I admire those who are able to watch the special ‘mother and baby home’ episodes of Long Lost Family, and I applaud the people who are bringing these stories to light, but I just can’t. Like many adoptees, I find the show emotionally manipulative, ‘trauma porn’ (or worse, adoption propaganda). My life, the information that […]
Category: Adoptee Voices

I had my culture, heritage, history and family removed from my life by adoption and a phone call to an ineffectual, unfit for purpose therapy service isn’t going to fix that.

Adoptees deserve more than to be “mentioned.” We deserve pathways. We deserve services that recognise adoption as lifelong. We deserve to sit in therapy and be understood, not minimised.
Westminster protest
We’re adding this page to direct you to news and resources relating to the adoption apology protest, due to take place on Wednesday 16 July. The protest has been organised by adoptee advocate Zara Phillips along with members of the Movement for an Adoption Apology (MAA). 17/7/25 Here are some of the media reports we’re […]
I have been asked to write about my personal AAM highlight of 2024. We have many emails from adoptees enquiring about records and searching. The state hasn’t made it easy for us to trace our relatives. We looked at what was out there and noticed that no one was offering workshops to help adoptees on […]

Creativity and activism as an adoptee, a guest blog by Zara Phillips If someone had said to me when I was younger that I would end up writing books, plays and a film on my experience as an adoptee I would never have believed them! It just seemed to happen. The moment I started doing […]

Will you believe that I have grief for the mother I loved before I was born, the mother I lost with my birth?
Adoption industry

The selection of ‘adoption journey’ as a theme for this year’s National Adoption Week shows just how profoundly disconnected the adoption industry is from the experience of actual adoptees.
Adoption journey
The theme of this year’s National Adoption Week in England (21st – 27th October) is “adoption journey.” National Adoption Week is an annual adopter recruitment campaign by Adoption England under the #YouCanAdopt brand, funded by the Department for Education. Their marketing campaign utilises celebrity supporters, news stories fed to national publications such as The Big […]
Last night, on meeting an adoptee for the first time, a friend and I were asked “Did you have a good adoption?” In a split second, I had to decide whether to let it go or to challenge this language with a complete stranger. [laughing] “I could give you a rant about why I don’t […]