Steering group
Listening to lived experience: How Adopt South shapes its adoption services
At Adopt South, we are committed to listening carefully to the views and feedback of the families and young people we support. Lived experience plays a central role in how our services develop, helping us remain responsive, inclusive and effective.
Meaningful conversations and working together shape our services
We value meaningful conversation and collaboration rather than token consultation.
Feedback from people with lived experience of adoption is actively used to inform service design, delivery and continuous improvement, helping us better support families at every stage of their adoption journey throughout their life.
Our Steering Group and focus groups
To ensure lived experience is meaningfully heard and embedded across our work, we have established a Steering Group, supported by three dedicated focus groups:
- Adoptive parents
- Adoptees
- Birth parents
Our focus groups play a central role in shaping and improving Adopt South’s services. They are consulted on new developments, policies, training and innovations, ensuring our work reflects the experiences, needs and priorities of those most closely connected to adoption.
These groups provide safe and supportive spaces for individuals to share their views and reflect on their experiences. Their insights are fed directly into the Steering Group, helping to inform service planning, decision-making and continuous improvement across our work.
Influencing decisions at the highest level
Together, the Steering Group and focus groups help ensure Adopt South’s services continue to develop in ways that genuinely reflect lived experience.
To ensure these voices are heard at a strategic level, a representative from the Steering Group attends Adopt South Governance Board meetings when appropriate. This enables insight from lived experience to directly inform strategic discussions and organisational decision-making.
Get involved – Join our Steering and Focus Groups
If you would like to know more about our focus and/or our Steering Group, or you would like to be involved, please email Debbie and Lee at [email protected].
You can also read more about some of our Steering Group members below.
Meet the Steering Group
Gethin Jones
My name is Gethin Jones and I am a birth parent, and this means my child was adopted.
We are all products of our childhoods and environments. I believe that our childhood experiences contribute to the person, choices and decisions we make as an adult.
I grew up in the social care system and experienced various forms of trauma, and this led me down a road of addiction and criminality, it was this that led to my child being adopted.
Today I use all of my experiences as a child to help shape services, break stereotypes and help those trapped in systems to see that change is possible.
I am grateful to be part of the Adopt South Steering Group.
Laura O'Halloran
I am an adoptive mum of twin boys. My husband and I adopted them ten years ago. A few years after this I decided to become a volunteer mentor for Adopt South where I supported prospective adopters on their own adoption journeys. I loved being able to give back and to share my own lived experiences of the adoption process and the challenges and joys of being a parent to two wonderful boys.
In July 2023, I joined Adopt South as a Mentor Coordinator. In my role I coordinate all our volunteer adoptive parent mentors, ensuring that everyone who can benefit from the experience and wisdom of an experienced adopter is able to access the volunteer adoptive parents who work with us.
Being part of the Steering Group brings together my experience as an adoptive parent and my work role within Adopt South. I feel there is great value in being able to consider and appreciate all situations we discuss from two different viewpoints: both as an adopter and a member of staff.
Nigel Himmel
My name is Nigel Himmel and I’m an adopted person. I was adopted at the age of one, after spending my early months in foster care and children’s homes. These early experiences had a lasting impact on my ability to form attachments—challenges that only became fully apparent as I grew older.
I have a deep interest in understanding how the trauma of early separation, adoption, and rejection affects children, and how we can better support them in overcoming these barriers to lead happy, fulfilling lives.
Professionally, I am a former Headteacher and now work with some of the most disadvantaged and hard-to-reach children in our society. I am passionate about education and firmly believe that every child deserves the opportunity to learn and thrive. I work tirelessly to make that a reality.
I’ve been a member of the Adopt South Steering Group for nearly two years. It’s a privilege to contribute to a system that has had such a profound impact on my life, and to help shape the support available for adopted children and their families.
Liz Baker
Hi, I’m Liz and I am married to my wife, Angela. We became mums five years ago when we adopted our two children, our daughter is now 13, and our son is 10. Becoming a family through adoption has been the most life-changing, challenging, and rewarding journey we’ve ever taken.
I’m proud to be part of the steering group for Adopt South, helping to shape the support and services available to adoptive families across the region. As a mentor, I’m here to walk alongside you, whether you’re just beginning to explore adoption or are already navigating the ups and downs of adoptive parenting. I believe in the power of community, shared experience, and knowing that someone truly understands what you’re going through.
Joel
I am Joel and was born in Leicester in 1988 and was taken into foster care at 1 years old. After my birth mother who was 16 years at this point, struggled to look after me properly.
After foster care, I was placed with my adoptive mother in Portsmouth. l had an enjoyable and loving childhood and had everything I needed from my adoptive mum growing up. However, as a teenager I struggled with pent up aggression and got into petty crime and a lot of fighting, until I found boxing.
I then spent 15 years in the Royal Navy at sea on operational tours, boxing and became a Personal Trainer Instructor. I went to university at Buckinghamshire New University in 2020 and finished my degree in 2022 with a 2:1. l am now a business owner and involved in various businesses in Portsmouth.
I am part of Adopt South’s Steering group and enjoy sharing my personal experience of adoption in the hope it might help shape decisions and practices for adopted children and adoptive parents to benefit from.
Jason
Hi, I’m Jason. My wife and I adopted our two amazing children 10 years ago, and I can honestly say it’s been the most life-changing and rewarding journey we’ve ever been on. Like many adopters, we went into the process not fully knowing what to expect — but with open hearts and a strong sense of wanting to give children a safe, loving, and permanent home.
Over the past decade, adoption has shaped every part of our lives. It’s brought challenges, of course — moments of uncertainty, learning curves we never saw coming, and the kind of emotional growth that only comes from truly understanding what your child needs and how to meet them where they are. But more than anything, it’s brought joy, pride, and a deep sense of purpose. Watching our children grow into who they are today has been the greatest privilege.
I’m really passionate about giving back to the adoption community, and I love volunteering wherever I can — whether that’s speaking with prospective adopters, supporting training sessions, or just being there to share our story. If opening up about our experiences helps even one person feel more informed, supported, or encouraged, then it’s worth it every time.
Adoption is a unique and powerful way to build a family, and I’m always happy to play a small part in helping others on that path.
Esther
I was taken to a children’s home 24 hours after I was born and I became Esther, Nigel’s sister at six weeks of age when I was adopted. We lost our dad to cancer when I was three years old, which compounded a sense of loss and abandonment from a very early stage. This said however, I am incredibly grateful for the life I’ve been given.
I am now fortunate to have three children of my own and I remember the joy and the overwhelming feeling of holding my first born, thinking this was the first day of my life to be meeting a blood relative. I have since successfully traced my maternal birth family which has been loving, challenging but also very healing. It has also been positively affirming of the life I’ve shared with my adopted family.
Professionally, I trained and worked as an Occupational Therapist for the NHS and after my rotation was asked to specialise in the mental health sector. In recent years, I became a full-time carer for my mum (adopted mum) wanting and needing to give back to the woman who gave me so much.
I have been a volunteer for Adopt South for about a year, sharing my lived experience as an adopted person, to help guide practice, and policy development as part of a mixed lived experience group. This steering group has been very moving, immensely triggering at times but very genuine and real and I commend Adopt South for looking at their service in such a 3 dimensional, transparent and inclusive way with children and their wellbeing at the centre of their practice.
