What is our Letterbox service?

Letterbox enables adopted children to stay in touch with their birth families via letters so they can understand more about their personal history and retain links to key family members such as siblings.

The North Wales Adoption Service Letterbox is a service we offer to all children that have been adopted via the six north Wales authorities.

This is a personal arrangement that is made between the adopters and birth family to exchange information – and we facilitate this service on their behalf. The adoptive parents usually do this on behalf of the child/children that has been adopted. But of course, this does not mean that children cannot contribute. We have lots of children who enjoy getting involved by including a handprint or drawing, or sometimes even a handwritten letter.

We recommend that letters received from birth family are shared with the adoptive child, or children, when they are at an appropriate age to do so.

For adopted children

Letterbox contact is a positive experience in helping and supporting adopted children. It helps with:

• Retaining the links with significant birth family relatives
• Providing opportunities for an adopted child or young person to gain more knowledge and understanding about their personal family history and cultural background
• Supporting the young person’s understanding of their past and aide their identity through hearing about news from birth family and significant events
• Enabling a child to grieve their loss
• Enabling a child to develop a realistic understanding of the circumstances leading to separation (This is particularly useful in cases of parents who have additional needs)
• Reassuring a child about the wellbeing of birth relatives, especially siblings whether they are living with birth relatives or with an alternative family
• Preparing for possible future relationships with birth family members, which could facilitate face-to-face contact in the future if they’re interested.

For adoptive parents

For adoptive parents Letterbox exchange of information can support you to:

• Maintain positive links with birth family which will support the child’s identity
• Have a communication channel with the birth family, which could enable you to find out information not available at the time of adoption (medical history/conditions which could be hereditary)
• Maintain a good two-way relationship between adopters and birth family, which can alleviate the urge for older children to search on social media for birth family
• Help the child to move on and develop an attachment to new carers with the acknowledgment from birth family
• Create positive memories and provide an insight into the child’s life journey
• Promote stability in a new or existing placement by providing continuity and help bonds to be made

For birth family

For birth family a positive letterbox exchange of information can help:

• Reassure you and your family that the child is safe and well
• Give you important updated information about the child such as health, wellbeing and development
• Maintain positive links with the child, which will support the child’s sense of identity
• Assist the adoptive family in answering questions about the child’s past and encourage a positive relationship between you all
• Maintain the flow of communication which could perhaps lead to face-to-face contact in the future, if this is requested by the adopted person when they reach 18