Do you want to be found?

Robin, there is a book available on the internet called Growing in the Dark, Adoption Secrecy & Its Consequences by Janine M. Baer [url]http://www.xlibris.com/GrowingintheDark.html[/url] There are exerpts from the book on the web site as well, while the history is predominantly applicable to the United States, it also contains invaluable information especially for people who are wanting to get changes made to legislation regarding sealed records. Noreen

. Thanks Noreen I shall have look at that. Unfortunately we no longer have any adoption rights groups in the UK, people here are politically apathetic in the extreme. We need our own chapter of Bastard Nation, Bastard Britain perhaps, to fight for the rights of everyone affected by adoption here in Britain Robin Harritt [url]http://harritt.net[/url] . .

. Re: Adoption and Children Act 2002 Implementation Draft Regulations and Guidance for Consultation Access to information (Pre-commencement Adoptions) Regulations 2004 . I have no problem with the idea that social workers should be involved in adult post adoption work. It is the part of this law which gives any social worker involved an absolute and final right to decide that a birth relatives search is not ғappropriate and to discontinue it. I am concerned that a social worker at the Adoption Support Agency will be able to do so. But what is really wrong and quite frightening is that a social worker or anyone else at the agency that arranged an adoption can decide that a relativeԒs search is not appropriate and refuse to help the Adoption Support Agency doing a search. This set of laws along with the changes being made to Civil Registration laws will take away what little scope there was for birth relatives to search for themselves. If a social worker forms the opinion that someone is searching for an inappropriate reason, such as a wish to harm the person sought, them she should have to go through the same judicial procedure as she would in current law if she thought it appropriate to prevent an adoptee from having a copy of his original birth certificate. Then a Judge would make the final decision based on psychiatrists reports and police and social services records etc, as to whether the search is ғappropriate. Both this latest set of draft regulations and the Civil Registration regulations are as ԑsecondary legislation supposed to have been subject to full public consultation. That in my opinion simply is not happening with these regulations or those concerned with registering as an ASA. The DfES seems to think that only NORCAP and a few of the children charities such as NCH and ChildrenҒs Society should be fully consulted. That means only a fraction of 1% of people affected by this legislation will have their views heard, unless they themselves make them known by using the Feedback Form and by letting their MPs know what is going on. NORCAP has been very slow to do anything about polling its members opinions or in informing its members of what this latest set of draft regulations means to them. The following appeared on the Norcap website only at the end of last week [url]http://norcap.org/mbs.html.[/url] It looks to me as though we can hardly rely on NORCAP at the moment. NORCAP of course is also concentrating its efforts on becoming an Adoption Support Agency i.e. It is as much a service provider as it is a group representing the needs of the users of Adoption Support Agencies. And I hope any other NORCAP members will ask any questions that they have on that score to the NORCAP Trustees. Certainly as a Contact Leader for NORCAP I am not impressed with what it has done so far on this latest consultation. Robin Harritt [url]http://robin.robin.org/postadoption[/url] [url]http://harritt.net[/url]