Hello and welcome to our Kinship week live with Dr Paul Shuttleworth. We chat about the voices of children and Dr Paul's new book, Listening to Children about Kinship care, child welfare and permanence.

You can download the book for free here and please do as Dr Paul worked hard to ensure it was available at no cost and we want to support the excellent work he's doing.

We do chat more broadly about Kinship and the state of the broader context.

As always if you’ve experience of adoption, fostering or special guardianship from any perspective personal or professional and would like share that on the podcast please get in touch through the Facebook page, BlueSky or email us at AandFpodcast@gmail.com

Listen/subscribe on iTunes here Spotify here

Hello and welcome to the A&F podcast.

Over the next episodes we’re focusing our gaze on the issue of adoption disruption. It’s a hugely sensitive subject matter with the impact on children, adults and professionals often being catastrophic.

Here I speak to Fiona Wells, Adult adoptee, adoptive parent, social worker and director of PATCH She has direct experience of the challenges that families can face as well as bringing together many families looking to improve the adoption and care system having experienced difficult interactions with it.

As always if you’ve experience of adoption, fostering or special guardianship from any perspective personal or professional and would like share that on the podcast please get in touch through the Facebook page, BlueSky or email us at AandFpodcast@gmail.com

Listen/subscribe on iTunes here Spotify here

Hello and welcome to this episode of the A&F podcast, we're on the cusp of Kinship week so we look a the report published this week "Handle With Care: Annual survey of kinship carers 2025" view here. Parts of it dovetail with the DfE's Family Routes: Children who return to care research which we discuss and you can view here.

Of course we banter around the issues and unpack our takes, or attempts at takes, on the reports.

If you're an adoptive parent and struggling with challenging behaviour you can join the Walking with Families FB group here.

FASD Ireland's research can be viewed here.

As always if you’ve experience of adoption, fostering or special guardianship from any perspective personal or professional and would like share that on the podcast please get in touch through the Facebook page, BlueSky or email us at AandFpodcast@gmail.com

Listen/subscribe on iTunes here Spotify here

Hello and welcome to the A&F podcast.

Over the coming episodes we’re focusing our gaze on the issue of adoption disruption. It’s a hugely sensitive subject matter and we’ve talked to a range of people and professionals impacted by it, we haven’t spoken to children or adult adoptees. That’s more a reflection on our network not a policy decision.

Here I speak to solicitor Nigel Priestley from Ridley and Hall, he is an adoptive parent and has focused his work on supporting adoptive parents navigate what can be a very challenging process when children can no longer live at home.

It is to hard listen to the challenges families face and Nigel offers insight as to the impact on them and the difficulties that they face.

As always if you’ve experience of adoption, fostering or special guardianship from any perspective personal or professional and would like share that on the podcast please get in touch through the Facebook page, BlueSky or email us at AandFpodcast@gmail.com

Listen/subscribe on iTunes here Spotify here

Hello and welcome to the A&F podcast.

Over the next episodes we’re focusing our gaze on the issue of adoption disruption. It’s a hugely sensitive subject matter with the impact on children, adults and professionals often being catastrophic. We’ve talked to social workers, adoptive parents, adult adoptees, solicitors and adoptive parents but not children.

Here I speak to Ruth and she shares her experience of disruption pre adoption order. It is a hard listen but I’m sure you agree it highlights some of the systemic challenges families face as well as the lifelong impact on everyone in the home.

As always if you’ve experience of adoption, fostering or special guardianship from any perspective personal or professional and would like share that on the podcast please get in touch through the Facebook page, BlueSky or email us at AandFpodcast@gmail.com

Listen/subscribe on iTunes here Spotify here

Hello and welcome to this, what feels like a marker in the year, episode looking at the 2025 Adoption Barometer (click here). We get AUK’s Becky Brooks on to run us through what we know and new stuff.

We unpack some of the news before we get to that, ie a new children’s minister, FASD Ireland’s very exciting new report (click here) and Al’s peer support community, Walking with Families, (click here).

Becky brings real insight personally and professionally and she opens up the data as well as analysis some of the bigger issues that come up in the conversation. It’s a great chat that get’s into some interesting areas.

As always if you’ve experience of adoption, fostering or special guardianship from any perspective personal or professional and would like share that on the podcast please get in touch through the Facebook page, BlueSky or email us at AandFpodcast@gmail.com

Listen/subscribe on iTunes here Spotify here

Hello and welcome to conversations from the A&F Network.

In this episode I speak to Caitlyn Newblé the CEO and founder of All in the therapy of music. She shares her experience of the transformational influence music brought to her. Her vision is to make music accessible and affordable by bringing experienced and advanced musicians into schools.

You can visit her website here.

As always if you’ve experience of adoption, fostering or special guardianship from any perspective personal or professional and would like share that on the podcast please get in touch through the Facebook page, the app formerly known as Twitter or email us at AandFpodcast@gmail.com

Listen/subscribe on iTunes here

Spotify here

Google here

Hello and welcome to conversations from the A&F Network.

It’s a tough but really important conversation. We chat about how this issue shows up in the lives of children and young people, especially in schools and online, and why it matters so much for those of us working with or parenting children and young people.

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