We are pleased to announce that Adopt Birmingham have been made a Partner Organisation by DDP Connects UK. Adopt Birmingham is a Regional Adoption Agency (RAA) and part of Birmingham Children’s Trust.
Partner Organisations are UK statutory services, recognised and validated by DDP Connects UK, as working closely with DDP Trainers and Consultants to implement a DDP-informed practice model at all levels of the service.
Over several years, the Adoption Social Workers at Adopt Birmingham have been trained in DDP and supported with ongoing DDP consultation. This has included reflective practice opportunities to use DDP principles and ways of being in all aspects of their work.
They have worked closely with Billy Smythe, DDP Trainer, Consultant and Practitioner, to help DDP become evident within all work with children and families at different stages of the adoption journey. The service have also worked hard to embed DDP within team meetings, supervision and in working and relating to each other and with other professionals.
In awarding Adopt Birmingham Partner status, DDP Connects UK gave the following feedback:
“We are all very impressed with the depth of work that the Adoption Service has undertaken over several years to embed DDP principles across the work you do and your ongoing commitment to developing and maintaining services that are trauma-informed, attachment-focused, and relationship-based. The application and action plan are really comprehensive, and evidence the excellent and thoughtful work done to get you to this stage”.
Adopt Birmingham surveyed their service to ask how DDP practice and principles make a difference to their work with adopters, families, and colleagues. Feedback included the following:
“DDP… gives workers the confidence to lean into some of the uncomfortable issues adoption raises particularly around attachment loss and the impact of trauma…”
“DDP practice has helped to ensure that the team around the child are also maintaining a therapeutic response and this approach can help to avoid / manage any conflict of interest / competing demands by different services /professional roles…”
“There is an underpinning of relationship practise which is underpinned by a service wide understanding and use of PACE. The language used with adopters reflects an embracing of DDP principles and the importance of curiosity, the two-hands of parenting, shared intention, and repair where there has been rupture”
DDP Connects UK congratulates everyone at Adopt Birmingham for their hard work and commitment to systemically embedding DDP. You can find out more about how your service can become a Partner Organisation, including a report from Ealing Children Services Connect Service, London, in our Partner Organisations section.
Jane Francis, Assistant Head of Service Adoption and Assistant RAA Lead at Adopt Birmingham, has provided a reflection about the process:
“Adopt Birmingham have been on a journey towards becoming a DDP Connects UK Partnership Organisation for the past 6 years. During this time, we have invested in a regular programme of DDP training for our staff across the service.
Through this, our social workers and our managers have become aware of the principles of DDP, and we have developed a shared understanding of the practice model. We have focussed time and energy on really embedded this way of being in all of our work, both organisationally and with families. We have learnt to trust that whilst ‘slowing down to get there faster’ can feel a challenge it really is a more helpful and productive way of supporting people.
We to try to bring the attitude of PACE to everything that we do and aim to model the ‘two hands of parenting’ in the way that we navigate challenging situations. We try to embrace the language and tone of DDP when working with our families and professional colleagues so as to convey our openness to understanding.
It has not always been an easy journey. We have really valued and continue to benefit from the regular reflective space that consultation with our DDP Consultant offers us and we provide this for our teams and managers. This space and relationship provides us safety in exploring the impact on us, of working with trauma and secondary trauma, loss and compromised attachment.
The reflective DDP space also helps us understand what we ourselves bring to this work and this in turn, helps us find helpful ways forward which benefit our children and adoptive families. The DDP consultations also helps us to think about how every part of the adopter and child’s adoption journey can be approached through a DDP lens.
Ideally, the whole system around the family would be emersed in DDP as addressing this would support a better understanding of the child and lessen the disconnect that children can experience in everyday life.”
