Birthlink the point of contact if you are looking for long-lost family

Birthlink can help to find long-lost family

The Adoption Contact Register is a place where people separated by adoption can register their hopes for contact and meeting a family member. Most of the registrations are between birth mothers and adult adopted children. However, recent years have seen a rise in the number of brothers and sisters separated by adoption being matched to each other. Last year saw 24 matches – one every fortnight.

The second account was from Fiona, our newest staff member, who told me : “As I am still fairly new to the team I have continued to enjoy learning and experiencing all aspects of Birthlink work – from successful searches and mediations to working with those who have been linked on the Adoption Contact Register for Scotland.

“While some links have been very successful and led to ongoing relationships, this is not always the case. I have learned that not all connections between adopted people and birth relatives will continue in the longer term. However, I have enjoyed being part of the information sharing stage where each party can find things out that they never knew before.

“Even minimal information sharing can be enough for some people to get some kind of closure and allow them to move on, without the need for a ‘happily ever after’.”

Fiona’s comment is well-made and whilst everyone at Birthlink gets excited on hearing news of a match on the Contact Register – and though we start from an understanding that both registrants have expressed a mutual wish for contact – this is not the same as a wish to meet with each other.

When I worked as a member of Birthlink staff, I recall a number of occasions when contact with each other took the form of an exchange of letters, in one case for two years, with both people happy to simply write to each other and swap photographs, even though they were living not far apart. Another time, I was dismayed when after careful mediation and negotiation, a birth mother agreed to just one meeting, which was to be in secret.

There is not the space to go into the various reasons why these meetings stall, or contact dwindles to a card and perhaps a Facebook like every now and then, but Fiona’s point about managing expectations (of staff too!) is a vital one going into 2020.

The reasons for giving up a child for adoption are complex but the emotions generated are painful and long-lasting, making very high expectations of a reunion that will lead to a relationship.

From the point of view of adopted people, their reasons for using the Contact Register are often driven by curiosity and a relationship may be further from their minds.

Both these trajectories need careful support. This is where we come in. That is why it is such a skilled job, requiring experience, patience, and sensitivity which comes from having made so many matches over the years.

For Louise, our third staff member: “… a high point for me was starting the Practice Educator Course at Stirling University. When I qualify, Birthlink will be able to support a student social worker on placement”.

There is a long-standing tradition at Birthlink of encouraging students to learn on the job with an experienced student supervisor. This has not been the case for a number of years, so it will be great to be able to offer students such a unique and rewarding experience again. The emotionally-charged and highly satisfying work stands them in good stead for when they qualify as social workers.

So those are the highpoints of 2019 for Birthlink. For many hundreds of people, these represent mothers, and sometimes fathers, finding sons and daughters, and sometimes grandchildren. Their adopted, and any other children, finding sisters, brothers, cousins, nieces and nephews. Matches may be made across continents or sometimes just across a small Scottish council area.

Whether they lead to long-lasting relationships or are one-off events, they all rank as among the most significant meetings of a lifetime.

Dr Gary Clapton, reader in Social Work and programme director for BSc (Hons) in Social Work, the University of Edinburgh.

Birthlink the point of contact if you are looking for long-lost family – Dr Gary Clapton