Tim's missing the bigger picture
Tim Loughton's speech to coincide with Adoption Week decries the emphasis on finding the 'perfect match' for adopted children, and says there is no reason why minority ethnic babies should not be placed with white couples.
Well yes, that may be true. But 'dogmatic' social workers waiting indefinitely for a perfect ethnic match is not the main reason why adoption numbers have been falling year on year since 2004/2005, when Tony Blair launched a political drive – and targets – to improve adoption rates. The reason is that the care system has a natural and inherent tendency towards drift and delay.
The declining number of adoptions, and increased number of adoptions breaking down, is symptomatic of a wider trend towards delaying taking children in to care, and then delaying adoption or other permanency decisions. The fact is there is a clear correlation between the age a child is placed in care, and their chances of securing and maintaining a stable placement, like adoption.
One study has found that the mean age of entering care for children who went on to be adopted by strangers was 1.5 years; adopted by carers was 3.1 years; placed in stable foster care was 3.9 years; and experiencing 'unstable care' (several short term placements) was 5.3 years. Another showed that rates of adoption breakdown increase from 10 per cent for children adopted under the age of 10, to 20- 40 per cent for those adopted when over 10.
Of course, there are many cases where children simply don't need to come in to care until much later in life – for example as a result of a parent dying. And for many children, adoption is not suitable or desirable.
However, there are far too many children brought into care for reasons of neglect and abuse who, whilst suitable candidates for adoption, have little or no chance of ever being adopted. The cumulative effect of the delay in deciding to take these children in to care in the first place, followed by the complex administrative and legal process of actually placing a child in care (the average time to wait for a court hearing was 51 weeks in 2006, and it has said to have increased with the increased workload following the case of Baby P) followed by a further period of temporary or short term foster care whilst attempts to reunite the family are made and decisions about 'permanency' are taken, can all add up to years, rather than months or weeks.
And with each passing month, the risk of behavioural and emotional problems increase. The older children become, the less chance there is that attachment will form with an adoptive family. Both make adoption less likely to happen, and less successful if it does. So whilst it's great that Tim is looking more closely as falling adoption rates, he needs to see the bigger picture behind this. Adoptions are just the tip of a very big iceberg that sees large numbers of children in states of legal and administrative limbo – securing a 'perfect match' is just one of many contributory factors that needs greater attention.
Claudia Wood
Laurie,
I think the delays in the care system are both causing a decline in adoption AND increases in adoption breakdown, which is not taken into account of official figures (and is not collected centrally) but is on the increase nonetheless according to a recent FOI request. The difficult decision of taking a child into care, then the lengthy administrative and legal process to make a placement, all has to take place before the permanency decision is taken and a child is identified as suitable for adoption.
By the time this happens, that child will 1) be older, so less "adoptable" given families mainly look for younger children with whom they have more chance of bonding with, and 2) may have been exposed to further abuse or neglect for unecessary months or years, or placed in several unstable foster placements. Either or both will have a negative effect on that child's emotional wellbeing and behaviour, again, making him or her less "adoptable".
Even if that child is adopted, studies show that older children and those with behavioural problems are at much higher risk of placement breakdown - hence, delay driving both fewer adoptions and more breakdowns within that declining number.
Yes the adoption process is lengthy, but it is the "pre-adoption", and most of all the "pre-care" experiences which have the greatest impact on a child's mental health - it is this which is expanding and which jeopardises adoptions. We could say adoptive families whose preference for babies with no emotional or behavioural problems make children in care harder to place, but I'm not sure it's right to lay the blame at their door. Adoptive parents are not foster carers - the later often foster through a sense of vocation and understand they are dealing with troubled children. Adoptive parents are often couples unable to have a baby and aren't prepared emotionally or any other way for the challenges of a child who had been through the care system.
As adoption becomes harder with every passing month that a child is in care waiting for a permanency decision to be made, social workers do seek alternative splacements - like long term foster care and special guardianship. But these are nowhere near as stable and do not offer the same sense of security and attachment that adoption does. A long term foster placement is anything over three years - and it can be terminated at a moment's notice. Moreover, children in these placements are still visited by social workers and their "corporate parent" (who signs school trip forms and has to agree to medicines being given) is still the social worker. It's not a great substitute for an adoptive family. That's not to say adoption is right for all children - lots come in to the care system later in life and have no desire to be adopted. But many who are suitable aren't getting the chance due to systemic drift, which is hard to fight without a real push and focus on permanency like we saw in 2005 with Blair's adoption agenda.
Carl
Claudia,
In your research, did you happen across a figure suggesting how much an adoption breakdown can cost on average compared to a smooth adoption? It's a difficult one to judge, but I've been trying to look for something like this, similar to how Child A and Child B are described/assessed in In Loco Parentis.
Laurie Warburg
I agree with your points about the problems of drift and delay in the care system and have just finished reading 'In Loco Parentis', which I think sets out some very sensible and promising recommendations for improvement. However, I would appreciate clarification on what you think has caused the adoption figures to fall. It seems to me that delay in itself would not cause a drop in rates of adoption but may increase placement breakdown, but perhaps this is taken into account in the figures? Is it because there is a lack of carers wanting to adopt (or perhaps unwilling to adopt older children?), and do you think it is due to the process of adoption being too lengthy, or more likely to fail? As far as I'm aware this has always been a significant problem for the process of adoption, has there been a marked change in recent years? Or are professionals choosing alternative care options such as long-term foster care over adoption as a policy decision for older children because of the high numbers of placement breakdown?