Adoption East Midlands Newsletter August 2025

Youth worker Aimee Sharpe shares powerful insights on why listening to young people, especially those who are adopted can transform lives.

At Adoption East Midlands, we know that when young people feel truly heard their confidence, identity, and emotional well-being grows.

In the short video, Aimee explores the importance of youth voice and how to positively impacts young people and their families.

Adoption East Midlands invites adoptive parents to register their young people for the Youth Connect Club—a 10-week programme starting Monday 22 September 2025.

Designed to build confidence, friendships, and life skills, the club explores key topics like body image, boundaries, and social media through creative, supportive activities.

It’s a safe space where adopted youth can connect, grow, and be heard. Limited spaces available for the club, so register your interest today.

We are continuing to develop our support for young adopted adults. Currently, there is a group who meet in the south of the region on a monthly basis, upcoming meetings are due to take place on Monday 15 September, Monday 13 October, Monday 10 November and Monday 8 December.

The group provides an opportunity for young adopted adults to meet together socially and talk about their lived experiences, enabling us to develop appropriate support services.

We are looking to develop a group that meets in the north of the region and whilst this is still in its early stages, an initial meeting is planned for July.

TRECS is specifically for parents who have adopted children from a different race, ethnicity and/ or culture to their own. TRECS is led by One Adoption Yorkshire and  provides a space for adopters to discuss challenges, seek advice and share experiences related to their adopted child's identity development.

TRECS supports the promotion of racial and cultural identity and explores strategies to manage racism or prejudice that adopted children may face. There are opportunities for carefully selected speakers to offer advice using their own experiences and research.

The group meets every fourth Thursday of the month, 7.30pm to 9pm via Microsoft Teams. 

One adopter said: "Our lives were filled with daily microaggressions, covert and overt racism, although they were not recognised in this way –we just absorbed it, without knowing the impact it was having on our mental health and well-being".

For general enquiries you can contact the One Adoption Yorkshire Advice Line at adoptionadvice@oneadoptionwy.leeds.gov.uk.

Join Nottinghamshire Police and the East Midlands Special Operation Unit as they host a free webinar for parents, carers and school staff to support the learning around how to protect yourself and your child online including security, privacy and parental controls.

This informative webinar helps parents think about their children’s digital footprint and offers helpful hints and tips around social media safety settings as well as giving parents some context around the current threats that parents are experiencing in today's cyber landscape.

The next webinar will be held on Thursday 11 September at 5pm to 6.30pm.

We were really pleased to have recent input at an Adoption East Midlands (AEM) Virtual Learning Event from the Brain Injury Living Life (BRILL) team from Nottingham Children’s Hospitals with a presentation about Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) in childhood from Dr Emily Bennett (Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Paediatric Neuropsychologist) and Dr Denise Crozier (Consultant in Paediatric Neurodisability and Neurorehabilitation).

It was a chance to hear about some of the outcomes for children, some challenges and where there may be overlap with developmental trauma or neurodiversity, and an opportunity to think about how to support children, young people and their families and make the best use of available services.

One of the key takeaways was to “Think ABI”, if you think this may be relevant to you and your family, please have a look at the Child Brain Injury Trust website as a starting point.

Adoption England is a collaboration of regional adoption agencies working together nationally with a small central team, with a vision to modernise adoption to better meet the needs of children and families.

Adoption England have a news page where they regularly publish valuable information, studies and reports in relation to a wide range of adoption topics.