TV DOC...LAST NIGHT

Robin Harritt

2006-12-19 16:47:01 UTC

Post by g***@googlemail.com
HI Robin...
i too watched this with baited breath, i pwersonaly cand stand
NORCAP...i think they must be living in "laa laa " land...how can they
advocate adoption in one hand then become heros for searching and
finding the lost souls...doesnt realy make sence to me but hey que
serra i guess...
i was impressed that PETA found her son...i met PETA in 1999 at a
hampshire social services adoption workshop and i was impressed at her
understanding of the situation she had gone through and also was
impressed at her understanding that we adopted go through...
i dont think ive seen a farer portray of what its realy like to be in
reunion or search...terrible stresses are placed on both the mum and
adult child when going through this prossess, personaly i was a mes
from the time i started till the time i found...every time the phone
would ring i was jumpy...but so was my mother too...
Anyway just wanted to say my bit and wish you a very happy xmas...
hugs to all
graham.

Hi Graham

I don't always agree with the way Norcap does things. Hence I've never used
it for any intermediary work in the past when I've been searching for my own
family. Fortunately it no longer can claim that it HAS to contact adoptive
parents first, which was one of the problems I've always had with Norcap's
work. It is also why I have never become involved in doing that kind of work
at Norcap.

which by the way is slowly changing its name to Adults Affected by Adoption
at the moment it is ' Adults Affected by Adoption-NORCAP'.

I've not met anyone at Norcap who advocates adoption as it was done in the
1950s 60s and 70s. I do find that a real problem though in my dealings with
Barnardo's

The Children Act 1975 introduced "counselling" for adopted people searching
for their natural mothers when they applied for their birth certificates.
Though of course it overlooked the fact that most adopted people already
have the information that is on their birth certificate. The counselling
provided by most local authorities was appalling. When I first approached
Essex SS there was a 14 month waiting period to see one of its adoption
social workers.

I guess having rather more people to search for than most, I've gotten used
to it, but there was never really any waiting for the phone to ring as I
always did my own searching. When searching for brothers and sister who have
been adopted under the old system, that is a bit of a time consuming process
and back in the early 1990s you got no help at all really. Sometimes a bit
of luck running in to a social worker who was about to retire and therefore
not putting her job on the line by giving out some info. Sometimes had to
trick more naïve social workers who'd just started the job in to saying more
than they should.

I think search and reunion is different for each of us, some people breeze
through it others suffer terribly. Perhaps I was lucky being able to talk to
some of the top psychotherapists around during the time I was searching
before.

It will be interesting to see what they say in 'Found' the programme that
Mike mentions. I believe that Norcap has also been involved in the
production of that programme. I declined to be involved myself as I was
somewhat uncertain of some of the production ethics. Kate Aide was guest
speaker at the last Norcap meeting I attended, unfortunately I had to leave
early. I would have liked to ask her about her meeting with the Morrissey's
and why she was not a good deal more scathing in her commentary on them?

Anyway nice to chat with you Graham, have a good Christmas.

Robin

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