Children with special needs

Be My Parent features about children with special needs.

Image of black girl in anorak

Living with children with attachment issues
Here, some adopters who have had to help their children deal with attachment issues share some of the difficult moments they experienced, and some of the rewards too.

Attachment issues in adoption and foster care
All children who are looked after, whether they are being placed with a permanent foster or adoptive family, will experience some difficulties around attachment.

Ways to deal with attachment issues: Helping your child build trust
Pointers for helping a child manage their feelings, behaviours and how to build trust.

Providing a secure base for troubled children
Attachment is at the heart of family life and at the heart of adoption and fostering. Looked after children have had to cope with difficult relationships in their birth families and they bring their complex coping strategies into their new families.

Believe in yourself
Single carer Karen has adopted three children affected by parental substance misuse.

Invisible scars: growing up in a family misusing alcohol or drugs
What is it like for children to see their parents using drugs or drinking heavily every day?

Prenatal exposure to drugs and alcohol
Dr Florence Merredew, Health Group Development Officer for BAAF, describes the effects of parental drug and alcohol misuse on children´s development.

Raising awareness
Fourteen-year-old Rebecca has Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). Here, her adoptive mother talks about the challenges she faces at secondary school and beyond.

Hi I'm Rebecca
Rebecca, aged 14, explains how foetal alchol syndrome affects her life.

Look behind the label
Carol, a mature, black single adopter originally fostered Laquayah, an 'older' child, before adopting her.

Last updated: 11 December 07

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