ADOPTED TWINS WRITE CHILDREN’S BOOK FOR ADOPTED FAMILIES

Nottingham-born adopted twins Sian Booth and Siobhan Rhodes have created a children’s book to raise awareness of modern day adoption and help build attachment for ‘forever families’.

Collecting the Diamonds tells the story of Nua, who arrives home with adoptive parents Toni and Jordan one day.

Many adopted children are survivors of trauma, and this story explores ‘healing the hurt’ and the typical challenges adoptive families face.

Funded by The Mighty Creatives, who support children in the East Midlands to access creativity, the story sees this new family create their own ‘diamond moments’ which help newly placed children like Nua overcome difficulties like food, sleep and impulse control.

The twins, now in their thirties, are both working mums in the city, and Siobhan is also an adoptive parent.

Sian comments:

‘Modern day adoption stories and post adoption support can be hard to find – and we thought as two working mums we didn’t have enough on our plate, so we set up a charity!’

Her sister Siobhan said,

‘Every day with your adopted child is an opportunity to build trust. The family in this book are in their early days of placement - like any new parent, you’re finding your feet and growing together. When we adopted our son, a social worker told me to collect the diamonds because parenting can be hard. It inspired us to write this book.’

Sian continues:

‘For us, it’s about modern adoptive families seeing themselves in this story and drawing strength from that. Diamond moments are anything, big or small where you share love as a family.’

The aim of this project is to share Nua’s story with as many adopted people as possible and by sharing this story together, families can create their own diamond moments. A video version of the story is available online and free copies will be circulated to libraries and adoption agencies.

Copies of this book and the video can be ordered here, or flick through our digital copy here.