Author: Mary Nolan 
Author title: IJBPE Editor; Emerita Professor of Perinatal Education, University of Worcester, UK
Description: Mary Nolan, IJBPE Editor, describes how this issue of the IJBPE highlights the urgent need to support adoptive parents and their children in order to maximise the potential for adoption to change children’s lives for the better. 

Author: Graham Music 
Author title: Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Tavistock and Portman Clinics, UK
Description: I have been working with issues of adoption, trauma and neglect for over 35 years and a lot has changed in that time. One of the biggest changes has been the realisation that life before birth can have a profound effect on the developing brain and nervous system and therefore impact postnatal life dramatically. I am ashamed to admit that, when I began working with parents and children adopted from care, we rarely tried to find out about the prenatal life of the adopted child. As a result, we sometimes placed inappropriate responsibility on parents, and did not take seriously the profound effects of, for example, high levels of alcohol and drug use in pregnancy, or of domestic violence. We know so much more about these things now. 

Author: Bridget Supple 
Author title: Coordinator: Foston Hall Prison Services with Birth Companions; Perinatal Educator, UK 
Description: Birth Companions is a UK charity specialising in the needs and experiences of pregnant women and mothers of infants in contact with the criminal justice system. Many of the women the charity works with will be separated from their babies at or soon after birth. For mothers facing separation and / or adoption, antenatal support is important, honouring the mother and preparing her for both birth and the potential for separation afterwards. Birth Companions offer antenatal and post-separation groups, and one-to-one emotional and practical support for women in prison, and those in the community, including women under probation supervision after release. After six years of running prison-based services, in this article the author offers some insights into good practice when working with women whose babies may be removed by the local authority and on a pathway to adoption.

Author: Ian Orr-Campbell 
Author title: Counsellor
Description: The author is a qualified and experienced counsellor who has been working with people around issues of adoption for over 25 years. He has worked as a therapist with adopted adults, adoptive parents and birth parents whose children have been adopted. The case studies presented here are of three mothers who made the hugely difficult and life changing decision not to parent their babies, but instead to place them for adoption. 

Author: Rosemaria Flaherty
Author title: Executive Leader, Children and Families, Barnardos Australia 
Description: This article discusses child development-based planning for babies and very young children entering out-of-home care (OOHC). Infants are the most frequent age group entering OOHC in Australia. Multiple strategies, including carer supports, can be embedded to achieve child development-based outcomes for adoptive and birth families in the context of Open Adoption (for non-Aboriginal children). As one of the longest-standing providers of OOHC and Open Adoption services in Australia, the experience of Barnardos Australia is described to provide insights into the critical role of child development-based planning in (a) permanency outcomes for children and (b) satisfying, supported, and positive experiences for carers and adoptive parents. Practice resources are illustrated to help the reader contextualise how Barnardos Australia applies tools to assist in the process of child development-based planning. For this article, an infant is defined as a child under one year of age. 

Author: Joanne Alper, CEO 
Author title: Adoptionplus, UK
Description: Sadly, a large percentage of children in the UK who need adoptive/foster/kinship families have experienced intra-family abuse and trauma. This relational trauma is complex and extremely difficult for children who have experienced it. Being hurt by the very people who are supposed to protect and care for them has a profound impact on how they see themselves and how they view others around them. Even babies placed with new families straight from hospital may have experienced harm whilst in the womb. All of these experiences impact children and mean those parenting them have to think differently about how they parent. Providing children with consistent safe nurturing relationships can provide multiple benefits for young people throughout their life; however this is not straightforward and often requires support. 

Author: Tam Cane
Author title: School of Education and Social Work, University of Sussex, UK
Description: Birth parents (also known as first parents or first family) play a crucial role in maintaining cultural connections for children adopted transracially, particularly for Black children who often experience identity confusion and cultural displacement. Birth parents remain essential in providing accurate identity information during pre and post adoption contact. However, Black parents report limited opportunities to support cultural continuity, attributing this to systemic racism and social workers’ lack of confidence to discuss race, ethnicity, and heritage before adoption completion.TheShEP(Support, Humility, Engage, and Provision) approach aims to support professionals in implementing relational, race-trauma-informed approaches during adoption procedures.

Author: Julia Davis
Author title: Play Therapist, Julia Davis Associates; Author
Description: This article explores some of the challenges for adopters in the early days of becoming a family. An attachment and trauma-informed approach highlights the importance of recognising the impact of the child’s early life experiences which may include loss and trauma. In addressing the child’s fears and anxiety triggered by the transition to a new family, the significance of building a sense of safety and trust is emphasised. Ways to help children settle and begin to create a secure attachment relationship with their adopters are suggested. How to meet some of the challenges in helping children to eat, sleep and play well are explored – as well as the importance of adopters’ own self-care and support. 

Author: Matt Forde
Author title: Partnerships and Development Director at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) Scotland
Description: Until the 1980s, significant numbers of children were accommodated in the UK in residential nurseries. In common with trends internationally, a huge shift away from institutional care has taken place. The foster care system began to expand significantly as changes in legislation and practice and social factors such as the impact of substance misuses, began to drive an increase in the number of babies and infants being removed from their birth families and placed in foster care. Yet while there are well- established orthodoxies around the recruitment of foster carers, the placement of children, and the support provided to the children, their carers and the placement overall, research into what makes for successful foster care is lacking.

Author: Matt Price, Lauren King
Author title: Matt Price, Strategic Lead for Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy
Lauren King, Psychologist in Clinical Training
Description: In 1845, Thomas Barnardo arrived in London as a young medical trainee. Disturbed by the dire conditions for impoverished children who had no access to education and were severely affected by a cholera epidemic, he felt compelled to help.
Barnardo abandoned his medical training to dedicate himself to aiding children living in poverty. This was the beginning of more than 150 years of supporting babies, children, young people, and families, bringing love, care, and hope into their lives and giving them a place where they feel they belong.