Are you in the process of adopting a child and feeling out of your depth?
Do you already have an adopted child and are feeling overwhelmed?
Are you interested in adopting a child or adopting a baby?
Maybe you have recently had a child placed with you for adoption?
Are you a social worker, foster carer, or some other professional, friend or relative supporting someone through the process of adopting a child?
Have you read the book "The Secrets of Successful Adoptive Parenting" and are interested in more support?
Or maybe you are just curious about adoption and landed here by mistake!
Who ever you are - Welcome!
As an adoptive parent myself, my aim is to help other adoptive parents develop a confident, effective and child-centred parenting approach resulting in 'forever families' where all members of the family are happy and thriving.
This website introduces me - Sophie Ashton - and my book - and over time will offer more and more resources to support adoptive parents.
"The Secrets of Successful Adoptive Parenting"
"This book is engaging, inspiring and relevant" Adoptive mother, Bucks
"This is an essential book to prepare and accompany adoptive families and the professionals that support them"
Integrative Child Psychotherapist
"Books at this level of true applicability and parenting guidance are rare.”
Bryan Post, Author specialist in the treatment of emotional and behavioural disturbance in children .
Becoming a parent by integrating another family’s child into your life, learning to love them as your own and accepting them for who they are - especially a child that has suffered from forms of neglect and/or abuse - is no easy process. If you want to succeed you need to be fully prepared for the emotional journey that lies in wait for you.
"More adoption placements than you would expect end in disruption than permanency" Bryan Post
Having longed for a child, and been through the challenging adoption approval process, it is heart-breaking for all concerned if a parent decides to hand a child placed with them for adoption, back into care. Adoptive parents do not make this decision lightly - they will only hand children back when they have got to that desperate point where they feel they can't cope and that it is their only option.
I hope that by reading my book all adoptive parents will be better prepared and have more resources, ideas, energy and confidence to support them as they strive to parent therapeutically - through any tough times as they progress to the happy, settled and rewarding family unit that they desire.