Adoptees and adoptive parents needed for PhD study

20 May 2016

Christine, a University Lecturer, adult adoptee and adoptive Mum, has contacted us with the following request :

My name is Christine Lewis and I am a Senior Lecturer at Edge Hill University in Ormskirk, Lancashire. I’m presently engaged in completing my PhD through Lancaster University and have ethical approval for this.

I am interested in interactions between members of adoptive families, because of my own background as an adopted person and I have 2 adopted children, my daughter is 25 and my son is 26. The first phase of the study was to write up some of my experiences as an adoptee and an adoptive parent, the next stage, is to interview volunteers (anonymously) about their experiences which may be around certain ‘critical incidents’ as mine were. So I’m particularly looking for volunteers to interview who are;

1.Parents of adopted children who are in their late teens or early twenties, particularly parents of adopted daughters in their 20’s.

2. Adult adoptees of any age/gender who have met their birth parent(s).

From my first phase I have identified 4 events in my life/my children’s lives which I think are significant to adoptive family relationships;

1. Treasuring of keepsakes, cards and photos; transactions of my kinship practices

2. Sharing adoption documents with my son and daughter.

3. Meeting my birth parent

4. Negotiating Christmas with my birth mother

As I live in the North West of England I would ideally like to interview participants from this area, but I am willing to travel. If you did decide that you would like to volunteer I would be really pleased to hear from you. This would involve talking about your experiences in an unstructured way, not a formal interview at all. The PhD has been given ethical approval from Lancaster Research Ethics Committee so anything we discussed would be anonymised and not be identifiable to you or your family.

If you would like an informal chat to ask any questions before you decide if you would like to be involved please feel free to give me a ring on 01695 650837 or my email is lewisc@edgehill.ac.uk

Thank you.

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