Piecing together the patchwork: How a therapeutic school can help adopted children with their sense of identity.

This study sought to find out how staff in a therapeutic school could support adopted children with their sense of identity. It explores whether a therapeutic school can be a helpful environment for supporting identity development. Eight members of staff from one therapeutic school were interviewed, using a semi-structured interview format. A mixture of clinical and education staff were recruited to reflect the integrated nature of the school. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. The findings demonstrated that due to adopted children’s traumatic early experiences and multiple changes of caregivers, their sense of identity is disrupted. Therefore, they require additional support in this area in order to develop their sense of self. This study has shown that a therapeutic school is a helpful environment to provide this support. The study makes a number of recommendations for clinical and educational practice. It emphasizes the importance of parent work and the bringing together of professional networks in order support adopted children with their identity development. The study also makes a number of recommendations for further research. As the study was carried out in one specific therapeutic school, further research is needed to see if the findings are applicable to other schools for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties or mainstream settings. Key words: adopted children, identity, therapeutic school, therapeutic milieu.