Life Story Books/My Life, My Journey Work

Life Story Book is just one of the many elements of My Life, My Journey (MLMJ) work. The Life Story Book is often considered to be the end product, while the life journey work is the process of helping the child to internalise their story. While this may be the case for children in care, for pre-verbal and younger children who are adopted, the book may be the starting point. It will provide the foundation for the adoptive parent to help the child understand their early history and to answer the what, why, when and how questions they may have, in an age appropriate way and as they grow. It is the adoptive parent who will need to help the child process their information in the years ahead.

Derby City are committed in making sure all children in care have their life journey recorded for this is good practice, and for all those children placed for adoption it is a statutory requirement. Making a Life Story Book is more than creating a photograph album with identifying sentences giving dates, places and names. It is an account of a child's life in words, pictures and documents, and provides an opportunity for the child to explore and understand their early history. It needs to provide an honest, but sensitively written, account, and should be written in an age appropriate and child friendly way.

A Life Story Book should:

• Keep as full a chronological record as possible of a child's life;
• Integrate the past into the future so that childhood makes sense;
• Provide a basis on which a continuing Life Story can be added to;
• Be something the child can return to when they need to deal with old feelings and clarify and/or accept the past;
• Increase a child's sense of self and self-worth;
• Provide a structure for talking to children about painful issues.

A draft Life Story Book should be shared with panel at the point of an adoption match. The final Life Story Book should be passed to the adopters at the latest 10 working days after the adoption ceremony. i.e. the ceremony to celebrate the making of the Adoption Order; however it may be transferred to the adopters sooner depending on the age of the child and this will be addressed when planning the child's placement.

The process should be initiated, driven and coordinated by the child's social worker and carried out in coordination with the other people of significances who know the child, including carer(s), parents and other relatives, foster carers, adoptive parents, special guardians should be encouraged to contribute to the Life Story Book.

Time and care should be given to:

• Planning carefully how undertake the work;
• Reading the information about the child carefully and thoroughly;
• Collating the information in chronological order;
• Noting reasons for decisions;
• Noting gaps in the records and attempting to fill them;
• counselling children, parents, friends, relatives and carers etc., as necessary.

Presentation is very important in terms of validating the importance of the life story and motivating the child to want to read it and show it to others.

• Use a loose leaf folder;
• Always work on clean paper;
• Drawings and photos should be mounted;
• Use neat headings;
• If the child is unable/reluctant to write themselves, let them dictate what they want to say;
• Use good quality copies/photocopies of treasured photos, documents etc. and not the original;
• Get a balance of words and pictures;
• A responsible adult should keep hold of the book until it is finished;
• Keep a copy of it.

• Family tree - back three generations if possible;
• Photos of maternity hospital (and, for younger children, a clock showing the time);
• Weight, length, head circumference at birth;
• Birth certificate, if possible;
• Any items from the hospital (e.g. identity tag);
• Dates of first smile, sounds, words, tooth, steps etc;
• Photos of parents;
• Photos and maps of places where the child lived;
• Photos of relatives;
• Photos of friends;
• A truthful life history which is age appropriate. More detailed and potentially distressing information about the reasons why a child was adopted should be included in the Later Life Letter which is given to them when they are older and better able to cope and understand such information;
• Parents' stories;
• Details of siblings;
• The child's views and memories;
• Photos of workers and their roles;
• Story of the court process;
• Photos of carers;
• Story of family finding;
• Details of ceremonies (e.g. baptism);
• Anecdotes;
• Favourite foods, likes and dislikes.

Foster families and Residential Staff should be encouraged to record the story of the child's stay with them as fully as possible. Foster carers and Residential Staff must 'encourage the child to reflect on and understand her/his history, according to the child's age, and to keep appropriate memorabilia', including:

• Descriptions of what the child was like when they arrived, what they liked and disliked;
• Details of development (e.g. learning to ride a bike);
• Their own special memories of the child;
• Birthdays, Christmases and other family celebrations/outings/holidays etc. - photos, favourite places etc;
• Details and photos of the foster family (including extended family), home, pets etc., who they got on with and who they didn't;
• If appropriate, times when they had arguments, sulks etc;
• Special rituals the child liked;
• Souvenirs of school - photos, certificates, reports, photos of and stories from teachers;
• Contact visits;
• Illnesses;
• Photos of birth family with foster family;
• Crafts/pictures completed in the foster home/school/playgroup;
• Anecdotes.

Where appropriate, this memorabilia should be stored safely in a suitable box – a "memory box". To further support this guidance please refer to My Life, My Journey and Life Story Guidance.

See Printing requirements for when requesting Life Story Book click here.

Children need truthful and honest explanations that they can understand - that means using language they know.

It is important that:

• Questions are answered as honestly as possible;
• Adults admit when they don't know the answer and offer to try and find out (rather than making something up);
• Children are helped to accept that not everything can be explained or understood;
• Information is given sensitively and honestly - protection and evasion leads to confusion and fear;
• Adults help children to realise which feelings are healthy and acceptable by discussing their own feelings frankly. If feelings are ignored, children get the message that to express them is wrong - bottling them up can lead to negative behaviour like aggression or withdrawal;
• Adults never pretend abusive/bad relationships didn't exist.