Walk Together

Walk Together focuses entirely on adoption in the UK, supporting mothers, fathers, children, and anyone connected to the adoption journey. We understand that adoption can be emotional, complex, rewarding, and challenging all at once, and our aim is to create a space where every part of that experience is acknowledged.

We publish weekly blogs covering everything and anything to do with adoption: family life, identity, attachment, school, trauma, birth family contact, and the realities of parenting before, during, and after adoption. If there’s a topic you’d love us to explore or an area where you feel more guidance is needed, please get in touch. We’d be very happy to add your ideas to our content plan.

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Two empty chairs side by side, representing the absence many adopted children feel when grieving a birth sibling they have never met

When your child grieves a birth sibling they have never met

It often arrives as a question with no warning. Do I have a sister? Where is my brother? For many adopted children, birth siblings are a presence in their inner lives long before they are a presence in their conversations. The grief is real, often invisible, and rarely talked about.

3 days ago6 min read

Close-up of a parent and child holding hands, representing the slow and quiet work of bonding with an adopted child

When you didn't fall in love at first sight, the bonding stories adoptive parents rarely admit to

There is a quiet thing many adopters know but rarely say out loud. The moment they had imagined, the first time they met their child or first held them at home, did not feel the way the books and films had suggested it would. It did not feel like falling in love. It felt awkward, or unreal, or like meeting someone for the first time and trying very hard to act normal.

Sep 115 min read

A quiet bedroom at the end of the day, representing the space sleep and adopted children need to find rest

Sleep and adopted children, why rest can be disrupted for years

Most adopters know the bedtime struggle. The bath, the books, the calm, then a child who wakes hours later, or cannot fall asleep at all, or sleeps in fits and starts in your bed long past the age you imagined. Standard parenting advice rarely matches the reality. Sleep in adopted children is its own thing.

Sep 45 min read

A young child playing in a summer garden, representing the gentle outdoor rhythm that supports adopted children through the school holidays

Routines that hold, helping adopted children through the school holidays

For most families, the summer holidays are a chance to slow down. For adopted families, the same six weeks often look very different. The structure that has been holding your child quietly all term, the morning routine, the school day, the predictable adult expectations, falls away all at once. Many adopters describe their child as visibly more dysregulated in the holidays than in term time.

Aug 285 min read

A father reading a bedtime story to his child, representing the quiet co-regulation children need from adoptive parents after contact days

The hidden hangover of contact days, and how to help your child afterwards

Most adopters know the contact day itself can be hard. What is less often talked about is the 48 to 72 hours afterwards, when the regulation that held during the meeting starts to come undone. This is the contact day hangover, and it is one of the most consistently underestimated parts of adoptive parenting.

Aug 75 min read

A pile of vintage letters tied with twine alongside an old photograph, representing traditional letterbox contact in adoption

Letterbox contact in the age of social media and DNA tests

Letterbox contact was designed in a world without Ancestry, 23andMe, Instagram or TikTok. None of those existed when most current letterbox arrangements were put in place. What that means in practice is that the slower, intermediary-managed version of contact most adopters were prepared for no longer reflects the actual landscape your child is growing up in.

Jul 315 min read

Why adopted children can want birth family contact and fear it at the same time

Many adopters describe the same scene. Their child asks something curious about their birth family, then within hours becomes anxious, irritable, or completely silent when contact is mentioned. The wanting and the fearing seem to switch on at the same time. They do.

Jul 245 min read

Two figures walking together on a countryside path, viewed from behind, symbolising the long view of birth family contact in adoption

What three decades of research now tells us about birth family contact

When you sat in your preparation groups, the assumption may have been that less contact was safer. Three decades of research, and a major shift in UK practice guidance in 2024, now suggest something close to the opposite. This post walks through what the long view of the research really shows, and what it means for adoptive families now.

Jul 178 min read

A silhouette of a woman looking out a window at night, representing the alert, scanning state of hypervigilance in adoptive parents

Hypervigilance in adoptive parents, when your nervous system won't switch off

It is 2am. Your child has been asleep for hours. You have heard a sound that is probably nothing. Your body is already alert, already scanning, already half-out of bed. This is hypervigilance. For many adoptive parents, it is one of the most exhausting and least talked about features of the work.

Jun 196 min read

Understanding UK adoption routes, from agency adoption to early permanence

If you are at the very beginning of your adoption journey, this blog will guide you through those routes in a clear, grounded, and reassuring way. By the end, you should feel more confident in understanding which pathway might suit your family and what each option involves.

Nov 28, 202510 min read

It takes a village: How extended relatives can nurture adopted children

Being part of an adoptive family isn’t about walking on eggshells or memorising rules. It’s about understanding that every interaction you have - every calm hello, every kept promise - becomes part of how a child learns to feel safe.

Oct 17, 20257 min read

Pets and adoption: The surprising role animals can play in a child’s healing

Research has shown that the human-animal bond goes far beyond affection. Animals can support attachment, regulate stress responses, and even influence the chemistry of the human body.

Oct 10, 20259 min read

Understanding attachment styles in children: What every parent should know

This blog explores the four main attachment styles: secure, insecure-avoidant, insecure-ambivalent (sometimes called resistant), and disorganised. For each one, we look at where it comes from, the science behind it, how it may present in children’s daily lives, and examples of why it might develop - not only through trauma but also through ordinary family circumstances.

Oct 3, 202511 min read

When their body says no: Understanding shutdowns, freeze responses and emotional numbing in adopted children

Imagine a child in school being asked to read aloud in front of the class. The task feels overwhelming, and the body reacts instantly. The child stares at the page, unable to move or respond, their system frozen in a protective state. This is not a conscious decision. It is the body’s way of saying, “This is too much."

Sep 26, 20258 min read