support is available to all adopted children in school, whenever they need it in their educational journey. We also believe that all adopted children should have a Personal Education Plan (PEP), subject to parental agreement. Support in education can be transformative for an adopted child and enable them to thrive.

In a 2014 survey of our membership about 80% of adoptive parents believe their child needs more or different support in school because of their early childhood experiences.

Two thirds (66%) of parents told us the school and/or teacher doesn't understand the impact of their adopted child's early life experiences on their ability to engage with education.

The public often believe that once a child is adopted their difficulties disappear, however this is not always the case and it's the children who are bear the cost of this lack of understanding, especially within the school setting.

Virtually all of the parents (97%) we surveyed told us additional funding in school for adopted children could help staff to understand why adopted children often have additional needs.

Adopted children's early childhood experiences can often lead to behavioural, physical and emotional difficulties which play out in a school environment, which is not always attuned to their needs.

We also know adopted children are falling behind their classmates at school because their needs and experiences are not always understood. Our research found that half of them (51%) failed to hit educational targets at junior schools in 2013. Their educational attainment was also significantly lower than the whole Key Stage 2 population.

It would be remiss not to point out that there has been significant progress within the education sector in England including the extension of the Pupil Premium funding (PPf) to adopted children. Priority school admissions and the PPf were welcome but our research suggests that more than 40% of adoptive parents cannot ascertain from their school how the pupil premium is being used to benefit their child's attainment.

We were also delighted that the Welsh Assembly Government introduced arrangements to enable regional education consortia in Wales to support the education of former looked after children who are adopted through the Pupil Deprivation Grant (from April of this year).

We will continue to press for parity for Northern Ireland and Scotland to ensure that all adoptive children - no matter where they live in the United Kingdom - receive the education support they need.

Virtual Schools were set up in England to provide extra help for Looked After Children's education. The DfE issued statutory guidance in July 2014 which requires the appointment of a Virtual School Head in every local authority and the provision of a personal education plan for every child in care - but not adopted children.

I gave oral evidence to the Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee recently and talked about the proposals outlined in the new Bill which aims to regionalise adoption in England but, focuses solely on powers to change who provides adoption services. We support a consolidation of the adoption system only if it improves the quality, sufficiency and accessibility of the advice and support that adopted children and their families need as consolidation does not automatically lead to service improvement. I would have liked to have seen in the Bill the opportunity for extending the role of the virtual school and the virtual school head to include children adopted from care, as well as looked-after children. More needs to be done to support adopted children's education.