My Barnardo's story
This is sort of a reintroduction and update to my story. I've copied and rehashed
most of it from elsewhere on the internet where I've wanted to explain what
I'm up to.
I do think that the adoption agencies do
have to be very careful when they are dealing with some very harsh realities
from the past. Barnardo's use that very important "duty to care" as an excuse
to withhold a great deal more than just those harsh realities.
Seems a bit repetitive I know, but I want to really bring it home just how unlike the Barnardo's publicity it really is. When I first went back to Barnardos at Barkingside for access to my records in 1991(?), I was given an A4 sheet of paper. See
http://robin.robin.org/records
The social worker at what was then known as 'Barnardo's Counselling Services Project' apologised profusely explained to me that there two large files of records she had printed from the micro films. She told me I could ask any questions I wanted and she would try to answer them. She did answer the ones I could think of at the time. Like my father's full name, my mother's last known address. She even gave some prints of some of the records.The social worker who I saw on my first and second visit to Barkingside was soon to leave Barnardos.
When I went back a few months later I was to meet with the manger or 'Project Leader' of 'Barnardo's Counselling Services Project' In fact she is still there as far as I know, but 'Barnardos Counselling Services Project' is now known as 'Barnardo's Family Connections' it handles access to records for anyone who was adopted out of Dr Barnardo's Homes care in years gone by.
Mrs 'Project Leader' insisted profusely that the one sheet of A4 represented all of my very sparse records and that she had no further details of my father and no details of my foster family. Eventually she asked me outright "are you accusing me of being a liar" so I had to say yes. And eventually I showed her the papers and info I had been given. I've never seen a social worker shake before, Not sure if that was embarrassment or anger.Since then I've been through every kind of nonsense with Barnardos that you think of. The late Alan Levy QC who sadly died last year called it Kafkaesque and like a particularly bad episode of 'Yes Minister'. Since then it's become more like a bad episode of the Laurel and Hardy show with films of records being "lost", and copies of letters disappearing in the post.
I now after 15 years have of a file of about 300 items, so yes there were a few very big lies on the way. I know that it is still not the complete file that Barnardo's claim it to be. The copies are very very poor compared to those I have seen at Barkingside. And I know, despite what Barnardos would have me believe it is not the whole file.Please Please if you are going to Barkingside or anywhere else in the UK for access to records, don't let them get away with this kind of behaviour with the details of your life,You can see Barnardo's Family Connections publicity at
http://www.barnardos.org.uk/familyconnections.htm
Don't let them try to palm you off with one of their " background histories", demand the full record and if they won't let you have it demand to know why. Some of Barnardos past adoption practise is not all as you might hope it to be.
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There needs to be some more attention paid to access to records by the government. It remains that only law allowing an agency to give someone access to records of an adoption finalised before 30 December 2005 is the discretion it is granted as an agency under Regulation 15(2) (a) of the Adoption Agencies Regulations 1983. Some direction on how that is administered is given the judgment in the Gunn-Rosso v Nugent Care and the Secretary of State for Health. There is still no simple law that can compel an agency to allow access to adoption records in every case, or if there is I've yet to find out about it. There are statutory instruments that specifically exclude adoption records from the Data Protection Acts and from Freedom of Information legislation.
Contact details
Echo of Dickensian England heard in Ontario courts, see:-
For all of those of you have been touched in some way by Barnardos (Dr Barnardo's Home)