Recently, at a meeting of an advisory group to the Adoption Board, a remark was passed by an adoption agency staff member that unregulated tracing, i.e., people doing their own trace, was leading to "chaos." This was given as their reason for not providing adopted people with their original first names.

Nothing was said to back this up, either with statistics, case reports, complaints or even anecdotal evidence. It was presented as a bald fact.

Thinking about this afterwards, I came to the conclusion that such assertions need to be — must be — challenged whenever they are made.

AdoptionIreland has long advocated that people own their own trace and do their own trace. We firmly stand over this position, and nothing we have seen recently serves to change that. We have provided information to adopted people, to natural parents and to their families for many years now, enabling them to do just that. There are many reasons why we adopted this position originally and continue to stand over it.

Firstly, nobody is better motivated to find the person being sought than the person who *actually* wishes to find them, rather than an adoption agency or health board social worker. To such people, well meaning as they may be, we are just one more case among dozens, possibly hundreds, on a waiting list.

To the adopted person (or natural family member) searching, it is something hugely important. They're not going to put it off because another case is a higher priority, or because their boss just handed them a file for a couple wanting to be assessed as suitable to adopt and the health board has a legal obligation to assess every applicant, no matter how old or unsuitable. They're not going to stop because the paper trail got cold, or the social worker couldn't think of another avenue to explore.

Case in point: one of our list members recently completed their own trace after their health board social worker admitted failure. They found their natural mother very simply — by getting their birth cert, finding their natural mother's name on it, and looking in the phone book.

Hardly rocket science — but it defeated a health board in possession of the full adoption file!

Secondly, in the vast majority of cases, a person conducting their own trace will be much more careful and respectful about making actual contact. Regrettably, we still hear of certain nuns finding natural mothers by contacting the local parish priest, or relatives of the natural mother who knew nothing of the adoption, betraying her confidence (and once again highlighting the myth of "birthmother confidentiality").

And as for natural parents tracing adopted people — when this is left to agencies, it is still, unbelievably, their practice to write to the adoptive parents of the adopted person — despite the adopted person being an adult in their own right, over the age of 18!

Lastly, the process of tracing is a healing one. Of the hundreds of people I know who have traced, not one has regretted doing so — even where the answer was "No, I don't want contact." The journey itself is a healing one. This is recognised by such experts in the field as BAAF (British Association for Adoption & Fostering), where getting the adopted person to do their own trace is their preferred method.

So — people doing their own traces causes chaos?

No.

Rather, I think adopted people are being left to deal with the true cause of chaos — unregulated adoption agencies!

Agencies who:

• Never sought proof of a woman's identity when she placed a child, even though their own files show they were suspicious;
• Knowingly allowed illegal adoptions to take place;
• Knowingly allowed false names to be used;
• Falsified name & address records themselves;
• Passed these adoptions over to be rubber-stamped by the Adoption Board.

That is where chaos lies. We are merely picking up the pieces and dealing with the consequences.