When a Birth Relative Gets in Touch Online

The tip

If you find out that a birth relative has messaged your child, or that your child has found them, stay calm. Your child may be excited, frightened or guilty, and may expect you to be angry. If your child told you, thank them. Ask your child what was said, and don’t blame them, so that they keep telling you.

Before anyone replies, tell your adoption support team or your child’s social worker, and decide together what happens next. A practice guide by the researchers who study contact after adoption says unplanned contact can’t be completely prevented, and that children are more likely to come to their parents when both families have been talked about openly from the start. If it hasn’t happened yet, talk with your child about what they would do if a birth relative got in touch, check privacy settings together, and raise the subject from time to time so your child knows it is welcome.

Some messages are a safety matter. If the person is someone your child is not meant to see, asks your child to keep it secret or to meet, or sends anything sexual or frightening, leave the messages as they are, do not reply, do not view, copy, screenshot, save or forward any image, and act that day: tell the social worker or support team, and if neither can be reached, use the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page. If anything sexual is involved, there is a police route for reporting it online. CEOP (the police’s online child protection command). Report at https://www.ceop.police.uk/safety-centre/.

If your child tells you that someone is hurting them, stay calm, thank them for telling you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day. If the person hurting your child lives in your home or your child’s other home, go straight to children’s social care or the police. A national child protection helpline will talk it through with you. NSPCC, 0808 800 5000. Email help@nspcc.org.uk. Mon-Fri 10am-4pm by phone; email 11am-4pm, seven days a week. An email sent when the service is closed is not received. If the NSPCC service is closed and the concern cannot wait, call the police on 101. You can also contact the child’s local out-of-hours children’s social care, social work or social services team. If a child is in immediate danger, call 999. Help is free.

• Stay calm, thank your child if they told you, and ask them what was said.
• Before anyone replies, tell your adoption support team or your child’s social worker.
• If the person asks for secrecy or a meeting, leave the messages and act that day.

It goes with

• A Child With Two Families. For parents and carers whose child came to them through adoption, special guardianship, kinship care or fostering.
• Your Child’s Online World. For parents who have seen something on their child’s phone that they can’t unsee.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full.