Barnardo's Fostering & Adoption NI

BFANI on Tour! Meet Adoptive Dads, Bobby and Lee

• Barnardo's Fostering & Adoption NI

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BFANI is on tour! And this week, we meet Lee and Bobby, two dads who have adopted two brothers through Barnardo's in the South East. 

They share their inspiring journey, from navigating the adoption to embracing the chaos that came with welcoming their two boys during lockdown.

We discuss:
• Choosing Barnardo's 
• The significance of LGBT+ representation in adoption 
• Navigating the assessment process and overcoming personal hurdles 
• Developing bonds
• Therapeutic parenting techniques 
• Contact with birth family 
• Tips and encouragement for future adoptive parents

Join us for this special episode marking LGBT+ Foster and Adoption Week 2025


Image credit: Ashton Bingham, Unsplash

Learn more about fostering and adoption with Barnardo’s:
https://www.barnardos.org.uk/get-support/fostering-and-adoption

To learn more about fostering and adoption in NI, visit our Linktr.ee:
https://linktr.ee/barnardosfosteringni

To ask a question, give us some feedback or make a topic request, email us at:
BFANI@barnardos.org.uk

Foster belonging with us!

Ness:

Welcome to the Barnardo's Fostering and Adoption Northern Ireland podcast. Each episode we will meet families and team members from right across our fostering and adoption services. We're aiming to get behind the scenes. So we and adoption week in march and it's february right now and I have the opportunity to sit down with lee and bobby, two adopters of ours from the southeast of england. Hello, lee and bobby, hello hello you adopted through Barnardo's. My first question has got to be why did you come to Barnardo's?

Bobby:

I'll let you

Lee:

You're going to let me answer that one.

Lee:

Well, we came to Barnardo's because, doing our research, obviously we could have gone with our Local Authority, but we did a bit of our research and we decided that actually we wanted to cast our net a little wider, um, and actually be able to have much wider not necessarily choice of children, but it was actually making sure we were in a position that we were able to offer our home to the right children.

Lee:

That would that would be for us, and also we'd already done our research on Barnardo's and some of their training and uh and some of the stuff that they've done. Yeah, and I think when we first went to uh, a, what do we call it? The, the introduction session, I think that was a bit of a clincher for us because we actually met some other people there through who are going, who were going through the process yeah, sorry, so, um, and they were very much the same as us, gay couple and they just got uh placed, I believe, or just had their children placed, yeah, two boys, um, so that quick, that connection had been created there. So that's where we decided to hang around with Barnardo's.

Ness:

How important was it for you in that moment to have that representation.

Bobby:

It was very important because actually all along, you know, is it, are we doing the right thing? Two men bringing up children? You know, nobody in our life at the time was like that, and you know it was nice to see. Actually we aren't the only ones and you know, to us they had two children already. That was our end goal, wasn't it?

Bobby:

And it was good to see somebody who'd gone through that experience and speak to them, get a better insight on it, to give us a bit more positivity and a bit more energy uplift of it, to be fair yeah, I think you're right.

Lee:

I think also it's it was that whole thing that we weren't treated any different, because, because we're a gay couple, you know, there were single adopters there, there were gay men, lesbians, heterosexual couples, old, young, old and young, and actually we weren't treated any different. We were treated as potential parents and and I think that was kind of eye-opening in a way, um, on the basis that you know, it was still it's still relatively new that same sex couples can adopt. So to have to walk in and actually be in that position where it was just, it was just normal, yes, everything was just exactly the same for everybody and that was fantastic. But making the connection with that particular couple that we spoke to actually opened my eyes to a realm of possibility.

Ness:

I like how you say that. Was there anything that you remember that they said that was particularly insightful or useful to you?

Lee:

I think. I think it was the level of excitement that they had at the time, having just been played. Yeah, wasn't it? They were, how was it? You could tell they were a little bit overwhelmed with all the things that they had to do, but it was just that sense of excitement they had.

Bobby:

And also the thing, that we echo now, is "stick with it. They were at the end with their boys and they said it's going to get hard and tasks will be chucked at you, situations will be put up in front of you, but stick with it, because the overall when you're playing with your children and you've got your children, is worth it and that's something I echo now. It is a hard journey to get there, but once you've got there, it's still hard. Yeah, being a parent is hard, but there's there is, um, the reward

Lee:

So you go through various stages of adoption and some are harder than others, some can be quite intrusive, but all that pales into insignificance when you get to, when you get to the point of... w ell, there's two major points. First, obviously, when the Panel turns around to you and says yeah, you're an approved adopter. You know that that's a huge one. Somebody else who doesn't know me thinks that I can be a parent. Yeah, you know that's a huge thing. And then, obviously, the big one when you get matched with the children, and then it's just a whirlwind. Whirlwind from then on, and then all of that disappear all of that stuff.

Lee:

You know we had a. We had a quite lengthy process. So our process took us nearly two years.

Bobby:

Two and a half, I think, was it.

Ness:

Yeah, the assessment process itself took two and a half years.

Lee:

That's right. Yeah,

Bobby:

Quite a long time.

Lee:

That was a long time and a lot of that was around my past and so I had rarely I didn't think it was trauma at the time, but actually I had quite a traumatic upbringing and actually our social worker who was absolutely amazing actually suggested that I go for some counselling so I could understand my trigger points and deal with a lot of the demons from my past. And also dealing with the fact that Bob is 10 years younger than me, unfortunately, and so Bob's come up in the background of where you grew up very much, where it was sort of being gay was becoming accepted and you know, and that type of thing. For me, being 10 years older, I was brought up in a time where gay was wrong, gay was something that couldn't be. You know, you were never going to get married, you were never going to fall in love. In some cases you were never going to have a mortgage and no way would anybody trust children with you.

Lee:

That's the way that I was brought up, the environment in which I was brought up in, and so all of this was really off the cards for me and it was only through, obviously Bob and I have been together for a while, and Bob made it very clear that he wanted children and I I had a lot of things that I had to sort of unprogram from my brain, almost um, and so the counselling helped with that. We worked very closely with our social worker. Oh, we go there. There were bits that were, um, very intrusive around, like contacting my old partners and things like that

Bobby:

There was there was many times along the journey when we thought 'You know what?' We had discussions of actually 'Is it worth it?' You know, you, it's hard. 'I can't see the point in why we've got to do this, why we've got to do these certain questions?', and we had a discussion a few times. 'Is it time to stop? Is it time to walk away?' But we were like 'no', and we carried on. And we're so glad that we did carry on, because we've got two beautiful boys and we loved them dearly. But there were many times wasn't there? But we stuck with it.

Lee:

s stuck with it and obviously it was, as I say, being a quite intrusive period of our lives, everybody asking us questions about from everything through from finances, through to, uh, even one point when we had a social worker come around once check the fridge, to see if it was cold. You know. I mean I understand why now, looking back, you know, but it was things like that that really, you know, at that particular time really grated and really made us question whether we were doing the right thing, but glad we did.

Ness:

We often talk about on this podcast, about the assessment process and that it can feel a bit invasive and of course, you probably understand retrospectively why. That is what kept you going, because you look back and you say it was worth it, because we have our lovely children now, but at the time, as you said, it was very frustrating, it felt very intrusive, and particularly, I think, for you, Lee, because you know, growing up in a slightly different era, I can see how there'll be sensitivities, a sense of judgment as well. What kept you going through that process?

Lee:

Oh, I think that was. I think that was Bob, in fairness, that kept me going!

Bobby:

Um, I was the driver. I knew what a good dad Lee could be. I knew a good dad I could be and I knew what we had to offer and I thought I didn't want to let that go to waste. You know, as much as I wanted to, as much hurt Lee was going through in certain situations of it, having to go to counselling and stuff like that, I was like no, we've got too much to offer. I've got nieces and nephews and to me they are like my children and I love them dearly and I didn't want to say 'That's it off to mum and dad, now go home, you have a lovely weekend'. I wanted some children that were ours, that we could look after, we could install our values into. So that was the driving force and I thought of those kids out there didn't have a home, who didn't have parents to love them, and I thought, no, I don't, that's, if we gave up now, it would be a big waste and a big loss. So that's what pushed us really. That's what made me carry on.

Bobby:

Yeah, and I think that's what made me push Lee to carry on

Lee:

There were a couple of points where during the process that that we did have that serious conversation and you did say to me a couple of times 'Look, do you want to stop this or do you want to carry on? And and part of the process I think was um is getting some experience working with children, never had, never had. I didn't have any other family, I didn't have any experience of children at all. So part of that was um. I actually went and volunteered with the local Scout group and actually seeing because the process took quite a while for us I actually got to see those kids start to grow as well and they're the ages between 10 and 14. So they're really starting to develop their personalities at that age and actually that opened my eyes a lot and how whatever I say can have an influence over a young person.

Lee:

And I like that so much that I'm still a Scout Leader today, some five years later. So they've got their volunteering out of me, but no, so I think that it was seeing that as well and Bob being honest with me about saying to me you know, if you don't want to do it, we can stop. Now, I knew how much that would hurt, Bob, if we stopped, but it was the case of... w e were able to have that conversation about how we were feeling and, yeah, sometimes it was very. We were very frustrated and I think our social worker kept us on the straight and narrow and did her best to keep us informed of all the process where we were at and that type of stuff.

Lee:

So whilst it was frustrating, we were kept informed of what was going on.

Ness:

Yeah, so that took a couple of years. Now then we spoke on email before now. Am I right in thinking that you actually were approved during Lockdown?

Ness:

Is that what happened?

Bobby:

Yeah, lockdown came in on the beginning of April, end of March. We had our panel on the 1st of April. We met our two boys previously twice Soft Play and all was good. We went into Lockdown. We had our Panel on the 1st. We got approved to adopt on the 1st but we were told then and there, due to the foster carer's ill health and needing an operation, our boys would have to move in 5 days later .

Lee:

8 days later, eight days later, they moved on the eighth, isn't it like yeah, oh yeah, eight days later, yes, they'd have to move in with us so we'd have to.

Ness:

That was very fast

Bobby:

Yeah, we'd have to do this transition over the eight days. So we did our Panel in the morning. We shot down to where they lived, it was a couple of hour drive, to see them that afternoon, but not tell them we were going to be their daddies that day. That was the foster carer's job a couple of days later.

Bobby:

So for the next eight days we drove to and from to see our boys. One day we drove to and from twice in a day because they had to come to visit our house. So they came home with us and we took them back. And then on the eighth day we drove down there in the morning, we picked them up and we brought them home and that is where we stayed for three months until lockdown was finished and we could go back out. And our boys were very confused because they came from a foster care home where the foster care was amazing. She took up them Soft Play, they did sports activities, they did lots.

Ness:

How old are your boys? Were your boys at this point?

Bobby:

Our boys now are 10 and coming up for nine.

Bobby:

So when they moved in they were five and three.

Ness:

They were very young.

Bobby:

So they came here and they were like 'we don't go to a park, we don't go out'. We went to the park near a park for a walk and it was all taped off and we have to say no, we can't use it because of Covid and the kids. They were very confused weren't they?

Lee:

They were so confused. But when lockdown was the first lockdown was over, they actually asked if they were moving back to their foster carer

Bobby:

They said um, yeah, when covid's gone are we going back.

Bobby:

And we were like 'no, this is where you, this is your home

Lee:

So we we were told very early that we would pass panel. You know a lot of work went in. Yeah, social workers were well in advance because of this situation, or it was a rapidly unfolding situation because nobody knew what actually lockdown meant. Could we travel? Could we do anything like that? We had already been talking with the foster carer. Haven't we, yes, prior? So we'd already been talking with the foster carer, haven't we, yes, prior? So we'd already been, uh, reading the boys, uh stories. But we were friends of the foster carer that's how we were sold and so we would already create a relationship with the boys

Ness:

Let's go back a little bit.

Ness:

So when did you first know about the boys? How were they introduced to you?

Bobby:

Oh, we, again, it's we we kind of do now believe in fate.

Bobby:

How our boys came to, so we went to, a day in London it was a profile event.

Bobby:

First, one we'd been to, we'd done and we'd been to an event where they'd play with a play day with different kids, but ours weren't there. So we went to a profile event in London and it was different stalls, tables set up with profile after profile, social worker after social worker of children and we walked around and we were looking at these profiles, reading these profiles, and they're like, oh yeah, we'll take, have a at those, take those back with us so we can go through. And we'd got to a point of the day where we had we had about 20, didn't we profiles in our hand and we were like we've had enough, we're going to go. So as we were leaving, we walked past it and a picture of our boys caught our eye on this table on the profile. We stopped to have a look and the first time this has happened that day the only time it happened that day was the social worker from the boys came over to us and went you're Bobby, you're Lee, and we're like what, how do you know?

Bobby:

yeah she went. Well, you won't know this, but before you came, all you or a pair of prospective adopters came in, your social worker went around looking at profiles of adoptees. Yeah, pre-selling you. We're like. No, we didn't know that. So sure would you like to know more about these boys? And we were. I said we'd had enough.

Lee:

We're like yeah, we were emotionally drained it was going.

Bobby:

We were like, yeah, go on, tell us about them. And from the minute she described those boys one being laid back and chilled out, which was me, and the other one being hyper and liking pizza, which was Lee we were like, oh my God, those boys are us. And from then we were like no, they are our boys.

Ness:

Did you always know you were going to go for siblings?

Lee:

We did. When we went, we decided actually we hadn't decided how many children or what sex we said we wanted a couple didn't we?

Bobby:

I was more thinking boy and girl

Lee:

Yeah, and I didn't have any sort of preference as such, but in the back of my mind I was thinking two boys, yeah. So it just sort of fell into place, the fact that the social worker knew who we were before we'd even you know, as we're walking past, she had already actually earmarked the boys for us. She wanted to show us those boys because she'd already read our profile and said that they we would match. So I don't believe much in fate and destiny, um, but I think it's pretty hard to argue um, in that particular scenario. But we were, we were faced with a really difficult decision. So we came out with I think it was about 10 profiles. By the time we filtered them out and we walked out of the event and our kids were playing. Our kids today were playing on a mind, but we still had other profiles and we wanted to make sure that we gave every child that we walked away.

Lee:

The profiles were on the right hearing. I didn't, didn't want it just to be 'oh well, we found this one now and we're going to get rid of these profiles'. You know it, we needed to do it properly. So very, very bizarre and actually in a very it seems very cold now, but it was the only way to do it. We literally took ourselves off to the local pub yeah, didn't wait, and we sat down with the profiles and it was a quiet pub I'd say there's nobody else around. It was actually quite a cozy little place. It was perfect for what we wanted and we literally sat down with the profiles. We took half each and it sounds absolutely awful, but we scored them out of 10 based on where they were, what special needs they had, whether they had contact requirements, all these types of things, and we had to take that sort of approach to it, and I don't regret doing it that way, but we needed a way to have closure on all the profiles that we've taken away.

Lee:

Yes, um and so, and that left us with two profiles in it. There were two, yeah, wasn't it? And top one was words of these boys that we have today. Um, we obviously made inquiries about the two, two sets of children that we had. Um, unfortunately, the others already had a placement offered. I think I believe so, and so we were left with our boys again. Fate, um, or destiny, or something higher power? Um, and that was, and then everything from then on moved incredibly quickly. It did, yes, incredibly quickly, to the point, as, as Bob's already said, about getting to the matching Panel. But we, you know we reached out, we were introduced to the foster carer relatively quickly weren't we?

Bobby:

I think I thought it in the space of two weeks. Yeah, Because we had. We enquired. They, our social worker, their family finder and their social worker came round here for lunch and we had that lunch. That meeting went really well. And then they arranged for us to meet them and luckily we got to meet our two boys and the foster carer, which was lovely. We met the foster carer first and a little and then she went you're introduced with my friend, it's gonna be a chance encounter. You're gonna bump into us and I'm gonna say come along to soft play. And so that's what happened. And we had two visits like that didn't we.

Lee:

You ended up spending most of the time in the ball pit with the boys.

Bobby:

I most definitely did. I'm a big Yeah, the kid myself, and so that's how. we've how I've Then Covid been. Covid came, and then the world got a bit crazy.

Ness:

really did. So tell me how. I mean Covid aside, I mean there's a challenge in itself. How do you bring two children into your home at the same time and forge your individual relationships with both of them and deal with the competing needs that either is likely to have? How did you find that?

Bobby:

oh uh, competing for a need from first, I don't think I don't think you ever can do that we're still doing that now, to be fair, you try, you're doing something with another one and the other child but other boy wants you, or you've just dealt with one situation and another situation. You just kind of deal with it as they come up.

Lee:

Yeah our boys are, um, are like chalk and cheese, so they are biological siblings, um, but they are completely different, as we've already said, we've got one that's very laid back and we've got one that's very hyper aware, um.

Lee:

So, yeah, they have, and it takes time to learn what those needs are. You know, you can read it on paper, yeah, you can read it on paper, but until you actually meet them and spend time with them and actually get to understand the way that they think as well, do you actually start to work out what their needs are. I think the biggest thing for me, though and I've said this many times we've had training on. You know what I'm going to say, don't you? So we've had training on foetal alcohol syndrome. We've had treatment on special educational needs. We've had treatment. We've had training, even we've had training on lots of different stuff, but nobody tells you that you're going to end up doing wash it three more times, washing and had to come up with new home routines and and be a taxi driver for the children's parties, and stuff like that we were very lucky.

Bobby:

Yeah, during Covid, but we were very lucky we were. We brought them into. We were prepared before they moved in. Our social worker said, 'don't get too excited'. We were prepared. We had pillows with their names on it. We had bedroom plaques made up with their names on it. In our head, it was their bedrooms. Even before Panel came, it was their bedrooms. We had toys in there, we were were kitted out, and so we were prepared that way.

Bobby:

And then COVID came and it was. Life stopped. You know, my work stopped. Lee was working from home anyway, so he was working. And then the boys moved in. We were both on leave. There was no pressure to see anybody or they wouldn't all go anywhere. There's nowhere to go. So we was in this little bubble and this bubble became our life and that routine then became our life. So we gradually learned to do the lots of washing. We gradually learned a new bedroom routine.

Bobby:

Yeah, like the first night, our boys moved in and our eldest was very unsettled and he loves the story. He wouldn't sleep, he wouldn't go to bed. So I ended up sleeping on his bedroom floor. But first of all, Lee went in there and Lee was like, 'right, we're tag team, okay'. So Lee went in there for a little while, but I went in there. I didn't come back because I was exhausted. Lee had fallen asleep in our bed and I was left here on the floor, with a head that kept peering over to look at me every now and then, he eventually fell asleep. I got a few hours sleep on the floor, to which I got woken up, to him stepping on me and which, again, it's his favorite story now, because he often goes to that day 'when I stepped on you'. That's the first day I'm like, 'yes, it was', but all the routines then fell into place. But, oddly enough, when COVID came to an end, we had to shut off that part of our life.

Bobby:

And build new routines and do new routines, because we've got in such a routine with Joe Wicks in sports in the morning. We'll do a bit of they both went to school at the time, so a bit of school work that I came up with working at school myself. That's what we're going to do, then we're going to do, then we're going to do baking.

Bobby:

You might go for an hour of exercise in the park. So we had to learn different routines. But the routines because we had no pressure from the outside world all fell into place, equally as their relationships with the outside family, because there was no pressure for them to meet anybody, because you couldn't. So they gradually met their nanny, their granddad's cousins, all via Zoom and Skype, which was very unobtrusive. So, 'oh, come and have a say hello', 'hello'. So and it worked out. So it came into conversations a bit like that and then a bit more and more over time they spent more time talking to them and interacting.

Bobby:

So we got to a point where lockdown was coming to an end but it wasn't ended and our social worker went. I think it's time now that you let them meet the nanny and granddad, my mom and dad and she went. I'm telling you to break for lockdown and have them into your home, have them around in the garden. So we decided to have in the garden, which felt alien because we hadn't seen people for ages. So the boys took to it beautifully and it was 'nanny' and 'granddad' from the outset and they were playing. Me and Lee were a bit more, we were at the other end of the garden, Covid could have got us at any moment.

Bobby:

So we was kind of like, and then my mum wanted to come in, didn't she to go to the toilet? And we was like what? 'No, no', but of course we did. But that felt alien. But the boys from the minute they met them, because they'd already spoken to them on screen, so much.

Lee:

And then the relationship the relationship was there.

Bobby:

So when we finally got into the world, meeting the family was nothing to them, because they knew these people. They'd spoken to everyone.

Lee:

So we just kind of yeah, I think, I think the whole lockdown experience for us turned out to be extremely positive on the basis of creating that bond with the children as well, um, so creating that, you know, that attachment to them and and then to us as well, and with them getting to know us. Now, if you're spending 24/ 7 for three months in a house together, you're going to get to know people very quickly. Yes, and that works both ways, and I have to say that that is exactly what happened with us, wasn't?

Lee:

it and when we when we were able to go out, I think actually, we found it daunting, you know, being able to walk down the road and somebody's coming down the other way, so you cross the road, you know that type of thing. But for children it was even more daunting for them because it was 'oh okay, we're not just in this house anymore, we can go and do something'. And, and we did it bit by bit. It wasn't until about August was it that we actually started taking them out for days and stuff like that. You know, we wanted to do it bit by bit because they've been through so much change. Um, you know so that they were right troopers throughout it, I have to say, you know, even when Bob was panicking about and touching everything anything outside, yeah, anytime you come in, 'wash your hands, wash your hands, don't touch anything. Hand sanitiser, hand sanitiser'. Yeah, but they were right troopers.

Lee:

They got through that and we got through it as well, and I think it gave us something to focus on. So not only did we have lockdown, we were both on adoption leave from our dog jobs as well, so we weren't working, and what a way to be having your adoption leave, you know, stuck in the house. We made the best of it, didn't we? You know, it even got to the point I think it was July, so it was the second lockdown that it will, or June was our youngest son's birthday, wasn't it? Yeah, and uh, we even managed to hire a bouncy castle for his birthday in the garden and had a teddy bear's picnic and had a teddy bear's picnic, which he enjoyed, um, but it was those little things.

Lee:

We were starting to venture slowly and I think that really helped the boys, um, but they knew all of our friends because we'd all spoken. Yes, they knew all of the family and the great thing about that and I would always suggest that to to people, um, when children are meeting their new family, use video conferencing because actually they can walk away if they feel.

Lee:

You know, if they feel threatened in any way or if they they just don't want to engage, they can walk away and go and do something you'll find. Actually, most of the time they'll go away for two minutes and then they'll come back because they don't miss out on what the adults are talking about.

Ness:

Oh, yeah, yeah it's, it's not uncommon. I've had quite a few conversations with foster carers and adopters who say the same thing that actually that artificial bubble that was created during lockdown gave them time to really sort of bed in as family and again, like you've said, bringing other additional family, and slowly and mindfully, is the best way forward to keep that child orientated in your, in your family network

Lee:

yeah, and I think the children went through like the eight days that we had, from seven days they had, from being told to actually moving in that that would have been hard enough on them anyway.

Lee:

Oh, most definitely, they'd been with their foster carer 18 months, 18 months. So it was a long time.

Ness:

That's a long time.

Lee:

So to suddenly move so quickly, I think actually having that time to come to terms and accept what's happening to them, how their world is changing.

Lee:

I think that was absolutely beneficial.

Ness:

Tell me a bit more about the relationship you have with the foster carer, because it's a very complicated ask, isn't it for a child to understand what is happening when they're going from a fostering family to adoptive parents?

Bobby:

We were very lucky. The foster carer the boys' foster carer is a lovely lady and she's very experienced. So she took it all in her stride and she managed the whole thing. We were very lucky She'd done it. If you say we went a bit up, you're'm gonna say you're my friend. So that eased the boys into knowing us, you know. So we met them and then we went down to see her and she was very enthusiastic. Look, these two lovely men have come to visit you, my friends. You remember my friends, and welcome to the need.

Bobby:

So that, unarmed, disarmed the boys straight off and there was like and even when it was COVID, she welcomes into her home, you know and slowly she eased off. 'So now I'm going to cook the boys dinner. You two are going to sit down and have dinner with the boys. So we sat down. We're going to go eat in another room. You're going to eat together, the four of you,' all these little things embedded in. 'So its your turn to bath the boys tonight. I'm going to step back, so you do it.

Bobby:

And even though it was a short amount of time, she was constantly handing over the reins. The boys could see her going. 'No, that's your daddy's job'. Once the boys knew we were the dads, 'that's your daddy's job to do. Now it's not my job'. And we were lucky she phased out. But even though she was ill and she had an operation during the couple of weeks after we had the boys, she still FaceTimed the boys. We spoke to her on a regular basis, so the boys were still having that contact, you know,

Lee:

And she created a relationship with us. Yeah, very early on in the process.

Bobby:

And that was all her doing, that was all her pushing. We were very fortunate. We still see her today. You know she came for the first time and she came here for a visit this year and the boys loved that. But we've made it our thing that every year, once a year, we meet up with her and her daughter. So the boys have still got that contact. And she sends the boys christmas presents and cards. She sends the boys birthday presents and cards. She sends the boys birthday presents and cards. She sends them Easter eggs, halloween presents.

Lee:

One thing, though she turned to us very early on, didn't she, and said how much contact do you want me to have? And I think that's a really important conversation to have.

Ness:

Yeah.

Lee:

Because I can. I think we were slightly different because she'd had such a long placement with them and we got on so well and we got on so well with her that that we had that bond with her very, very early on. You know she she'd text us and go you never guess what your boys have been up to today, type of thing, and and sending us random pictures and stuff like that. And she was really encouraging us and we we had a really good relationship with her. But she was very honest with us as well.

Bobby:

Yeah.

Lee:

She turned around and says so when, when the boys came to us, the youngest wasn't potty trained and she'd been trying for months and months and months and months. And you know she was being very honest with us about all of the difficulties our oldest had, um, uh, behavioral issues with food. So she was telling us about everything that she was doing, uh, to try and address that so we could carry on she's a great source of information for the boys there at that time.

Bobby:

So asking her even now, so our eldest has it in his head as a boy in his private, in his a nursery nursery that bullied him and he gets quite annoyed by that and our eldest being so, we thought we don't know. So he kept going on and he's a real thing. Every now and then it will come up. The boy's name would get mentioned. He gets a bit and what is his watch?

Bobby:

uh, what five, six years ago now when he was there and still to today. He gets a bit fraught. So when the social worker came to visit this time, we asked her about it and she was the foster carer, foster carer and the foster carer was like no to our son, you were equally as bad as he was.

Bobby:

He may have done this to you, but you did back to him. And you see our eldest get a bit confused by that because he hadn't remembered what he had done. He was remembering what his, the other child, had done to him and that we haven't heard that name since. That's what good six months ago now. And it's kind of. That gives him the reassurance that he needed. There's information out there, helps him fill in those gaps. We used her a lot of the time when somebody said well, I used to do this, well, did you? We'll go back and find out. And we always used because we was able to keep that line of communication open. So did this happen? No, it happened like that. So it's always able to use her as a source of information and she helped fill in that long gap 18 months gap. She helped us fill in. She gave us some background story of birth parents that we hadn't had, you know, because she'd experienced it with the contact and stuff like that. So that was nice to help us build up an image there as well.

Ness:

It sounds like you've got a really good productive relationship with the former foster carer, so she's giving you a bit of history. She's also helping you seamlessly take on the parenting duties of your two sons, and that transition is really important because obviously any child in the care system has experienced the trauma of loss already.

Ness:

So you two being able to be on the same page as the foster carer for your children is also really important because it means you, as the adults, know what really happened and you're able to reframe things in a way that helps calm calm them as well

Lee:

yeah, indeed, and because it was such a long placement, because when they first went to her they were supposed to be an emergency, emergency placement, two weeks, and then it ended up 18 months um, but we acknowledge and we acknowledge with the boys because we're very open and honest with the boys about their past, their life story, all of the major milestones that happened in their lives, whether be positive or negative.

Lee:

We're all very honest, we're always very honest and we discuss that with the boys and actually we do accept that actually, while they were in foster care, that was a big chunk of their lives and that is actually part of their life story. It wasn't just a holding room until they found a family, it was actually their lives and we were, you know. So we want to keep those doors open as long as we can.

Ness:

I really like how you phrase that, Lee. I think that's really important. It's not? A holding room, which is very much part of their lives.

Bobby:

It is a big part of their life, so our youngest, in a way, thought of her as mum. She was his mum. He was so young when he was a year and a half, when he was a year and a half, when he was taken away from birth mum and she took over that role as mum for over a year and a half. She was mum and I'm positive he saw her as mum. You know, our youngest was developing slower than your neurotypical child, so when we got him, although he was verbal, he used to roar a lot. That was his defence mechanism.

Bobby:

He was a gorilla, or he was anything spiky, so he became a hedgehog. He'd curl up. Once he was a pineapple in our washing basket because it was all spiky and prickly. So that was his defense mechanism and that took him a little while to get out of and she embraced that, didn't she? And that was just part of who he was. And we love it when you, every now and then, we go well, you were a pineapple and to this day he would still do the pineapple, he would, he doesn't. He does a very good banana, to be fair and now my imagination is going wild.

Ness:

I want to know what a pineapple looks like he's got his hands on his head.

Bobby:

Like that I love it just like this and he does a string of fruit and animals. But that's his defense mechanism when something gets tough for him, it becomes something spiky or an animal that's quite strong and that'll help him get through. The roaring was a really big thing, wasn't it?

Lee:

it really was all the time you'd speak to him and he was roaring, just roar at you like a dinosaur, you know, and and it, and it was his way of saying I'm processing, I'm processing, let me process

Ness:

So I was just going to ask about, you know, having gone from not being a parent, not necessarily being experienced around children, and children at the best of times can be challenging sometimes,

Ness:

What I mean, what support has been there for you when you're dealing with behaviors that have been really difficult

Lee:

So both of our boys have a background of, uh, basically, trauma, neglect. I won't go into too much detail, but they both manifest in very different ways. So our oldest, uh, that comes out in behavior, in behaviors, and our youngest, unfortunately, that becomes much more internalized, which is actually harder to work work with when somebody just takes that in. Um, but we have we've had to call out the support a couple of times from social workers and so the post adoption support team. So we actually managed to get some funding from the adoption support fund for our oldest to do some play therapy. And we're just going, and we're just going through that process again right now to see if we can get some life story work with him as well, so he can sort of do some more processing at a, at a higher understanding level than that play therapy looks at. But I don't think it's just about.

Bobby:

We're also very lucky that my family I was just about to say that all live very close. They all now live within a 10-minute drive of where we are. So we've got a very supportive family who will come out if we need them. My mum and dad will have the kids overnight for us so we can have some us time. They love to go and play with our cousins. We have my sister's house, so that's nice, so that's our support. But also we have friends that we can speak to. But we're also very lucky where we went through this process.

Bobby:

Our social worker was a therapeutic parent, a therapeutic social worker, so she did lots of work with us around therapeutic parenting techniques, so like have a gossip with each other. I wonder if that child's up doing that, because, oh yeah, that one is amazing, you know, because actually the kids, like they know what I'm up to. Yeah, we use that one and she gave us a whole range of different techniques that at a time with like I don't really get that, I don't really seem. But now we use and we put some into place. It does help sometimes, especially where our eldest, when he goes on the attack, fight or flight mode our eldest only has a fight mode he won't, but when we start using it disarms him kind of. It's like oh you know it's. So. We were lucky we got a therapeutic social worker, yeah, who I can't praise enough who embedded all these different techniques into our session after session that we use.

Lee:

You know, some of them fall flat, some of them don't work the way you want them at the time because the situation is strange.

Bobby:

But we do find ourselves, don't we? Reverting back to doing different bits of pieces that we were told that helps

Lee:

All of that is great, but, but one thing I will say is we, we've been, we've been there where we're just going. Why? How? I can't cope with this, I can't carry on with this. And you know, it may be eight days of our oldest playing up every single day, every week, a minute, yeah, yeah, doing everything you can to push buttons and and get a reaction whether negative or positive, it doesn't matter it and it drains you.

Lee:

You get to the point of being drained and the the biggest thing is being able to just stop and ask for help, and that is and actually sometimes that's that's really hard to turn around and go. Actually, if this carries on, I'm not coping. I need, I need some support, and that's that. Can support can come from Well, let's get a friend over, let's just have, let's go and play some board games with some friends, just for a little while, just to decompress, or it can be, as we say, reaching out to post-adoption support and go. Do you know what?

Ness:

I'm not coping with this at the moment, but I can see that there's another reason why this is happening and I need some help and you're saying something that that is really key, because it takes a level of emotional resilience to be able to say, actually, I do need a bit of, I do need a bit of support here with this, and then it's not your job to be a perfect parent, that we can only be a 'good enough' parent, regardless of whether we came by being parents, as a birth parent, a step parent, an adoptive parent, a foster parent.

Ness:

You can only be 'good enough' as a person

Lee:

Indeed and I think that's what we try to instill in our children is that we're not perfect in any way, shape or form.

Lee:

We make mistakes, we will, you know. When they push the buttons, we will turn around and say Oi, you know that, because we're human beings, yeah, and you know it is. And it's about recognising when actually and you've said this a few times where you just take a step back and go, could have dealt with that one a bit better, but then you know for next time.

Ness:

Yeah, absolutely right. So do you have contact with birth family? Is there contact there?

Bobby:

We have in place a letter once a year with birth mum, birth dad and mum's birth, mum's mum and dad. So birth grandparents. To date we've had nothing from birth dad, five years on nothing. We've had nothing from nan and granddad five years on. But we have had two letters one recently arrived on our doorstep this week from birth mum in the five years. So but we do write every year.

Lee:

We write every year because constantly and actually we were really worried about writing to to birth family. At first. We're like, well, what you write, what do you? You know, how do you write to this, this person who you know, you don't have a relationship with personally, and actually we've had a really good way of doing it and it's actually really therapeutic for us as well. So we we like most parents take lots of photos over the course of the year. We take lots of photos and they all get uploaded to the cloud or they're on your phone and you can look back. So what we literally do is at the beginning of the year, when you know when it's time to write, we go back to january on the phone and we'll go through and look at all these experiences we've had, and then that is what generates us to write a letter, so the first day of school, oh right, so how is he doing at school?

Lee:

you know, and oh, and they did this and they were playing in the park and, and that allows us to have that sort of not having to be so emotional about it becomes more factual, which is which which we feel is better for that relationship with birth mum, trying to keep it factual so she knows, you know, how her birth children are doing and the boys both know we write the letters every year.

Bobby:

And now we ask the boys is there anything they'd like to put in the letter? So this year our eldest was like I don't want to know mum's okay. You know, we haven't had a letter for a little while. Can you write, is she okay? And we sent that letter off. A fair few months went by and we were like we're not going to again get anything this year. So we've got social social worker back in place to help our eldest. He asked her. He said, um, I want to know mum's okay, I want to know mum's not dead, I need to know mum's doing okay. So she was able to go to a letterbox, the letterbox company and speak to them and they managed to get hold of birth mum and mum wrote them a letter to say she was okay.

Bobby:

And we get lots of anxiety and lots of mixed emotions from our boys when it comes to letter, you know, and the upset of not getting letter. We get and this letter came and there's some big news in this letter. We were kind of like, how are they going to take this news? But both of the boys read the letter. We read the letter to the boys and they've got it. They're like okay, we know mum's okay Letter went away and they haven't mentioned it again.

Bobby:

I'm sure over the coming weeks and months the letter may make an appearance, we may talk about the letter, but it's almost like yeah, she's okay, we've had it, we know she's okay. The letter gets kept to them. They get a copy of the letter each. They get to keep in their memory books in their bedrooms. But when they want to look at it and the boys know they can speak to us about it. But normally, like when they got the last one, it was like oh, yeah, she's okay, and the letter never came out, it got put in a book and,

Lee:

yeah, I think, I think it's all about. Doesn't know that she?

Lee:

that reassures that, yeah, birth mom is okay I think at the at the beginning, when we were first looking at adoption process, I remember talking to you, bob, and you were saying, you know, around the lines of, oh, I don't know if I could communicate with birth parents, and I can sort of understand the nervousness about it you know, and especially after you know, when you're going through the process of adoption and family finding, you may read things about your children that they've been subjected to in the past and that just stirs up emotion and most of the time that's anger at first, um, before you get to the level of understanding and it's that whole thing around. Well, you know how do I write to this person who who has had such a negative impact on on my child, um, but it is extremely therapeutic when you do it openly with the children because there is is no secrets.

Bobby:

But the one thing COVID did rob us of and the one thing I do regret about COVID was we wanted to meet birth mum. We wanted to have that initial meeting so we could see her, we could speak to her, she could meet us and speak to us so we could get that background information from her for our boys. When but because of covid it couldn't happen, we it couldn't happen and sadly it never did happen. That asked because too much time, too much time passed and it kind of. But I would recommend, if people can, if they want, to try to meet birth parents, because actually we think that would have done us a great, for her, the birth mum, and for us meeting and having that conversation.

Bobby:

I can see that Would have made that letter easy, possibly easier, and actually we could say, yeah, you get your eyes from your mum or your mum's about your height or whatever that would have been, but unfortunately that never happened. But you know, we welcome the letters when they come, you know, and we work with our boys around it. Equally, we get a bit sad for our boys when they don't arrive, because we see, see how upset and for a while we were at anger- Anger and confusion, isn't it?

Lee:

Yeah, when they don't arrive.

Bobby:

So the letters are a mixed bag, to be fair. I can imagine Sometimes they can be a curse at other times it's good that the contact's there, because our boys at the moment in time both say when they're 18 they're going to find birth mum and we have both said 'we'll help you. We will help you if you want us to. Once you've found that, we'll drive you there if you want.' Actually, you know we're very open and we're very supportive. I'm sure their feelings about that would change over time and keep changing, but we're very open. We'll have those discussions with our boys on a regular basis when they want to have those talks. And with the letters it's just about being honest. You know, when they say 'no, we haven't received anything yet'. Or 'oh yeah, we've heard and it's on our way to us'. So it's also about managing the expectation, isn't it to be fair?

Lee:

Yeah, indeed, you know it's, I think. I think children always expect some great revelation, some something marvellous that comes from a letter, and it is about managing their expectations and it's about us reading it first and going right how do we approach this particular part of the letter? You know, it turned out that, and it's quite strange because it turned out that birth mum went to the same place on holiday as we did, a few months apart, but same place, and we were thinking, oh, thinking, oh god, the boys are going to start thinking, well, she never took us on holiday, or anything like that. Actually, they were more excited about the fact that they she'd been in the same place. You know, and and sometimes you can read into it too much yes, you know, and, and it's about, just as bob said, setting those expectations and actually letting the conversation, when you're going through it, just flow where the children want it to.

Ness:

I'm going to start winding this up now, but I think you've given me so many insights into your lovely family. I really like that, and I suppose my last question really is do you have any sort of tips that you would like to pass on to someone who might be from the lgbt community, might actually just be whatever, just someone who's interested in adoption, just generally, what tips might you give them about coming into adoption?

Bobby:

coming into adoption. Be open, be honest, don't try to hide nothing because they will uncover it. To be fair, and everything is done for a reason. Yeah, now how hard it is, go for it, push through it, because the end goal of your child, your children, is well worth it. Once your children are with you, all that hard work, all the effort you're going to put in to go through the process, fades into nothingness. It fades into the bliss, because your children then become everything. And if you think you've got what it takes the love, the strength to be a parent and you want to be. But I recommend, go for it because actually it's a hundred percent rewarding it is.

Lee:

And even when you get through the process and you've got children and you're going through various stresses, as every parent does and will do, there will be that moment, that one moment that your child says something or does something that makes you feel proud, and then everything else just disappears. Just for that one moment, you just feel that you're making a difference, and that is so important. When it comes to the process itself, yes, it is daunting. Yes, you will be asked personal questions. Yes, you might get to the point of going, 'I wish they'd just leave me alone'. Stick with it. Stick with it If you've got love, to give hold on to that until the end.

Ness:

Oh, Bobby and Lee, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so very much for talking to me today. Thanks for listening to this episode of Barnardo's Fostering and Adoption NI podcast. To learn more about fostering and adoption with us, search for Barnardo's online or find the link in our program description. We love to hear from you your thoughts, questions or future topic requests. To do so, you can contact us at BFANI at barnardos. org. uk. You will find our email address also in the show.