‘I am absolutely determined to do what I can to make my girls proud of who they are, and I know I can help them with that.’
These are the words of Marcia, mum to two girls Summer and Rachel, who she adopted with her husband Ian in October 2015.
Marcia, aged 44, and Ian, 46, adopted through the charity Parents And Children Together (PACT) – a long established adoption agency that finds, assess and approves people to become adoptive parents. PACT is looking for more adopters from all walks of life and is particularly keen to hear from people of Black Caribbean, African or mixed heritage to enable children to be matched with adopters who they can identify with culturally, visually and emotionally.
It’s a reality that black children are disproportionately represented in our care system. While black ethnic groups make up 5.5% of the general population, they make up 18% of looked after children.
All children waiting for adoption are likely to experience delay and instability but BME children also have to confront the issue of identity – their ethnicity, their culture and maybe their language. This can impact on their personal relationships, their education and their future as a parent themselves.
Marcia and Ian adopted their daughters when Summer was two-and-a-half years old and Rachel was 16 months old.
Marcia, a registered nurse, said she found the adoption process much harder than she expected but that their PACT social worker had been fantastically supportive and had “empowered” them throughout.
“Every day I do assessments with people to get their histories so as far as I was concerned it was in the bag, I thought I knew what to expect and the kinds of questions we’d get asked and why. But when it’s you sitting there telling someone everything about you, it was just the strangest thing. It was actually really cathartic but just something that nothing or no-one can really prepare you for.”
After being approved for adoption Marcia, who is Black British with a Guyanese/Jamaican family heritage, and Ian, who was born in Jamaica, were matched with Summer and Rachel, who are of Caribbean family heritage.
Marcia said, ‘My parents were really proud of who they are and where they came from, and they raised us in a way that made identity important so very quickly I learned to be proud of who I was.
I just think that in their lives my girls will have 101 extra things to deal with because they are adopted so if issues over identity can be minimised, then that can only be a positive thing. For me I am absolutely determined to do what I can to make my girls proud of who they are, and I know I can help them with that.”
PACT is appealing to anyone who feels they could offer a secure, loving forever family to a child or children who needs one to contact them to find out more. PACT has a downloadable Guide to Adoption on its website at pactcharity.org You can also call 0300 456 4800 or email enquiries@pactcharity.org to contact their friendly enquiries team to ask any questions or book a place at one of their information events, currently being held online via Zoom.
