Barb has autism, and Lois is her therapist. Neurodiversity is their story. And it’s great. It’s not a word I use often, but I think it’s fitting here. This book is a romp through the authors’ various neurodiverse experiences, both personal and professional. These include autism (this is the main focus of the book), ADHD, anxiety, dyslexia, and being gay. It doesn’t sound like hilarious subject matter, and at times it… View Post
How do other adoptive parents juggle all the stuff that we are expected to cope with? How does anyone cope with all the advocacy and admin and energy required for parenting two or more children with additional needs of any kind? This week I am really feeling the resulting headspin. My brain has way too many tabs open – too much stuff pending. Too many forms, and emails, and meetings, and… View Post
The Cornerstone Partnership is a social enterprise based in Maidenhead. They work in adoption support and foster care recruitment, retention and support across 14 local authorities in London and the south-east. They’re looking for experienced adopters to run their peer-led adoption support programme (and be paid for it), and have asked me to share this with you. Could you run a post-adoption support group? Are you an experienced adopter? Are you… View Post
It’s Mental Health Awareness Week. To mark the occasion, and because I believe that the mental health of adoptive parents is both (a) critical to the success of adoptive placements and (b) massively overlooked and under-resourced, here are my 10 mental health challenges for adoptive parents. Keep reading below for my five possible solutions, and my rallying call for a new campaign. 10 mental health challenges These are just some of… View Post
Having started the fight to get Joanna into a specialist school in the last couple of weeks, we’re keen to keep up the momentum and arm ourselves with plenty of first-hand knowledge from Actual Visits so we can make the best possible case to the SEN panel. And here is where it begins: my 30 questions to ask SEBD schools. They want paperwork, they’re going to get paperwork. I’m going to… View Post
