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Magic Moments....
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If you are a professional working in the field of adoption
and you work in one of our subscribing areas:
SWAN can provide the following services:
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Information and Resources:
- SWAN can provide
leaflets and packs of information for birth parents, for adoptive
children, and adult adoptees, and for adopters
- SWAN has a database
of resources and operates a free library service for all parties
affected by adoption, in our subscribing areas.
- SWAN produces a
newsletter twice a year
SWAN’s website provides links to many other organisation and sites
- We are in the
process of seeking independent funding to improve our website, and put
our library of resources online and to develop three chat room
facilities, for adopters, adoptees and birth parents.
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Training Consultancy and Development:
- SWAN can provide training
and consultancy for adoptive parents, and professionals who work with
people affected by adoption.
- We
are currently seeking private funding for a training co-ordinator who
will specialise in developing support packages for our subscribing
authorities
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Helpline
- Swan currently staffs a
help line, which is open three days a week and one evening a week.
Trained professional counsellors with specialised experience of
adoption, staff the help line. Many of the calls have resulted in the
provision of counselling.
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Counselling Support to Adopted Children and Adopters
- SWAN provides up to four
free counselling sessions to adopters and adopted children to help them
with adoption related issues. These can be crisis related or
preventative, or can provide help with life story work, telling children
that they are adopted, or support before or after contact visits. We aim
to provide an immediate response, with an appointment within a few days.
- Usually children needing
therapeutic support have to go through their GP who will refer to the
child and adolescent service. The waiting list can be very long and the
needs of other children in the service e.g. suicidal adolescents can
take priority.
- Many adopted children who
develop behavioural difficulties do so as a result of their early
experiences and losses, and many have issues about their adoption or
history. When adopters ask for help for their children they need an
immediate response, which takes into account the fact that the child has
had difficult early experiences and is adopted, and may have regular
contact with birth relatives.
- We believe in working
closely with statutory services and with service users consent, can work
jointly or in consultation with CAMHS teams.
- We are also happy to
support local authorities in developing protocols with CAMHS teams for
fast tracking adopted families, or providing special clinics, in
conjunction with SWAN workers. We can also provide specialist adoption
training for child psychiatric workers and education professionals
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Disruption Support and
Specific Support to Children with Attachment Difficulties
- Children with these
problems often present significant difficulties in school. Adoptive
parents say that some schools have little understanding of these issues
and they struggle to get appropriate support for their children
- .We are currently
piloting a specialist Adoption Support Clinic, which we are making
available to our subscribing authorities. This involves a free
consultation session with Joy Hasler (attachment therapist) accompanied
by a specialist SWAN worker, who follows up the family for a further
four sessions. Additional sessions can be purchased by local
authorities.
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Consultation to Life Story
Work
- SWAN counsellors can
offer support and help to adopters and professionals engaged in life
story work.
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Birth Records Counselling
- Many local authorities choose to do the follow up to their
own Section 51 counselling, SWAN can support adopted adults in the
follow up work, which can emerge. We can also enter into non-disclosure
agreements with local authorities to extend search facilities to other
birth relatives affected by adoption.
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Professional Search,
intermediary and Reunion Services for Adoptees and Birth Relatives.
- SWAN counsellors
also offer up to four free sessions to support people affected by
adoption in locating lost relatives. This can involve Public Records
searches (charged at cost) and free support with the intermediary and
reunion process.
The facilitation of remaking delicate contact situations, is an
important and sometimes time consuming service, which is likely to grow
more over the following years when adopted adults meet parents who may,
for instance have abused them.
At present there is very little statutory awareness of the delicate
nature of such meetings and the potential problems that can occur
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Support Services to Birth Families, particularly parents and siblings.
- SWAN can provide up
to four sessions of independent free counselling for birth parents or
relatives, prior to or post adoption.
Local authorities are required to offer counselling to all birth
parents, and provide an accessible independent service for service
users. Some authorities are choosing to provide this through SWAN .
Working
with Birth Parents 
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Training and Support to Birth Parents and Professionals
Using Letter Box Schemes.
- SWAN can also
support birth parents in providing sensitive and appropriate letterbox
communications. This is an area of growing need.
SWAN can also offer special support where children have contact with
siblings from whom they have been separated through adoption.
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Group Support
- SWAN currently
aims to provide short term groupwork and the development of self help
groups for birth parents, adopters, and adoptees.
Group work depends on there being sufficient numbers of people who want
to meet together in the same area. We are happy to enter into discussion
with local authorities to negotiate help to meet specific needs for
group work, and we are developing the website to offer more online
support.
We employ a variety of people who have wide experience of group work and
also have access to a growing number of volunteers who have personal
experience of adoption.
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Post Adoption Support Assessments
- The New Adoption
Act gives all adoptive parents the right to an assessment of need. The
consultation paper from the DOH says that this assessment should be
based on the Framework for Assessment of Children in Need and their
Families.
Each local authority will develop systems to identify the specific
support needs.
SWAN is happy to discuss with local authorities the provision of these
services.
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Home | Services | Contacts | Search |
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