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UEA study of 48 Letter Swap users finds some adopted children grew closer to birth relatives
University of East Anglia researchers interviewed 48 people who used Letter Swap, an online adoption-contact platform piloted by eight agencies in England. Some families built stronger ties, though with no comparison group the study cannot say the platform beats annual letters.
The Scientist · Science desk
What happened
- Adoption England oversaw the Letter Swap pilot and asked Professor Elsbeth Neil's team at UEA to help implement it.
- The platform carries letters plus messages, images, voice recordings and videos, and keeps agency checks as an option.
- Participants who used the new features said videos and voice notes brought adopted children "to life" in a way annual letters never had.
- Some birth relatives lacked digital skills or reliable access to technology, and some feared losing agency support or handwritten letters.
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Why it matters
- constraint Only platform users were interviewed, so the findings cannot speak for birth relatives who never got online at all.
- exposure Children can now see a message read and left unanswered; participants raised that risk of disappointment, and some feared video could be emotionally overwhelming.
- cost Agencies that switch take on support work for birth relatives who struggle with technology, because the team says going digital needs careful support.
- decision With agency checks kept as an option, agencies can set the level of oversight family by family when they move contact online.
The study, published in Adoption & Fostering [6], set itself a feasibility test. The researchers wanted to know whether the prototype could reproduce the traditional letter system digitally, with the added option of exchanging other file types more often [9]. Their evidence is platform activity data plus interviews with 32 adoptive parents and 16 birth relatives [7]. That is two adopters for every birth relative [22]. The published account does not report the activity figures, such as how many families sent video or how often.
The system it would replace is old. The study comes 100 years after legal adoption was first introduced in England and Wales [18]. "For decades, post-adoption contact in England has largely revolved around letters being checked by and exchanged through adoption agencies once or twice a year," said Dr. Julia Rimmer of UEA's School of Social Work, the lead researcher [19][10]. "But this approach can be slow, impersonal and prone to breaking down over time," she said [11].
The team says the stronger relationships appeared in some families [1], and the most vivid accounts come from participants who used the new features [2]. Families who chose video may also have been the ones most eager for contact to begin with. Without a group kept on paper letters, the study cannot separate what the platform did from who chose to use it.
The individual cases are concrete. "For another family, multiple video exchanges helped a 12-year-old boy 'scratch an itch' and see and hear the birth relatives he missed, for the first time in six years," Rimmer said [3]. She described another relative too: "One grandmother caring for an adopted child's older sisters said watching videos of their younger brother provided reassurance that he was happy and well cared for" [5]. The team found digital contact worked best for children at a stage where they needed more answers, and often felt more natural and immediate than annual letters [4].
The same immediacy hurt one family. According to the article, one adopter described her daughters being left devastated after sending videos to their birth parents and then waiting months for a response [15].
On replacing the annual checked letter, the evidence supports a narrower claim. It shows the platform can do the letter's job for families who take it up, and that for some of them it added sound and moving pictures. It has not yet been tested against letters on outcomes such as whether contact lasts. Rimmer put it in terms of potential. "Our work shows how digital tools have the potential to modernize a system that has not been changed for decades," she said [20]. She also kept a place for other kinds of contact: "While face-to-face contact remains incredibly important, managed digital platforms can offer families a range of flexible ways to stay connected and help us move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach to adoption planning" [17].
What to watch
- Publication of Letter Swap's activity data, including how many pilot families exchanged video or voice notes and how often.
- A follow-up comparing platform families with families still on checked letters, to test whether contact lasts longer online.
- Whether Adoption England extends Letter Swap beyond the eight pilot agencies, and what support it funds for birth relatives without reliable access.