Mummy, daddy - am I adopted?

The advice and counselling service is to be run by the charity After Adoption which has been brought in by Blackburn with Darwen Council.

Garry Johnson, operations manager for After Adoption, said: "It splits into three main areas. First those who have been adopted, and helping them come to terms with that, and trace their birth parents if that is what they want.

"Secondly there are mothers who have given up children for adoption and that is a very painful thing. Sometimes they want to meet other parents in that position, or they may want to find out something about the children they have given up.

"Then there are adoptive families might need help dealing with all the issues that come up."

After Adoption works with councils across the North West, North East and Wales. It was set up in December 1990 by its chief executive Maureen Crank, who was this year awarded the MBE in recognition of her work.

The organisation has more than 100 voluntary staff. The launch of the new service took place at Ewood Park and included talks from Maureen Crank and Neville Ball who was helped by the charity to find his birth mother and now helps others trace their natural parents. Maureen Crank said: "We offer advice, information, counselling and family work, as well as a helpline.

"When the local authority goes into a partnership with us we have a commitment to deliver the services locally. We have premises here so people will be offered an appointment in Blackburn."

She added: "It is now widely acknowledged that the children and young people who need adoptive families will have experienced very disruptive lives. The families who take these children will need ongoing support.

"We believe from our experience that all parties to adoption, such as adopted people, birth families and adoptive families, need local services that are readily available to dip into." Councillor Maureen Rishton, Blackburn with Darwen Council lead member for social services, said the partnership was something the council had been working towards since it became a unitary authority.

She said there were children in care in the borough who would be adopted by local families, and she added: "If we can give them help and advice there is a better chance of these being a success."

After Adoption's helpline number is 0161 839 4930.

Case study one

LISA Brooks, 31, from Darwen was adopted when she was a baby but aged 18 and armed with her newly acquired birth certificate, went to the address on it to search for her natural mother.

When she got there she found out the house had been bulldozed.

After knocking on a neighbour's door she learned her uncle lived nearby, but then also discovered her birth mother had recently died.

It was only many years later, after getting in touch with her half sister, that Lisa Brooks then contacted After Adoption when she saw a leaflet about their service at the Relate office in Blackburn.

She said meeting her sister had made her mother more real for her.

She said: "It's really good but it's weird as well. The first thing my sister did when we met was look at my hands. All the women in our family have similar hands. But I had had to hold up my hands for inspection in the middle of Waterloo station."

Lisa said: "I was anxious about ringing the helpline, but after I did they phoned me back a couple of weeks later and arranged my first counselling session."

She now sees a counsellor once a fortnight. She explained that the value of the counselling was the people at After Adoption often had first-hand experience of adoption, and understood the guilt adopted children feel in tracing their natural family, that they are betraying their adoptive parents.

Now a mother-of-three, Lisa said: "It's useful when you find that how you feel is normal."

Case study two

NEVILLE Ball, 64, from Whitefield, Manchester, first contacted After Adoption in 1991 -- just months after the organisation was set up -- for help in searching for his parents.

They advised him how to go about searching for his natural parents from whom he had been separated since he was three months old, and with the help of a genealogist he tracked down his birth mother.

He said: "I had the support of a lady there called Sue Greenwood who helped me through it. I think it was very important to have that help.

"One of the phenomena that adoptees have is they feel this guilt that if they do search for their birth parents they are betraying their adoptive parents.

"But there is a need for a lot of adoptees to know where their roots are, and the circumstances in which they were born. It's all part of their identity."

He added: "This has helped me tremendously. Until I approached After Adoption I lacked a lot of self esteem, feeling worthless."

Neville now helps to run the search room at After Adoption's headquarters in Manchester, assisting others to track down their birth parents.