Adoption & Fostering

Foster carers have an important role to play in maximising the quality of any contact between children and their parents and monitoring its effects on the child. This article explores how a sample of foster carers view family contact and the professional support they receive concerning their role in this activity. It draws on a large-scale survey (N = 1405) of English foster carers conducted in 2011 as part of the Social Work Practices evaluation. Data provided by those carers who had had difficulties relating to contact (N = 405) were further analysed thematically. Foster carers with disabilities and those experiencing difficulties in contact arrangements were less satisfied with support from the child’s social worker than other foster carers. Foster carers valued social workers who considered the interests of all parties affected by contact plans and decisions. The practice implications of the findings are discussed.

This article presents a rationale for delivering training in play skills to groups of foster carers and adopters, and others who work with children and young people in the care system. The aim is to emphasise the relevance of play for facilitating emotional growth and regulation, and to demonstrate how ‘playing in relationship’ can support children who have experienced abuse or trauma in their primary relationships. The article includes a number of suggestions for activities that can be incorporated into training and discussion of how a playful approach to adult learning can enhance the experience. Evaluation comments by participants are also included and possibilities for future carer training programmes are considered.

Holding therapy, an intervention often used in the treatment of foster and adopted children, has been rejected by professional groups on grounds of lack of evidentiary support and of potential harmfulness. Nevertheless, some British proponents have continued to advocate its use. Is this support brought about by the familiarity of concepts used in this treatment? This article reviews the history of related concepts and methods in Britain. It is concluded that a long history of British involvement with related ideas may have encouraged approval of holding therapy, but that ethical concerns argue against its use.

Intercountry adoption (ICA) in the UK has historically been a small-scale practice, ‘tolerated’ at best, virtually unregulated and arguably privatised in nature. With the primary purpose of enabling the ratification of the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, the Adoption (Intercountry Aspects) Act 1999 also aimed to place ICA on equal footing with domestic adoption by applying to it the adoption procedures and services prescribed by the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and its subsequent regulations. Taking into consideration factors such as the over-burdened national care system, inadequate policy provisions, tensions between ideological support for and opposition to intercountry adoption, and the well-established national ICA support community, this article addresses the extent to which this objective has been achieved through an examination of agency practices and intercountry adoptive parents’ experiences of preparation and assessment. The findings of this study indicate that a ‘two-tier service’ persists and ICA has been preserved as a small-scale, semi-private practice.

Some children adopted under the now discredited period of closed adoption were never told of their adoptive status until it was revealed to them in adulthood. Yet to date, this ‘late-discovery’ experience has received little research attention. Now a new generation of ‘late discoverers’ is emerging as a result of (heterosexual couple) donor insemination (DI) practices. This study of 25 late-discovery participants of either adoptive or (heterosexual couple) DI offspring status reveals ethical concerns particular to the lateness of discovery. Most of the participants were Australian, with the remainder from the UK, USA and Canada. All were asked to give an ‘open’ account of their experience, with four themes or suggestions provided on request. These accounts were added to those available in relevant publications. The analysis employed a hermeneutic phenomenological methodology and all accounts were analysed using an ethical perspective developed by Walker (2006, 2007). The main themes that emerged were: disrupted personal autonomy, betrayal of deep levels of trust and feelings of injustice and diminished self-worth. The lack of recognition of concerns particular to late discovery has resulted in late discoverers (i) feeling unable to regain a sense of personal control, (ii) significantly disrupted relationships with those closest to them and others, including community and institutions, and (iii) feelings of diminished value and self-worth.

This article provides a summary of one voluntary adoption agency’s attempt to look at a specific area of its own practice over the decade 2001–2011. In the UK the understanding of adoptive placements that disrupt is hampered by the lack of consistently gathered national statistics. This gap can be addressed only at central government level and it seems remarkable that, given the well-publicised investment of successive administrations in adoption, we are unable to track trends on such a fundamental issue. The voluntary agency, Families for Children, placed over 300 children during that period. Twenty-four placements ended in a disruption – 12 before an adoption order could be made and 12 after an adoption order. We used predictors of disruption from previous research to interrogate the data available in our own files. Our findings may reveal nothing that is radically new but they provide us with a tool by which to measure our performance and focus on the things that we need to do better.