A survey launched on 7th May hopes to gather insights on the experiences of mothers and other carers in England and Wales who have experienced care orders, and involuntary adoptions which are sometimes referred to as non-consensual or forced adoptions.

Research estimates that around 90% of all adoptions in Britain are involuntary, meaning that they are contested by birth families during the care proceedings process.

The survey has been produced by adoption and care order-experienced parents, who have been supported by the Taken UK project and adoption reform initiative Adoptee Watch. It has now gathered more than 150 responses.

Researching Reform is supporting this research by offering information about the project. Currently very little is known about how child separation affects children and their families.

The introduction to the survey says:

“This is a : “Mothers and Others” Citizen Survey on:”UK Forced Adoptions 2002–2024″ It will also generate information on UK Care Order experiences of parents too, which are often interwoven into such matters.

We are gathering experiences which socially “unseen” parents have of Child Care systems that have resulted in them having children taken away, and put on UK Care Orders, or Adopted Orders, often non-consensually and sometimes coercively.

This survey is GDPR (Data Protection) compliant. All information gathered, will be treated under those terms and any information given in it accidentally identifying anyone will be anonymized and erased. We have NO intention of collecting emails or names, or processing personal data that may trace any individuals.

This is NOT a funded or sponsored initiative. It is driven by a community of Parents and Children affected by “Forced Adoption” and/or Child Care Order practices in the UK.

Those aiding the design of this survey have been affiliated to bodies dealing with court crisis matters. You will find many such groups of lay people on Twitter/Facebook , if you look up “court crisis”.

After results are collected, this survey will be for community use by any members of the public. It will be designated for use too as: “Creative Commons” after it is checked out and made public.

We aim to take this surveyed body of experiences to MP’s, Media and others, as reports and requests for a new Inclusive UK Forced Adoption Public Inquiry for 2002–2024. We want reform of policies to prevent the State violating family lives, and to re-empower protective parents forced to give up children.

It is quite clear to us all, there also needs to be a wider “Care Order Public Inquiry” for abuses to be exposed of systems and bodies involved.

SPECIAL NOTE : If you have Learning Disabilities and find this survey difficult, please DO ask for someone to help you to do this survey.

For any hurts triggered by this survey we are asking that you consider support like contact with a confidential body like Samaritans :

https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan

You may wish to try others for help using your best judgement Please DO remain cautious about your confidentiality:

https://www.umhan.com/resources/104-new-old-peer-support-groups

For other resources: please look up: BACP, MIND, RSVP (Rape and Sexual Violence Project (Birmingham UK )) and DO ASK for signposting to other SAFE services in your localities.

Be cautious about your confidentiality since the State has recruited even some Charities to report-back to it.

Please also see : https://rapecrisis.org.uk/find-a-centre/ which may signpost you to an appropriate help organisation regarding trauma, re-activated by Domestic Violence etc.

This survey is LONG because of the nature of the issues. Do take a rest when you can and continue after that if you need to.”

The survey, which has been uploaded onto the EasyQuest platform can be accessed here.

An article on the online writing platform Medium with further links and additional information can be accessed here.

Thank you to Paul for this sweet art work.