Nursery World - A Unique Child: Inclusion

Practitioners should work closely with parents of adopted children who will often have a history of upheaval and trauma, says Anne O'Connor.

In recent years, the age at which the largest numbers of adoptions take place is between one and four years old. Some of these adoptions take place within the family but most are to 'non-relatives'. Many of these children will be entering nursery or reception class a relatively short time after they have moved into their adoptive home. Another important statistic to note is that the vast majority of children are adopted because of abuse or neglect (see box).

Children in public care or in adoptive homes, therefore, are highly likely to have experienced multiple trauma - the trauma that brought them into care in the first place, as well as the trauma of being removed from their birth families and into another home.

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