Nicky Lowe [00:00:06]:
Hi, it’s Nicky Lowe, and welcome to the Wisdom for Working Mums podcast show. I’m your host, and for nearly 2 decades now, I’ve been an executive coach and leadership development consultant. And on this show, I share evidence-based insights from my coaching, leadership, and psychological expertise, and inspiring interviews that help women like you to combine your work life and motherhood in a more successful and sustainable way. Join Join me and my special guests as we delve into leadership and lifestyle topics for women, empowering you to thrive one conversation at a time. I’m so happy that you’re here, and let’s get on with today’s episode. One of the things I value most is staying curious. As a coach, leadership expert, mum, and business owner, I know that none of us have lived every experience, but I believe that when we’re willing to listen to stories and experiences that are different from our own, we become better leaders, better colleagues, better friends, and ultimately better human beings. And today’s conversation is one of those opportunities.

Nicky Lowe [00:01:11]:
Whilst many of us are familiar with the idea of adoption, the reality of what it means to build a family through adoption is often far less understood. There can be assumptions about the process, misunderstandings about adopted children and families, and challenges that remain largely invisible. to those around them. Yet these are the experiences that affect our colleagues, our friends, family members, and the people we lead. My guest today is Emily Frith, the CEO of Adoption UK, a charity dedicated to supporting adopted and adoptive families while campaigning for greater understanding and better support for everyone affected by adoption. In this conversation, we’ll explore some of the biggest misconceptions about adoption, the realities of becoming a parent through adoption, the unique challenges adoptive families can face, and what organisations, managers, and colleagues can do to create more supportive and inclusive environments. My hope is that this conversation does what best conversations do— expands our understanding, challenges our assumptions, and helps us show up with greater empathy, awareness, and compassion for the people around us. So, let’s dive in.

Nicky Lowe [00:02:30]:
So, welcome, Emily. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Emily Frith [00:02:33]:
No worries, nice to be, be here.

Nicky Lowe [00:02:36]:
And this is a conversation that I’ve really been interested in having because it’s an area that I will openly admit I know very little about. And so, I’m so glad you’re here to give these insights because I know there are many people like me that want to show up just as a better colleague, human, but also leader, particularly if we’ve got people that are working with us or for us that may be going on an adoption journey or have been on one themselves. So let’s get into actually what do we mean when we talk about adoption, because I think people think they’re aware of what adoption is, but what might we not know about an adoption journey that would be useful for us to understand?

Emily Frith [00:03:21]:
I think that in society more widely, there are some misconceptions about adoption. It’s often seen as a sort of happy ending, you know, that, oh, isn’t it wonderful, that’s something to celebrate. And that could be quite difficult because adoption brings a lot of challenge, both for adoptive parents and for adopted people. And, um, sometimes when we have these narratives about, you know, like Little Orphan Annie, how lucky an adopted person is, that cannot provide a space for someone to be able to talk about some of the more difficult things that they’re dealing with. So I think we— I feel very strongly it’s important for us to challenge some of those narratives because really when an adoption happens, that’s the start of something. It’s the start of somebody’s journey, and that’s a lifelong journey of being adopted. So that can mean challenges in school. It can mean when you’re an older adoptee, thinking about you having your first baby and what that would mean.

Emily Frith [00:04:13]:
That will bring up lots of different, you know, emotions. Or, you know, if you’re at work and you’ve got multiple bereavements of adoptive family and birth family. That’s something employers don’t often understand. So there are a lot of challenges for adoptive people, um, to be thinking about, but also for adoptive parents, because many adopted children have a lot of, um, really difficult experiences very early on in life, and that can have a big impact on their emotions and their ability to make friendships and to, to do well in school. And that can often then create a lot of challenges for adoptive parents when they’re trying to provide the best support they can for their child. So it might mean that, um, school are calling the middle of the work day and they have to drop everything and down tools and go and, go and, um, pick up their child or have a meeting within the school, or there may be lots of medical appointments to be dealing with. And, and often I think when we’re colleagues or employers are thinking about adoption, they’re thinking about the very beginning but not really about that longer-term journey.

Nicky Lowe [00:05:12]:
Yeah, and I think that’s so interesting to hear you here across the whole life cycle of that experience, that as you say, it’s not necessarily just those early years. It’s throughout the whole life, kind of our life journey. So thank you. So adoption is obviously— can be a very joyful experience, but you’ve already alluded to that it is full of kind of complexities. What might be the whole— if you were to kind of talk us through what that journey might look like for an adoptive family Could you talk us through kind of the journey that we may never get to see? We might see the endpoint of when somebody adopts a child, but would you mind kind of shedding some light on that, what the journey could look like?

Emily Frith [00:05:57]:
If I sort of start with what it might be like if a parent, an adult, considers adopting. So they would, I mean, they’d probably go through quite a lot of thought process about whether or not adoption’s right for them before they even pick up the phone and talk to an adoption agency. So, and that can be different routes. So some people come to adoption because they’ve had fertility challenges. So, you know, their journey may have started a very long time before they even start to contemplate adoption. Others might be LGBT parents and adoption is their first choice of parenting. Some people come to adoption because they feel that they want to offer an adoptive home to a child and it’s not because of their— they’ve had another experience that has led them there. So there’s lots of different routes in.

Emily Frith [00:06:40]:
And then there’s quite a long journey before an adoptive family might be formed. So a parent will go through a lot of training. They will have to go through a process of application and they are— they will then be taken to a panel which will decide whether they’re going to be right to be prospective adoptive parents. If the panel decides that they are able to move forward, then they will go through a process of being matched with a child and that will— that can often take a very long time to find the right match. And what the social workers and those involved are looking for when they’re going to that approval process and the matching processes are these and prospective adopters able to have the resilience and the, um, you know, the foundations that they need, the support networks that they need to support that child, because it’s all really about what’s in the best interest of that child. Um, so that is quite a rigorous process. I mean, it can always be improved, and I think one thing that would really improve it is having more voices from experienced adopters and adopted people as part of that process, so it’s really authentic, um, and that people know what they’re kind of signing up to and letting themselves in for. There’s a slightly different route you can go down where you foster a child, and that child might be going through the court system about whether or not they can stay with their birth family or whether they will be adopted.

Emily Frith [00:08:04]:
So it’s called foster to adopt, and then the child will either return to their birth family or they may then be adopted by the people who are fostering them. But until that adoption order goes through, they are foster carers, they’re not the adopters. So that’s an interesting route, and that can sometimes mean that something’s happened very, very quickly. And that can be quite tricky for employers when, you know, I’ve heard stories of families who are sort of told days before the child comes home that this is happening now and that they are going to be parents. So, it’s quite difficult, I think, for employers to know about the timescales involved. It’s quite different from, you know, potentially parental leave in its traditional sense.

Nicky Lowe [00:08:44]:
Because that was one of the questions I’d got, actually. At what point is an employer informed. So, in that kind of rigorous process, are there any questions around a person’s employment, and would any references be required, or is often the employer kind of informed, as you say, at quite a late stage?

Emily Frith [00:09:08]:
That’s a really good question, and I think it would— and I would— I don’t want to give you the wrong information here. It may well depend on the local area, you know, what their processes are, but certainly I think it would be expected that somebody who’s thinking thinking about going through adoption would keep their employer up to date and letting them know. But as I say, because the timescales are quite variable, um, it’s not as simple as being able to say a due date. And then of course there’s, there’s the experience of the adopted child in all of this as well. So they, um, they will be often, um, you know, experiencing very, very severe neglect or abuse before they are— and because adoption is really something which happens if a child cannot grow up safely with any member of their birth family, so it’s often quite um, serious situations that they’ve been in, and then they will go into foster care and they will have on average 2 or 3 home moves before they come to their adoptive family. And the average age of adoption isn’t really babies, it’s about, um, 4. Um, so they will have lots of changes for them, you know, going through different nurseries, different homes, and that has a really like big impact on somebody in their earliest years. So that means that when an adoptive family is coming together for the first time, that child has experienced a lot of, um, what will feel like rejection and, and a lot of changes.

Emily Frith [00:10:26]:
Um, and so they’re going to— it’s going to take time for them to feel safe, and whether they can ever feel, you know, that, you know, will they ever be able to, um, process all of the things that have happened to them. They need a lot of support. Um, so it’s really important for adoptive families that they have support around them and understanding, um, of, you know, how much they’re going through.

Nicky Lowe [00:10:47]:
And I think that just highlights the complexity, as you say, of it isn’t— it is by no means Um, I don’t think any route to parenthood is, is easy, but there are additional kind of, uh, dynamics to navigate, aren’t there? Um, so I— with that, it sounds like adoption, the adoption age— is there— could there be a situation where a baby is adopted on day one, or is that very rare for that to happen?

Emily Frith [00:11:14]:
It’s quite rare that they would go straight to adoption because they would probably— if they— if it was considered— so it may well be, for example, if a parent has had multiple children removed in the past, it may well be there’s a plan in place before the baby is born that actually it’s not going to be safe for them to go home with their birth mum. So in those situations, that’s when you might be more likely for the child to go either straight into foster care or that they would go into one of these foster-to-adopt type arrangements. And then if they were adopted, they would be adopted after the sort of all of the legal processes have gone through. So that’s when an official adoption would happen. So first of all, you have to have a legal process to, to take the child into care, and the local authority becomes their parents. Um, and then you would have another legal process that would transfer the parenting responsibility to the adoptive parents. So it can take quite a long time for all of that to happen.

Nicky Lowe [00:12:08]:
I can only imagine. And therefore, can— what’s the eldest age that somebody can be adopted?

Emily Frith [00:12:15]:
I think certainly in, in England, it’s, it’s up to 18, but it’s very rare for something to happen in, in older teenagers. That would probably be the case where actually maybe had grown up for a long time with, um, foster carers who had chosen to adopt them.

Nicky Lowe [00:12:31]:
And so in that, I was hearing from you, you said like there’s the complexities of all of the different stakeholders that need to be involved, and therefore all of the different meetings, all of the emotional and psychological process of the parties navigating that.

Emily Frith [00:12:48]:
Yeah, because I think, you know, a bit like if you were, um, supporting an employee who’s going through something like IVF. There’s, you know, there’s a lot of emotional roller coaster that goes along with that. And I think it’s, it’s a similar sort of, um, emotional roller coaster for an adoptive parent who may well be waiting to hear about the next stage of the process, you know, whether they’re being approved, constantly feeling like they’re being assessed. You know, there’ll be sort of social workers asking friends and family for input, asking to look at around the house, you know. So there’s a lot of emotion, and, you know, that’s quite highly charged. And as I say, for some families, they’ve come through that at the end of a very long journey of fertility, for example. So, so, um, you know, it’s a long time for somebody, um, to be navigating all of this. And it’s absolutely right, we have really good, um, uh, processes to make sure that when an adoption is, is happening, that they, they’ve really thought about, you know, the parents have really, really thought about the commitment that they’re making, and that the, um, those around the, um, family have thought about whether it’s the right decision for that child and it’s in their best interests.

Emily Frith [00:13:56]:
So it’s absolutely right that it works in this way, but— and it obviously needs to continue to be improved, but it’s a very difficult and challenging process for everyone involved, I think, not least the child whose life this is ultimately about.

Nicky Lowe [00:14:10]:
Yeah, absolutely. So if we look at the adoptive parents, once they know that an adoption is going to happen and they inform their employer, what What is the kind of— what is in place from a legal perspective around what leave they’re entitled to, and how does that impact depending on the age of the child? What, what’s the current setup in the UK?

Emily Frith [00:14:35]:
So parents do have the right to adoption leave in the same way that you’d have the right to maternity leave or shared parental leave. And the only exception to that is, um, for people who are self-employed, and they don’t have the same rights as self-employed parents who have parental leave. So that’s something we’re campaigning for because we think, you know, it just makes sense that, you know, we know that, um, many self-employed people have either considered not being able to go forward for adoption or have not been able to consider adopting sibling groups because they just can’t afford it because they’re not getting the same rights to leave. So that’s something we think that should— the law should be changed and actually would probably save the government money because obviously if a child is able to be adopted, then that child isn’t going to be living in the care system, which would obviously cost A lot more than just allowing self-employed adopters to have parental leave.

Nicky Lowe [00:15:25]:
And adoption leave, does it cover the same as what a normal parental leave would? How does it— how does that work?

Emily Frith [00:15:32]:
Yes, yes, it’s the equivalent. Um, so that’s something, um, that is a legal entitlement.

Nicky Lowe [00:15:38]:
Amazing. And regardless of the age of the child?

Emily Frith [00:15:40]:
Yeah, that’s, that’s about the parent and, and then them becoming an adoptive parent, because for any age, it’s about that child is coming into a completely new family, unless of course they’ve been foster fostered by that family, you know, that’s a huge transition for that child. So there’s a lot of work that is done about trying to support that attachment and making sure that, you know, parents are able to take time off work and spend time with the child. So it’s a really important time, even no matter what age the child is.

Nicky Lowe [00:16:10]:
Absolutely. And so with that then, if someone listening has somebody in their network, maybe it’s a friend, a colleague, or maybe a team member, that shares with them that they’re going on an adoptive journey, what are some of the things that you can recommend, almost like the dos and don’ts? Like, this is useful language and helpful language, and this might be language that unintentionally can be hurtful or harmful.

Emily Frith [00:16:41]:
I think the most important thing is to listen and just— and to be there for your friend or colleague. I think some of the unintentionally challenging things can be really intrusive questions, you know, questions about why a child was adopted or what happened to them before they were were adopted, questions about relationships with birth family. Language can be very difficult, um, and, and it’s, it’s important to try and, try and follow from what somebody is— the language somebody is using themselves. Um, and I would say that’s the same for, um, an adopted person in the workplace, that, you know, somebody may want to talk about their, their past and, and their adoption. And, and I think it’s really important to allow someone space to do that if they want to talk about it, but also not to be prying into The questions you don’t need to know the answer to in terms of what— why someone was adopted in the first place.

Nicky Lowe [00:17:30]:
You know, and I love that because it is, it’s as you say, being open, compassionately curious, but not, as you say, being intrusive into, into, into any specifics. Where do you feel that workplaces do well, and where do you think that workplaces need to do better around supporting people’s adoptive— adoption journeys?

Emily Frith [00:17:55]:
I think it’s really quite new for most employers. We’re starting to see more employers recognising different routes to parenthood and starting to really think about this and be creative. Often they get stuck with the adoption leave and making sure that support is available right at the beginning. So I think that the one thing employers really need to think about is that this is a longer-term journey. So it’s really important for line managers, for colleagues to be understanding of the different challenges that adoptive parenting brings, or, um, the different challenges of being an adoptive person. So some of the most forward-thinking employers, for example Lloyds Bank, um, will, um, you know, be providing things like membership to AUK so that we’re able to provide a sort of peer support network for their employees. Others, you know, might be, um, providing training, um, to their, to their teams to help them understand some of the, some of the differences about adoption, but I still think it’s quite a new area for most employers and it’s not really necessarily on the radar. And there’s a wider group here because we’re also talking about children, like adults who have care experience or foster carers in the workplace or those who are kinship carers for their niece or their grandchild.

Emily Frith [00:19:10]:
You know, often those kind of families are also overlooked and I think there are a lot of similarities between those groups and adoptive parents and I think employers can think about different routes to parenthood and or caring responsibilities. I think that, that’s much more inclusive.

Nicky Lowe [00:19:25]:
So if somebody listening is a line manager and they want to be proactive, what might be some of the— either some really practical things that you could recommend and also maybe resources that you have as an organisation to support?

Emily Frith [00:19:40]:
Absolutely. I would definitely say come and check out our website. We’ve got a lot of free resources, information about the adoption journey, information about, um, things that are challenges for adult adoptees. And we have an information and support line that’s available, um, and we, as I say, can offer, um, sort of more, um, in-depth support. So we can offer memberships, um, where people can join a network of, um, people who are going through the same thing, a bit like, um, when you, when you go into, um, uh, sort of antenatal classes and you can form a network with those who are going through the same journey with you. If you’re an adoptive parent, you might sort of turn up at the nursery gates or the school gates and everybody else has been a parent for months and years and you’re— this is your first week of being a parent, you don’t have that kind of automatic support network around you. So that’s something we really try and provide as a charity, is that support network, so that you can find other adoptive parents who are going through the same challenges and, you know, schools that don’t understand and can talk about that with each other.

Nicky Lowe [00:20:40]:
That’s amazing. So as you say, you might become a new parent, but The child is not a newborn, so therefore you’re, you’re, you’re kind of exploring these stages in a completely different way to perhaps the more traditional route to parenthood.

Emily Frith [00:20:55]:
Absolutely. And potentially if that child is, is going through a lot themselves, they may be expressing that in, in behaviour, and, um, and there’s a lot— there’s a lack of understanding, I think, about, about, um, why that might be from teachers, other parents, and, and that can be quite socially isolating for everybody Yeah.

Nicky Lowe [00:21:14]:
So what else would you want either somebody who’s a friend or a colleague or somebody in the workplace that’s managing somebody, what else would you want them to know from this conversation that would give them a useful insight to be more compassionate and supportive?

Emily Frith [00:21:33]:
I think, like, again, going back to that kind of lifelong impact of adoption, I think for adopted people there are times in their lives that bring things up or be particularly challenging, and that is that idea of adoption being lifelong, I think is really important. So you might have somebody whose birth parent has passed away, um, and then they might go to their line manager and talk about it. And, um, you know, I’ve heard stories of line managers or colleagues just being really not understanding of what that might bring up for somebody and how it— that, you know, comments like, oh, you never lived with them, you know, you know, at least, at least it’s not your, you know, your adoptive parents, or, you know. And that, that invalidates the sense sense of loss that somebody is, is navigating. Or, um, you know, if you have a health condition and you go to the doctors and they say, what’s your family history of this? And you don’t know, again, that can bring up a lot. So it’s, as I say, it’s something that’s lifelong. And, and some of these narratives, going back to what I was saying in the beginning of the sort of happy ending or being lucky to be adopted, um, I feel almost like it’s a form of gaslighting because it doesn’t leave the space for somebody to talk about, um, the way in which adoption has impacted on their lives So if we can as a society start to be more understanding about adoption, I think that would be really, really positive.

Nicky Lowe [00:22:48]:
And I know you’ve talked already about some of the changes that you would like to see from society, so for example with self-employed people. What are your hopes for the future? Because I know as an organisation you campaign for, for the kind of change as well. What are some of the hopes of where ultimately you would like us to get to?

Emily Frith [00:23:06]:
Well, we think there needs to be a radical reset of adoption support so that when a child is adopted and they join an adoptive family, they have as much support as they need to help them reach their full potential. Because adopted people have the same potential as anyone else, which is limitless, but they’ve got so many barriers right from even before they were born in their way. So we need the support to be there for the adoptive family and then the adopted young person as they grow up and into adulthood and beyond so that they have that opportunity. Because I think if we’re doing something as radical as, as saying this child is joining a whole new family and having a whole new life in that way, then we need to put the support in place not sort of expect adoption to kind of wave a magic wand for somebody, but recognize that it’s, it, you know, it’s starting a journey. And so that’s what we’re calling for, is, is lifelong support when it’s needed.

Nicky Lowe [00:23:56]:
How does that differ from what is currently available then? Where are the gaps?

Emily Frith [00:24:01]:
So I think that, um, there’s a lot of, um, support and focus on the, on the kind of beginning of the story when, um, an adoption is being arranged. There’s a lot of funding spent on recruiting adopters, But then often parents kind of, they go off and they start their, their lives. And but then when a child is kind of getting to their tweens and teen years, that’s when potentially it’s quite a lot of this stuff comes up for children. They might be, you know, reached out, um, out by somebody on social media from their birth family, and that might trigger a whole load of, um, different challenges for the family. And often then when the family are back in touch with their agency, there’s a real postcode lottery of the support that’s available. So some agencies are really set up and there’s a lot of of support. Others, you know, there’s some— there’s a sort of phone line to call, but actually you might wait a really long time to get the help you need. And often there’s a cliff edge of support at 18.

Emily Frith [00:24:50]:
So, um, we know that from, from our research about adopted children are about, um, twice as likely to be out of education or employment in their sort of young adulthood, but they don’t get the same support as care leavers do at that point. Um, so there’s a, um, you know, we think that that support needs to be into adulthood and beyond.

Nicky Lowe [00:25:09]:
Thank you. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing these insights because I think for people like me that haven’t had, um, experience of this, there are— there’s a lot of gaps and potentially unconscious bias and assumptions that can lead to misunderstandings. So where—

Emily Frith [00:25:27]:
if—

Nicky Lowe [00:25:28]:
would you mind just sharing what your website is for people so that we can point them in that direction?

Emily Frith [00:25:33]:
Yes, um, so it’s just adoptionuk.org.uk.

Nicky Lowe [00:25:38]:
Yeah, you would have mentioned that you offer corporate kind of training membership where people can access peer networks. What other resources do you have that you might want to signpost people to on your website?

Emily Frith [00:25:52]:
Yeah, so if people come to the website, they, they can look up, um, you know, the areas of support that we provide. So it’s— we provide support for, um, adoptive families and young people and adult adoptees. So, you know, you can come to website and find the information. As I say, a lot of it is just freely available. We have, um, sort of fact sheets and, and we have our information and support line. And but then we can offer for, um, for individuals or for employers that family membership or adopted persons membership, which creates that kind of social network. We also have a psychology and therapy hub, so we provide therapeutic support for, um, adopted people, adopted young people, and adoptive parents to help them navigate some of these challenges. So It’s sort of really adoption-competent therapeutic support, and through that we also offer training and learning development opportunities for both families but also professionals, so teachers and employers, to help explain adoption better.

Nicky Lowe [00:26:48]:
Amazing, thank you. So if there was just one thing somebody listening took away from what you’ve just said, what would your hope be?

Emily Frith [00:26:56]:
It would be to go back to what I said right at the beginning, that adoption is not a happy ending. It can bring, you know, new relationships, a sense of belonging and permanence, And so it’s a vital part of the system for children unable to grow up with any of their birth family, but it’s the beginning of a journey, and like adoption is lifelong, and there are challenges along the way, and it’s really important that adopted people are listened to, understood, and get the support that they need, and that includes supporting their families and their children.

Nicky Lowe [00:27:24]:
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining me.

Emily Frith [00:27:27]:
Thank you, it’s great to be here.

Nicky Lowe [00:27:32]:
If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Wisdom for Working Mums, I’d love for you to share it on social media or with the amazing women in your life. I’d also love to connect with you, so head over to luminate-group.co.uk where you’ll find ways to stay in touch. And if this episode resonated with you, one of the best ways to support the show is by subscribing and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts.

Emily Frith [00:27:55]:
Thank you.

Nicky Lowe [00:27:55]:
And please consider leaving a review on iTunes. Your review helps other women discover this resource, so together we can lift each other up as we rise. So thanks for listening. Until next time, take care.