By Sarah Cowell, June 2025.

Life story work is an activity undertaken with both children and adults designed to help them recognise their past, present and future. This is for families who will be, or have been adopted, fostered or been anywhere else within the care system during their childhood. The aim is to help children and young people reflect on their own personal journey. Children who live with their birth families have so many opportunities to know their past, however children separated from their birth families for whatever reason are often denied these opportunities and will be confused about their past. These individuals are likely to find it more difficult to develop socially and emotionally.

Try and imagine being separated from your family at an early age, sometimes in traumatic circumstances and being told you will now live with strangers. Imagine a lot of people talking about you and your family and trying to work out what your wishes and feelings are. Imagine yourself growing up not really understanding why your family was broken up and why you had to live with different families. There are thousands of children who have experienced this, and it would be challenging enough to process this as an adult but imagine being a child. Their memories of their life events and relationships will be very muddled and they will need support to process their feelings and emotions they experience.

Here, at Amber Family we make sure we take lots of photographs along with a sentence from Mummy and Daddy to record the milestones of the babies and children during their time with us, such as first bath, first night in a cot, going to the park, messy play etc. Parents are encouraged to engage in completing their children’s life story book which they will get to take home at the end of their assessment. If the decision is made that the family should leave placement together, then parents can show their child the book together as a reminder of how the parent worked hard to keep them together as a family. Whilst not all placements end this way and some parents and children will leave on different paths, two copies are provided in these cases. One copy is given to the child which can be used to help answer any questions they may have when they are old enough to understand their journey to date. Parent/s will also get a copy of the book to look back on, hopefully with some lovely memories of the time spent with their child at Amber Family.