There are many established techniques of presenting a child’s Life Story to an adopted child; some children will have a Life Story book. Digital platforms are now being used to safely store memories and photographs and lots of resources are available to help adoptive parents to be the narrator of the child’s story and help them to deal with potentially difficult or upsetting questions.
This week in a workshop with a group of social workers from a regional adoption agency, Cornerstone did some Life Story work using 360 virtual reality experiences of being in utero and seeing the world from a young child’s point of view. Transporting the social workers to the child’s reality using VR helped them to feel how the child might have felt and they were better able to construct narratives and find the words to help their prospective and current adopters with challenging questions.
It was also interesting to see the level of empathy increase for the birth parents in the session as seeing their current situation and then exploring their life story was helpful in putting their behaviour into context. This is especially helpful for adopters in helping their children create links with their past, which has been proven to result in more successful adoptions and less placement breakdowns. Doing the exercise as an RAA also resulted in a lot of knowledge sharing within the group too which they found very useful.
If you are interested in learning more about how Cornerstone uses VR to do Life Story work please do get in touch on info@thecornerstonepartnership.com