A Unique Child: Adoption - Finding a home

Government guidelines published earlier this year aim to remove obstacles to adopting children, particularly those who are older, have disabilities or have ethnic minority backgrounds.

The guidelines assert that adoption should not be denied if the child has a different ethnic or cultural background from their adoptive family, that overlooked children should have their options revisited, and that no parents should be turned away on the grounds of age, race, sexuality or marital status.

Announcing the guidelines, children's minister Tim Loughton said, 'It's unacceptable for vulnerable children to be denied the chance of a loving, permanent home when there are suitable parents available to adopt children. Adoption guidance published today makes clear that local authorities should be considering adoption as an important option for more children and should be pursuing this with more vigour.'

But with late adoptions now the norm - the average age for a child to be adopted is now just under four years old - and more than half of adopted children having experienced significant abuse or neglect, will the new guidance improve the system and ensure adoption is always in the best interests of the child?

The current system is dogged by delays, which may be hard to overcome, say experts. The average age a child enters the care system is now one year and four months, and by the time they are adopted, they have usually spent two years in the system.

'The causes of delay are numerous,' says John Simmonds, director of policy at the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, which contributed to the guidelines.

'The birth family will have a view when the child is removed and often feel that the local authority is not making the right decision. There then may be a lengthy legal dispute in the courts lasting up to a year. In the meantime, the baby is placed into foster care, with the risk of them having a number of moves before they are placed with adopters. The consequences of delay are a very serious for the baby and their development.

'These difficult issues are highlighted in this new guidance. Everyone needs to find ways of ensuring that there is minimal delay, but I don't underestimate this challenge. The fact remains that the older children get, the harder it is to find an adoptive family and the more challenges they will face in developing therapeutic parenting skills. Finding adopters who have the competence and motivation is quite a test.'

PARTNERSHIP WORKING

The guidance also seeks to encourage greater use of the national adoption register and for local authorities to work in close partnership with voluntary adoption agencies to find families for hard-to-place children in particular. But some in the sector think the rigidity of the current system has been exaggerated.

Adoption UK is a charity run by those in the adoptive community. It is seen as a beacon of support and advice for adopters. Chief executive Jonathan Pearce says, 'A limited proportion of local authorities have got a very hard-line or restricted attitude, but some reports in the media imply that the whole system is wrong, which is simply not true.'

A recent survey of adoptive parents by the charity about the service they received from adoption agencies found that two-thirds had good experiences and a third had bad experiences. The bad experiences included not being allowed to adopt because they were a different race from the child, or because of their single marital status, lack of wealth or their sexuality.

RACE AND ETHNICITY

Adoptive mother Anna Hayday believes that the situation in regard to race as a barrier to adoption is not exactly as it has been portrayed by the Government and the media. She defends the current approach and cautions against any rush to match families from different races.

'There must be a good match between adoptive family and child,' she says. 'To be approved to adopt my son, who is of mixed English/Irish/African-Caribbean heritage, the social workers had to try really hard to be sure that we were a good enough match. As a white English woman of Irish parents, they needed to know that I could provide him with enough understanding about all the different aspects of his heritage.

'Having worked for many years in multicultural primary schools, I have close relationships and friendships with families from many racial communities and have a specialist interest in diversity and equalities issues. This reassured them that I would have the awareness and understanding I was going to need to address the issues and feelings he might face with regard to his ethnicity. I believe they were right to take it seriously, and it has been one of many complex issues we have had to deal with as an adoptive family.

'That's what that safeguard was all about, and it is not as simple as just matching a child with the first family that wants them. Nothing about adoption is as simple as the Government, no doubt with the best of intentions, seems to want to make it.'

THERAPUTIC PARENTING

Educational psychologist Julia Jennings also believes safeguards must be maintained. 'What's important is getting this balance between the rigour of the adoption process and ensuring there is as minimal delay as possible,' she says. 'I think this document gives local authorities a good blueprint to do that, but I feel what they have missed is how to give adoptive parents a real idea of the babies' emotional issues and how babies' emotions develop.'

Ms Jennings is involved in the Time Together programme, an initiative where parent and child play and learn together. The sessions seek to bond parent and child and also teach parents how to recognise and respond to their babies' emotional development.

'We spend time talking about what it actually means to be a baby or a young child, and how they perceive the world differently from us. The newborn baby's brain has a more mature emotional centre (limbic system) than the thinking part (cortex). Therefore, if a baby has felt hunger because they haven't been fed, uncomfortable if their nappy has not been changed, or pain if they have been hit, research seems to indicate those memories go to the brain's limbic system where all emotional memories are stored.

'It means a child's body will remember the emotion they felt at the point, even if the thinking part of the brain does not. Their response to the present situation may relate to a previous unpleasant experience.

'I imagine the majority of children being adopted are likely to have experienced uncomfort in their lives. Perhaps they have not had the experience of being nurtured and cared for, of people understanding and responding to their needs. I don't feel there's any reference to this in the document. The document refers to available services for adopted families, but these are available too late - after the adoptive bonding process has proved difficult.'

ACHIEVING SUPPORT

Jonathan Pearce acknowledges that adoption is not particularly well funded, and that is not about to change in the current climate. The right to assessment is obviously a key part to the pre-adoption process, but post-adoption, the adoptive family must formally apply for a support needs assessment.

'There is a spectrum of need and not all will have significant need,' he says. 'For children adopted over the age of five, a third will experience no significant problems, while another third will struggle on a daily basis, and - most damagingly - the final third will result in the adoption being disrupted or completely breaking down at some point.

'This is a sign of lack of support, not a detriment to adoption, which has the best possible result for these children when properly supported.

'There are just under 4,000 children each year who are adopted, but these are the children who have probably had the worst start in life. It's such a fundamental decision that the Government and adoption agencies are taking.

'The Government do know this, but have no money to address it. The guidelines here focus on the front end of the process, and there needs to be a much stronger focus on continuing the system for adoptive support, because that is what will improve the outcomes for these children.'

This echoes John Simmonds at BAAF, who asserts that funding needs to be ring-fenced to enable change. But long-term partnership working between adoption agencies, child and adolescent services and post-adoption support organisations would appear to be the only way to build expertise and promise a better future for vulnerable children and the families who adopt them.

MORE INFORMATION

• Adoption UK, www.adoptionuk.org

• British Association for Adoption and Fostering, www.baaf.org.uk

• www.education.gov.uk/childrenandyoungpeople/families/adoption/b0072314 /guidance

• After Adoption, www.afteradoption.org.uk