Preparing to Adopt - Experiences of group preparation for prospective adopters

在领养过程中，我们发现了两个不同群体的需求：希望为人父母的成年人和需要永久住所的儿童。根据我过去15年在这一领域的工作经验，一个紧迫的问题是如何将父母的期望与孩子的需求结合起来。可供收养的儿童可能经历了一些早期的创伤、分离和丢失，这可能会影响他们的发展和行为。“近年来，依恋研究越来越频繁地被用来强调可能的创伤影响……这已被证明是儿童通往领养家庭的旅程的特征。(Luckock和Sims等人，2017年)”研究为我们提供了对这些儿童的经历的洞察，以及潜在的有益的育儿方式。目前几乎没有可用的信息，领养者最初是如何接收到这些信息的。他们如何开始思考满足这些儿童需求的潜力以及他们自己提供这种需求的能力？这对他们不仅是潜在的父母，而且是潜在的养父母的自我概念有什么影响？在我的实践中，我主要与收养家庭合作，并观察到父母如何适应孩子的需求，并开始将他们的满足视为他们作为父母身份的重要组成部分。我想把重点放在准备的一个方面，通过观察潜在领养者关于他们作为父母的身份的想法，来考虑它如何帮助我们理解这一过程。我想通过考虑在评估期间强制参加集体培训方案来做到这一点。2008年，拉什顿回顾了关于为收养家庭做准备的研究图景。报告指出，“尽管这些研究有时会提到管理困难行为的方法，但关于提供什么，教授什么技能，以及是否吸收并有效地将任何建议带到安置中，几乎没有给出进一步的细节。显然需要研究，在安置之前让领养者掌握技能在多大程度上是一种可行和有用的策略”。我提议进行一项研究，研究其中的一些细节。当领养者被介绍给他们关于儿童发展以及失去和分离的影响的想法时，他们是如何体验他们旅程的早期阶段的？我们知道这是如何呈现给采用者的，以及他们在这次集体培训中的经历是否有任何主题？我提议进行一项研究，研究与儿童发展需要有关的小组准备课程的内容，并记录和考虑家庭在获得这一信息时的经历。我将使用定性的纵向方法来收集潜在采用者在这一过程中的经验，建立在我将在MRE期间完成的内容研究的基础上。这可能会为实践提供信息，说明如何最好地识别和准备父母，让他们在许多环境中为生活开始受到干扰的孩子做好准备，同时也着眼于过渡到为人父母的一个方面。

Within adoption, we find the needs of two different groups; adults who wish to parent, and children in need of a permanent home. In my experience working in this field for the last fifteen years, a pressing issue is how to bring together the expectations of parents with the needs of the children. The children available for adoption are likely to have experienced some early trauma, separation and loss, which is likely to impact on their development and behaviour. "Attachment Research has been used with increasing frequency in recent years to highlight the likely traumatic effects... that have been shown to characterise a child's journey to an adoptive home. (Luckock and Sims et al. 2017) "Research has offered us insight into the experiences of these children, and potentially helpful ways of parenting them. There is little available information currently how adopters first receive this information. How do they begin to think about the potential of meeting these children's needs and their own capacity to offer this? What does this do to their conception of themselves, as not just potential parents but potential adoptive parents? In my practice, I predominately work with adoptive families, and have observed how parents can adapt to their children's needs, and begin to view the meeting of them as an essential part of their identity as parents. I wish to focus on one aspect of preparation to consider how it informs our understanding of this process by looking at prospective adopters' thoughts around their identity as parents. I would like to do this by considering the compulsory attendance at a group training programme during the assessment period. In 2008, Rushton reviewed the research picture on preparation for adoptive families. It identified that "Although methods for managing difficult behaviour are sometimes mentioned in these studies, few further details are given on what is offered, what skills are taught and whether any advice is absorbed and carried usefully into the placement. Research is clearly needed on the extent to which preparing adopters with skills in advance of placement is a feasible and useful strategy". I propose a study that would look at some of these details. How do adopters' experience this very early stage of their journey as they are introduced to ideas around children's development and the impact of loss and separation? What do we know about how this is presented to adopters, and whether there any themes that arise from their experiences of this group training? I propose a study to look at the content of the group preparation courses as it relates to children's developmental needs, and to capture and consider the experiences of the families as they receive this information. I will use a qualitative longitudinal method to be able to gather the experiences of prospective adopters in this process, building on a study of the content that I will complete during my MRes. This could inform practice around how best to identify and prepare parents for children who have a disrupted start to life, across many settings, while also looking at an aspect of transition to parenthood.