Today we’re sharing with you the story of Greg and Julia’s adoption process. Please note for safeguarding we have changed the names in their story. Greg and Julie adopted three siblings in the UK, 25 years ago. Their adoption journey has had moments of magic that in many ways has been overshadowed by the overwhelming troubles associated with systemic breakdown, mental health struggles and the many realities of adopting children from a family riddled with drug addiction amongst other complexities.
They feel certain elements of the adoption process, particularly the ones their family have been forced to deal with are not appropriately disclosed, the system potholes and the distinct lack of support for both the adopters and adoptees. They want to shout from the rooftops about their experience in a bid to potentially help other adoptive parents in a similar situation, and encourage in any way they can, some improvements to the system.
It must be noted that we’re introducing their story in relation to our first topic focus - adopting multiple birth siblings. With this being said, their story over the last 25 years relates heavily to other adoption issues like child-on -parent violence, a familial history of drug abuse and generational issues with mental health which we will revisit at a later date.
They feel their story has been unheard and we’re happy to give them a safe platform to share their experience. We also appreciate that the adoption process has likely changed over the years since they adopted, and in Greg’s words:
“Hopefully it has gotten better and better, as a lot of the issues we had were predominantly down to human behaviour and the system, allowing people to take those actions and not giving the protection of the law you should be given.”
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Greg and Julia firstly shared with us their motives and drivers for starting a family. After a miscarriage and with Julia nearing her 40’s, they decided to embark on fertility treatment. When that wasn’t successful, they found themselves asking the question of why are we doing this? What is motivating us to have a child? Julia recalls it wasn’t stemming from a desire to be pregnant. Simply, their drive was to start a family, and so they decided adoption was the best option for them.
To begin the process they started by calling four different local authorities in south Yorkshire. Three of which still haven’t responded 25 years later… a small but initial indication of a broken system. Only one responded and so they began the process. The authority was (and still are) in special measures, meaning they’re required to have supervision throughout the process. Despite this, Greg and Julia flew through the approval process in just 9 months. To their surprise, multiple children had already been matched to them whilst they were going through the process. They had expressed an interest in adopting two or even three children in one singular adoption process. They knew they wanted more than one child, and were very comfortable with the concept of adopting birth siblings to streamline the process into one, and to give siblings the opportunity to be kept together.
And this is exactly what happened. They adopted Leo at 22 months old, and sister Sophie at 32 months old.
Did you get any background on the birth family?
“We got very minimal background information of the birth family, but still probably more than most because the social worker who worked for the adoption society had been the social worker for the birth fathers family. Once we were approved and matched to the children, she was in floods of tears as she achieved what she had wanted to do, which was to break the chain of continual abuse and issues… which is laughable in hindsight”.
Sophie and Leo came from a foster family where they’d been placed for 10 months. The foster family had actually asked to adopt them, but because the foster family lived within the borough of the birth parents, it was not allowed. It was required that their placement was an out of county placement for the safety of the kids, as the birth family had a history of causing issues and threatening the life of the foster family.
As a family, due to work commitments, they decided that Greg would stay at home and look after the children. Julia reflects upon these initial years as being pretty good, a definite transition as you would expect but they found their rhythm and settled into new family life.
Greg and Julia felt incredibly blessed with the adoption network they’d been lucky enough to be a part of, with a friend of theirs being the chair of the social work education counsel. Julia’s sister in law was the principal solicitor for a local authority dealing specifically with childcare. This meant they were able to be informed and ask questions that lots of adoptive parents probably wouldn't know to ask - they reflect that asking these questions did not gain them friends, or likeability because they were branded ‘difficult’, but it definitely helped them lift rocks. Even with this unique positioning in contact, when we asked them “Did you feel the information you received about the birth family was adequate?” The answer was eye-opening.
“Well at the start the information you receive isn’t necessarily something you question. You assume it’s comprehensive and they’ve done their research. It was only when Leo collapsed when he was younger that prompted us to ask more information about the medical history. The paper work showed many discrepancies, for example their birth father was detailed to have epilepsy on one document but it was later crossed out with pen and the detailing of the information was not clear. When diving deeper into the family history and making formal requests, we were told the information provided to us was, in the Judge’s words, shocking. The Judge then personally did some digging for us. Unfortunately, all they received were the court papers from the adoption which shed light on a few other factors, but raised more question marks as to whether there was a history of fitting or epilepsy in the family. It did provide a broader picture of the birth family, including their criminal records, a history of drug abuse, generational violence and prostitution. It was only then, years later that we learnt that Leo and Sophie had been separated for much of their fostering before adoption. Leo alone in just 22 months was placed in 17 different placements, apart from Sophie.”
Three months after adopting Sophie and Leo, Greg and Julia were asked to sign a piece of paper swearing that they would never have another birth child. Just months later, they were approached by their adoption agency and asked if they would be open to adopting another child, Grant, born to the same birth mother. They were not provided with any reasoning for the need for adoption, other than ‘we just think he would be better with you than with them’. At this point, the child hadn’t legally been separated from the birth parents. Greg and Julia decided that if the legal process for separation went through in its own time, and if/when Grant was separated, they would adopt him.
It was at this point that they had to make the move abroad for Julia’s work and just two weeks before they were due to move, the adoption agency called about Grant. At this stage, Grant was two and a half years old and he was ready, legally, to be adopted.
Julia reflects that pre adoption, it is in lots of ways, all about the parents. The minute that your child arrives, it flips 180 and becomes of course, all about them. With Grant, the process was very different. The desire and the drive for adopting him was very different. They felt a feeling of requirement, and that if they didn’t, Sophie and Leo may later find out and it would cause a lasting impact to them.
When the concept of adopting Grant was disclosed to Sophie and Leo, they were initially very confused. Greg and Julia asked the agency time and time again to send pictures for Sophie and Leo so they could connect with Grant, and understand the situation in the best way they could. The agency did not follow through with the request. In their view, this was detrimental to Sophie and Leo’s acceptance and understanding of the situation at this point.
In order to adopt Grant officially, they were required to start the process from scratch. As they were currently based in the US, the process was complicated - as an understatement. Julia described it more poignantly as ‘living hell’. The authority had no idea how to deal with the legal adoption process of a British family, living in America. They also were not able to adopt him legally in the US, but were assured by the judge that the adoption would eventually be legally sound and go through because ‘it was the right thing to do to keep siblings together’. It’s interesting at this point, to see the system pushing boundaries and going above and beyond to keep siblings together when they believe it’s the correct path.
The introduction of Grant into the family was bumpy to say the least. There were initial worrying signs of aggression and distressing emotions from Grant which caused huge disruption to their other two children. Julia recalls the visits from social workers lacking comprehensive and thorough analysis and there was a distinct lack of care taken regarding the severity of Grant’s behaviour. This behaviour continued during their four years living abroad, and heightened when they arrived back to the UK.
At the time, the authority had created an independent entity called Adoption Family Welfare Society. This society specifically dealt with all international adoptions, and adoptions that were not babies. A large part of their work included processing adoptions from China and Romania. This meant that they were very used to dealing with children with attachment issues. Despite this, it became clear to Greg and Julia even with the issues presented with Grant, that they only seemed to apply the concept of attachment issues with their international adoptions. This carries with it a very dangerous assumption, that the issue of attachment is isolated and they really struggled to get help with Grant’s behaviour.
“The impact on the other two children was pretty extreme. Leo’s quite easily impressed and him and Grant together were a nightmare. Grant has quite narcissistic tendencies and is very charming and took Leo under his wing.”
There had been prior issues with the birth family contacting the children’s foster family. When you moved back to the UK, did any issues with the birth family arise?
“When we adopted, facebook didn’t exist. As the kids got older, Leo managed to find the birth mother on facebook after his birth father passed away. Once the connection between their birth mother had been made, it felt like game over for parenting the boys. Leo left us first at 16 and 2 weeks old. His birth mother had persuaded him to leave us and live with her and have a happily ever after. Leo asked if we could drop him at the station to meet a friend but unbeknownst to us she had come down on the train from London to meet him. We only realised what was happening when it was too late and before we knew it another train had pulled in and we saw them both running to get on. We phoned the police and social services and we were informed it wasn’t abduction as he was over 16.”
The complications with the children’s birth mother were difficult to handle. After this they attempted to extend Leo’s adoption order age from 16 to 18 in an attempt to keep the birth mother away from him and keep him safe. But, cleverly, they placed Leo in a foster placement 20 minutes from where she lived. You can imagine how this went.
Grant was also stuck in a whirlwind with the birth family. He was in a class with a child who was fostered. When Grant was expressing distaste for being adopted, his friend told him ‘just get fostered mate, then if they tell you to do things you don’t want to do you can tell them to f*** off’. After this Grant started accusing multiple teachers at school, and Greg of physical and mental abuse in a bid to get legally removed from Greg and Julia’s care. Social services then got in touch and the safeguarding team were called. Shortly after this he began assaulting Greg, and in total tried to end his life three times. He was arrested, and at just 13 years old, was shouting incredibly disturbing things at the custody officers, threatening their family and our family. Unfortunately during this time he had a very poor social worker who validated his story. She discounted all the other cries of abuse but credited the story of Grant abusing Greg. To this date, the family still have no idea of what he’s accused Greg of. They interviewed both other children too and no evidence of abuse was found. They wouldn’t let him out under a police protection order and sadly, he never came home again. After this Grant was placed in and out of care all over the UK.
The birth mother has passed away in the last few years, and both birth parents are now out of the picture but despite this distraction being gone, Greg and Julia are left with two young men who are struggling a lot. It’s soul destroying as a parent to go through this.
“With that being said, there’s still a network up north with the birth family. There are three more half-siblings. Leo regularly visits with the view that it will all be okay when he arrives because they’re his birth family.”
Do you think Leo gets anything positive out of visiting his other birth siblings?
“No. He quickly realises it’s a nightmare, and never stays more than a week and comes away from it very low.”
The connection with the birth mother of the children and a huge variety of other factors has severely contributed to points of breakdown in this family unit.
How are the kids doing now?
“Sophie’s doing incredibly well, except she has her own challenges about anxiety and her brothers. She would never see Grant again. She doesn’t speak to Leo, but if you get them in the same room together, she melts. She’s very open about the fact that her brothers severely impacted her childhood.”
“We’re in touch with Leo most days, it’s tough love. Most days it’s a request for money or help. I’m an enabler. I will say yes. I’m in the early stages of saying no which I find very difficult. He’s now got a brilliant mental health support worker and psychiatrist who have both been amazing. He’s on his medication and he’s in a good place from that perspective. He’s been diagnosed with PTSD, attachment disorder, reactive attachment disorder, ADHD, OCD tendencies, and more. The list goes on.”
“We last communicated with Grant a year and a half ago, but we haven’t seen him. He’s currently in prison. It might sound conflicting, but we haven’t given up on him. I truly believe he has the capability to be smart if he applies himself. He gets distracted so easily but we’re not prepared to be manipulated by him anymore.”
Do you feel the process has let you down?
“The process is absolutely broken. When you have difficulties the success is heavily reliant on social services doing their job properly and we have not had any experience of that. As just one example, Leo needed a statement of special need to help him with his education. It didn’t work. It took so long to obtain and it hindered Leo significantly. He was a fantastic sports person and it was recommended that he continue with that. Yet when he got in trouble the school took away his sports privileges and put him in more standard education. This was under the guise of an educational psychologist. Then Leo acted out, and consequently got excluded. He was excluded eventually from three schools for work avoidance, and ended up in a school specialising in emotional and behavioural issues.”
What would you say to new adoptive parents considering adopting?
“Show me. When social services say, ‘this is how it works’ - ask questions. They say what they need to say to get the result they want and they did that to us with Grant. They didn’t tell us he was born addicted to heroin. There were many details they left out in a bid to push through his adoption that has had a catastrophic impact on our other two children.
I recognise a lot of similarities with a lot of adoptive parents. When the social workers are implying that the child's behaviour is terrible and consequently you feel like a bad parent, when you actually look into it these are really common problems as a consequence of attachment disorder, alcohol abuse and dependency etc. Mental health issues run down through birth families - the other male siblings from the same birth family as our children have the same pattern of mental health and emotional and behavioural issues. Many true feelings of adopters are not voiced, because they feel shame or they feel like their child may be taken away. Sometimes all adoptive parents need is someone to tell them - don’t worry, you’re doing it right, these feelings are normal.”
"Did you feel a duty to adopt Grant because of his birth connection with Sophie and Leo? What do you think the impact has been on your family?"
“There was pressure placed on us as the authority were definitive that he would be adopted by someone else if not us. We felt it would be beneficial to all three children to be together – how wrong can you be! Two subsequent siblings were also brought to our attention and we were asked to adopt them. George was 11 at that time and we had to say no. Even after explaining why we were made to feel insensitive and neglectful for not saying yes.”
We’ve only lightly touched on the incredible rollercoaster that Greg and Julia have been through with the adoption system and navigating the complexities of a multi-sibling adoption and the impact this has had on their family life. You can feel and see that there’s only love and support at the heart of this family unit, but it’s very clear that the emotional impact of adopting Grant has had severe impacts on both Leo and Sophie, on their mental health and on the family as a whole.
"What advice would you give to adoptive parents plagued with the same conflicting emotions of adopting another child in an attempt to keep the birth siblings together?"
“We can only answer with the benefits of hindsight from our experience. Having successfully adopted two siblings we did think ‘how difficult can it be?’ Never assume the experience will be the same and use the opportunity to dog deeper into family background. Depending upon age, discuss with your children and families. We had very little support from extended family for varying reasons, some of which were valid. Ask all the questions which occur to you and don’t take no for an answer. If the people you are engaged with do not appear competent then escalate. If problems do occur they will in all probability be long gone!”
Reflecting on the challenges of adoption can be particularly difficult to digest, but ultimately it’s the reality for many adoptive families. Their story doesn’t stop here, and it has, as we mentioned at the start, other complexities and huge crossover with other areas of adoption including mental health struggles, child-on parent violence and complications with birth family being involved. These topics will be covered in the coming months in more detail.
Thank you again for sharing your story with us Greg and Julia. If you’re an adoptive family or parent and feel alone in your related struggles, we hope that this story helps you realise you are NOT alone. In Greg’s words we’d like to remind you… don’t worry, you’re doing it right, these feelings are normal.”
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