All about me

Hello! I am Caroline.

I have had all sorts of experiences in my life that have brought me to this place, to becoming an adoption coach. I myself am adopted, I have a birth child and three adopted children. I am a psychotherapeutic counsellor and I’m qualified to work with adults and children. As an adoptive mum I know some of the anxieties and questions that going through the adoption process can bring up. Now our children are home both myself and my husband find that we often are pulled or evoked to act in certain ways that our children are familiar with from their past. We both have also found that our own upbringing and experiences impact how well or how not so well we respond to certain things in our forever family.

I’ve been a psychiatric nurse, I’ve been a nanny, I’ve done lots of therapy and therapeutic training and I have a birth child. These things all have helped mould me into the mum I am today but the reality is adoption parenting is different. There are some things, tools ideas that just don’t work for adopted children because of their experiences in life. Yet I have struggled a times to find alternatives and this is an ever evolving learning experience. It got me to thinking that I can’t be the only parent who struggles and I wanted to create a safe place to learn from each other. I think the reality for a lot of us is that we can often feel like we don’t parent the way we would like to.

I want to use my personal experience of being adopted and being an adoptive mum and combine it with the theory that’s out there and come up with practical solutions that can be put into practice.

When you are going through the adoption process with endless Social Worker visits, and lot’s of preparation it can be difficult to be able to set aside time to go travel, quite some distance for some people, to attend courses so you can feel equipped for the adoption journey. Once your child or children come home it gets even more difficult to attend courses. Budgets can feel tighter now there are more mouths to feed. You don’t want to leave your child who you are encouraging to attach to you to go off to learn about attachment. Here you will find blogs written by me and guest bloggers from all walks of life sharing the adoption journey with you. At each stage of your adoption journey there is a brilliant free virtual goody bag I’ve made for you. Each one is full of support and answers to some of your burning questions.

There are programmes and mini courses you can do at each stage as well so you can grow in confidence in your knowledge and feel like you have tools and skills to help you in your adoptive parenting journey. There are also opportunities to work one to one with me if you feel you the parent need some therapeutic support with your own issues that are being evoked through the adoption process or through your adopted child or maybe you need some support, someone to talk to outside the situation and some ideas to help you not just survive but feel you are able to be the best parent you can be.

Please do not feel alone on this journey. I know what it’s like and I know how wonderful, exhausting and at times how hard it can be. We are all doing the best that we can whilst having ALL of our buttons pushed. Wherever you are on your adoption journey, get yourself a drink in your favourite mug and spend sometime looking around. New things are being added all the time. Have a question or a super strategy to help your adopted child that someone else may find useful? Check out the contacts page and drop me a message. Rather than all being just stuck in our own stuff, let’s support each other, help each other because community is what can help you get unstuck.

Enjoy this website and remember you are always welcome here.

Caroline x