A FOUNDATION has been launched to bring birth parents closer to the children they gave away in a bid to piece together the past life of an adopted child.

Connected for Life, part of the DFW Adoption scheme was launched yesterday at Auckland Castle, to celebrate months of hard work and fundraising for this innovative project.

In partnership with four local authorities, South Tyneside, Darlington, Durham and Hartlepool, the project will offer an opportunity for children placed for adoption to find out more about their life before adoption.

Project leader Alison Hoare said: "We aim to build on the adoption triangle of child, adoptive parents and birth parents so that the adopted child can make more sense of their family life.

"The children can learn what they are about, where they get their talents from and learn about the positive aspects of their lives before they were ever adopted and moved on."

Mrs Hoare said that traditionally, children move into adoption with little information about the family they came from and this often left questions that neither they nor their adoptive parents were able to answer.

She said: "As a team, we will gather anecdotal, factual and pictorial snapshots of a child's life to date and about the people who have been important to them.

"Packaged into a living history, this memory box will go with the child into their new family to help them remember and understand who they were and where they came from."

After gathering information about the adopted child, Connected for Life hopes to arrange foundation days where the two families finally meet.