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In 1991 I started an Ombudsmans case against B'ham Social services for the loss of my adoption files. By 1993 I was awarded compensation for suffering caused , and some costs. Adoption records have to be protected for 75 years in a secure metal cabinet - that was the law at the time.

I was adopted in 1960 at the age of 6 . I just want to say I do not use my adoptive name online (no way) I use my birth name. The first access I had to my files was in 1988 and I was never handed any paperwork or copies of the Guardian Ad Litem/Children's Officer's accompany report but I wrote down like lightning what I was told by a Social Worker about my birth father having another child by a new wife .

By 1990 I discovered my half sister . Then I asked for further, more extensive access to my adoption file . I was told they were lost. So I went mad with investigative energy and taped everyone's phonecalls from and to Social Services and discovered more adoption files had been lost and also a diary/logbook which recorded internal movements of files.

The Report which is public domain [ 91/B/1262] that was issued by the Ombudsman in 1993 confirmed on page 8 other files were missing ... I have copies of that report in PDF .

However I realised that Adoption Files held by Social Services are not the only document-store after the adoption . I realised Court papers exist in a different archive but are rarely accessed by many people . So I enlisted an M.P. and asked for access to the relevant court papers on the grounds that my original files had gone missing and I needed to see further information .

The issue was then given to a Birmingham County Court Judge by the Lord Chancellors Office who after examination said I could have access to the records and write down what I wished but take no copies of the court papers .

I took along a Social Worker who had been supportive to me right through the lost files conflict of nearly 3 years . I discovered pure gold . The Children's Officer's report had been duplicated and was attached to the court papers. Thus there was 6 pages of my early life story and what my birth mom had implemented by some dodgy omissions of facts. She'd missed out another sister and I were in care in Swansea in Wales under the National Children's Homes. Missed out as soon as she got custody she dumped me and was sadly a personality disordered lady who then made two more children. There was so much missed out it's been difficult to not see it as an injustice and mistreatment.

You see I also discovered Children's Homes files too from the Swansea time of my sister and I were in a form of care - so I could see what my birth mom was like.

I am summarising quite a lot . But the point is research for some adoptees can be like finding a soul mirror when you realise all you have sometimes is the paper-soul, flapping around in front of you in your hands that is the final sole witness to your tears ..

But at least recorded tragedy gives back a sense of something to be processed. To be held by oneself .

Just corrected a couple of errors :))

Paul can you please tell us more about the Adoption Ombudsman and how to make contact with them, where is there office if they have one, are they still available as I do know a few people who can not see their adoption file because of being told of Fire, Flood, Pestilence, Bombing, or just lost, so this would be helpful to know and also was there a Newspaper report we can read about your case going to Court please.

Edna

Thank You for your very informative reply Paul and I know my friend will use this information to get to her records if that's still a possibility after all these years.
I have sent you an e mail

Edna

I did try to post on the forum name you gave .... Wow what a difficulty that is ...

Like I've said though I have had problems with php boards and they appear skittish in relation to my computer .. ...They tend to squabble .. Mind you I think that forum has set it's security practices on quite a high bar ...

I do need to say I have such little time because I have just published a private hardback Vol 1 work on post traumatizing adoption.. Funny really calling it a post adoption Lifebook of post traumatizing effects...... I have a mad sense of humour though being half mad ..

And , I am trying to work up Vol 2 now and the big brain gears are turning like a few crank wheels of an old ship with a busted old piston and weird engine ... :))

I will try to post to your friend ... I think she has a tough case ..Kind of a weird example of process and tangles..

Kind Regards

Paul..

SCHOOL RECORDS

My gripe is SCHOOL RECORDS

If you go to your local Archives office,some schools, they have logged there vast amounts of data going back years .. yet some old schools have nothing !

True some schools store all their own old records since the school opened , but there are no set rules

I found in my search, sometimes, each time there was a new headteacher, they had a clear out & destroyed the old records when they should have passed them to the local archives office,

I was tracing a FOSTERED child ( private no paperwork )
I found the area where he was fostered ( his parent paid for his care so it was a long term arrangement ) BUT I never found the family name of the fosters.

When a child is first registered for school they register the name of the next of kin
( in this case it would be the foster family & their address & also the child's date of birth )... the local school was demolished BUT no records were saved !!!

At the time of the demolition, there was a boundary change & neither archives records office wanted the records

:-S

I had the child's date of birth etc but he must have ( like his sibling ) taken the unknown foster family surname ( they were both fostered from birth ) as I found no further record under his birth name.

.

Yeah it's hit and miss for sure ... I too have used school records years ago to trace the movements of my half sister .. Finally I found her but I had clues from other records and certainly school records .. mind you I was relentless and also interviewed neighbours around where my birth father lived and other mad detective stuff like that

Sometimes I wonder if the best route is to go to a country record office (archive) and ask for a list of every school's register they archived have rather than reveal the adoption story which creates a skewed approach to people sometimes .....

By default - It's a major denial (for some of us) of the right to have a family life if you cannot first form an all important existential sense of early-Self within bits of flashbacks and other imagery or half imagery that floats about without proper cognitive sense.

But then that's me - it's not everyone ... But then you gotta start with yourself and put that right or try .. That's for sure ..

I do know this that "social reality" and so called "record keeping process" is abusive to many who are dislocated from background knowledge and it gives a sense of internal amputation which is like an injury sometimes... It's a strange pain for many to deal with sadly ..

Edna -

I have sent you by private email and your friend a copy of the Ombudsman report on my case .. Hope it helps .. It may create an idea base ..

Thank you Paul,
I have just read it and replied, love the idea of the Book I would certainly buy a copy when its published, a hard thing to do these days a friend on my forum did one and now her only avenue is on e books no publisher can be found to print it after her publisher went bust after her initial publication within the price range they had charged her.
Denise Robertson TVs agony aunt has just published this week a book about stolen children by the state and how awful Social Services are "Don't Cry Aloud" Amazon Books not yet read it but just about to.

Thanks for your help.

Fairthorn,
I have not personally tried to research School Records but I believe Liverpool Records Office have them from My School, not thought before about researching them for Adoption research for others.
Thank you

Edna

Edna . My first volume of : "The Highcroft Lifebook" is published . So far it's just for my genetic sisters and some other close contacts ....I have already composed the material for Vol 2 (documents images and arts + text) just waiting for my poor partner to recover from her foot operation - then I'll turn the gears again and get the 2nd Volume done .

I can see the point in celebrities doing their own well publicised thing but most of us are in dog alley where only old posters get seen and our bones get trod upon :)) The media and those in it are self generating and there a whole other culture outside of them which lives in the great grey ocean of other attention forms ..

My efforts are targeted at a few for the future ... I lost hope with most of the human race long ago who strangely wish to create more of the same in the main ... I've seen many practices and processes abuses close up ( some causing numerous deaths) and hyper real in Wards, and in mental health services and a profound lack of decent therapy in the UK .. I went to Paris for mine ... Needed it too to deal with post traumatic mind states after adoption..

Mind you I always say never underestimate historical research and the capacity to create understanding... Never underestimate documents to be a mirror of all sorts of reflections of social contexts that surround us ..

I wrote alongside Michele Elliot (ex Director of Kidscape) about child abuse . Quite a few of us as survivors created a nationally available book on mothers or female carers that abuse children . My name in that was Paul Thorrson.. Everyone's dead now who mistreated me so I can say that .. Adoption is no guarantee for some people of "good care" experiences..

There are truly many rooms of experiences that we all have to bear and dwell in .....