Facing up to Facebook

Listed in The Independent's Ten best Parenting books. See the feature here.

The “social” use of the internet has had a huge impact on society and the way people communicate with one another. Social networking sites such as Facebook have made finding and contacting people easier than ever before, with both positive and negative outcomes. 

The use of Facebook has already had an impact on many adoptive families and has the potential to affect many more. Increasingly, young people are using it and other web sites to trace and contact their birth parents and other birth relatives.  Birth relatives are using the internet to trace their children. Once they have made contact, adopted young people may go on to have phone calls and even meetings with their birth parents or brothers and sisters – often in secret and therefore bypassing the support and safeguards that are usually in place.

Facing up to Facebook examines the way the internet, social networking and other technologies are changing the landscape of adoption contact, search and reunion. It is the first UK guide to explore the many pressing questions and concerns facing adoptive parents:

• What do adoptive families, adopted children and birth families need to know about adoption in the Facebook age?
• How can they be equipped for new challenges?
• What do adoptive parents need to know about protecting privacy and security in the best interests of their children and wider family?
• How can adoptive parents manage the complex situations that arise from unauthorised and unmediated contact?
• What help and support is available

The guide demystifies the technology behind social networking sites, provides a practical explanation of how they work and tackles key issues such as internet safety, privacy and identity protection. Facing up to Facebook provides a considerable amount of information, raises important questions and offers essential advice. Case studies and quotations enable others’ experiences to be shared, and reveal the potential and very significant risks that some people have experienced. Although it does not provide any easy answers, the guide does include hard-won insights from adoptive parents and adoption workers who have had to face up to the impact of Facebook.