• A Welcome
  • About
    • Privacy Policy
  • Child Abuse Inquiry Library
  • GSW
  • In Dad’s Shoes
    • An Overview
    • Invitation
    • Media
    • Photos
    • Press Release
    • Soft Launch
    • Speeches
    • Summary
  • Media Coverage
  • Parliamentary Debates

Researching Reform

Researching Reform

Category Archives: Adoption

UN Official Calls For Inquiry Into Forced And Illegal Adoptions in Ireland

03 Tuesday Dec 2019

Posted by Natasha in Adoption, forced adoption, Inquiry, Researching Reform

≈ 10 Comments

UN Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, has called for an inquiry into forced and illegal adoptions in Ireland, after a report she produced raised serious concerns around the sale and exploitation of children inside the country.

There is a very good summary of this development over on The Irish Examiner, but here are a few key thoughts from Boer-Buquicchio about why this inquiry is so important and what it should focus on:

  • Her report highlighted failures to provide information, accountability and redress to survivors of institutional abuse, and to individuals adopted in a manner that would amount to the “sale of children under international law”;
  • Commercial ties to forced and illegal adoptions were also highlighted;
  • The UN Rapporteur said the inquiry should focus on illegal activity around forced adoptions
  • Rather than focusing on individual institutions, she would like the State to focus on investigating “the gamut of human rights abuses identified in these and similar settings”

A Twitter survey carried out by this site in May found that 86% of those polled also wanted to see a full scale inquiry into adoption practices in England and Wales.

Further Reading:

  • Ireland: UN human rights expert calls for national strategy to protect children from sexual violence
  • UN Page on Ireland which includes Child Welfare Reports
  • Politicians Call For State Inquiry Into Forced and Illegal Adoptions
  • Adoption Agency Caught Illegally Registering Births Goes Into Voluntary Liquidation

Screenshot 2019-05-27 at 19.34.05

 

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • WhatsApp
  • Pocket
  • Telegram
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Dr Gary Clapton: Life Story Work For Adoptees “Riddled” With Birth Parents’ Failures

01 Friday Nov 2019

Posted by Natasha in Adoption, child welfare, Researching Reform

≈ 6 Comments

Dr Gary Clapton, a Committee Member of Birthlink, a service which connects adoptees with their birth families, said child welfare professionals’ records of birth families for adopted children were often written more like justifications for removal than a detailed history of a child’s life before their adoption.

The books are intended to hold sensitively written information about a child’s birth family, carers and their life experiences.

In an interview with The Scotsman, Dr Clapton criticised the current practice around record keeping, saying, “Often troubling is the lack of presence of the parent, or at least their side of the story. The records tend to focus solely on the child and their prospect of an adoptive family or the system requirements of a case to be made out for removal of the child from their parents – invariably the latter is an account riddled with all the instances of parental failure. In the files we read, it is difficult to discern the human presence of a parent who has lost their child.”

Dr Clapton, who is a senior lecturer at the University of Edindburgh focusing on adoption and fostering, fathers and fatherhood, children and families social work practice, and moral panics, and a Committee Member of the Fathers Network Scotland, also mentions the importance of keeping physical tokens from birth parents.

Concerns around whether or not these children are able to access tokens and keepsakes left by parents are also raised in the piece.

The article, published today, follows alarming research carried out by adoption agency Coram and The Hadley Centre at the University of Bristol in 2015 which found that Life Story work was not being prioritised by adoption professionals and that there were wide variations in the quality of the storybooks.

The national study noted that over 30% of adopters rated their children’s life storybooks as ‘terrible’, while around 40% said they were ‘good’ or ‘excellent’.

The study also uncovered the following issues:

  • Many of the books were of poor quality, and often had to be ‘redone’ by their adoptive parents;
  • Adoptive parents reported that the stories were often not child-centred and lacked narrative and explanation;
  • Many adoptive parents also found that the level of detail in the books was inappropriate:
  • Some adoptive parents said there was either too much emphasis on one part of the story, too little detail or too much unnecessary detail;
  • Other concerns centered around a frustration that the books could not be updated as the children grew up.

BBC Radio 4 covered the research in their You and Yours series the year the study was published, interviewing Coram’s Director of Operations, Renuka Jeyarajah-Dent on the findings.

Jeyarajah-Dent said, “Adopted children cannot start with a blank slate. Their past is significant and should be valued. Understanding life history becomes particularly important when young people reach adolescence and develop and define their sense of self.”

Ofsted has also repeatedly criticised Life Story work, and has noted that adoption agencies who needed to improve also needed to produce better life story books. As a bare minimum, Ofsted recommended that Life Story work should represent a realistic account of a child’s circumstances and that there should be a dedicated Life Story Worker in every adoption team.

LSB

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • WhatsApp
  • Pocket
  • Telegram
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

New Study Suggests Children Suffer Most Harm After Entering the Care System

26 Monday Aug 2019

Posted by Natasha in Adoption, forced adoption, Researching Reform

≈ 5 Comments

A new study from Australia suggests that a significant number of children who languish inside the care system may be going on to suffer much greater levels of psychological and physical harm than children who are placed with appropriate carers at an early age.

The study, which was published in the Australian Social Work Journal, also casts doubt on research from the UK which suggests that children who are adopted from care have similarly high rates of mental health problems to those who stay in state care.

The research paper, “Descriptive Analysis of Foster Care Adoptions in New South Wales, Australia”, was produced by Andrea del Pozo de Bolger, Debra Dunstan and Melissa Kaltner.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first piece of research identifying the care system as potentially posing a risk of harm to children.

In addition, the research also emphasises the need to preserve birth family connections.

Looking at post adoption contact, the researchers concluded that care plans for children being adopted needed to be fluid throughout a child’s life and include contact with birth parents where possible, rather than the current provision of one care plan which is intended to last for the duration of their childhood and which very rarely features face to face contact with birth parents.

Unlike the UK, Australia appears to be committed to keeping birth family connections alive, which the researchers say is demonstrated by the frequency of face-to-face contact in the sample cases they studied from New South Wales (NSW).

In the UK, post adoption contact usually takes the form of indirect letterbox contact twice a year.

The research does make one mistake, though. It claims that recent legislative changes in NSW are consistent with what the researchers see as a drive to increase adoptions in the UK.

That is no longer the case in the UK, after several successful challenges in the European Court of Human Rights clarified the law in this area, namely that adoption should always be a method of last resort.

The researchers make several interesting observations:

  • Children placed with appropriate carers at an early age and who experienced continuity of care displayed “seemingly small numbers of behavioural and emotional disorders.”
  • Positive developmental outcomes may only apply to those adopted children who are placed in favourable circumstances at a very early age.
  • This outcome differs from the high rates of complex psychopathology (attachment difficulties, relationship insecurity, sexual behaviour, trauma-related anxiety, conduct problems, defiance, inattention or hyperactivity, self-injury, food maintenance behaviours) identified in the population of children in care.

The research also offers alternative explanations for these outcomes:

On early adoptive placements that lasted:

“The finding [that children who are adopted at an early age and who receive consistent care] may suggest that an agency is more likely to pursue an adoption application if the child does not experience high needs.”

“Second, the finding may be the product of the timing of the data collection. An English study suggested that children adopted from care have similarly high rates of mental health problems to those who remain in care…

However, the data were gathered some years after adoption, whereas the present study describes functioning at the time of adoption.”

“Therefore, a longitudinal study under the new legislative arrangements is required to determine if this outcome is enduring. This study should include comparison groups featuring children placed early in stable foster placements to ensure that any developmental outcomes observed are not erroneously attributed to placement type.”

On post adoption contact:

“In regards to the arrangements for post adoption contact recorded in adoption plans, some important issues emerged…

Contact plans suggested the NSW Supreme Court attempts to contemplate fluid circumstances as well as consideration for broader birth family ties. This is consistent with recommendations from international literature…

Thus, a single contact plan is unlikely to meet a child’s needs as they develop. Likewise, further exploration of the impact of face-to-face contact on children’s wellbeing is necessary to inform Australian practice, given its infrequent use in other settings.”

Researching Reform advocates for a system which offers birth families in need tailored and dynamic support, while ensuring that contact with birth families remains, wherever possible.

This could be done through a truly open adoption process which allows birth parents to remain in frequent contact with their children while allowing adoptive parents and highly trained child welfare professionals to assist with the day-to-day love and care all children need.

Alternatively, where needs are less great, allowing children to remain with their birth families while providing families with expert support, including regularly updated care plans to reflect the ever changing needs of children.

It is absurd that we don’t do any of this already.

Further Reading:

  • Apolitical – Child health: Why campaigners are battling the UK’s adoption policy
  • First Ever Post-Adoption Contact Appeal Confirms Adopters Have Final Say
  • Top Social Work Professor: Adoption Works For A Minority Of Children.

Adoption 7

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • WhatsApp
  • Pocket
  • Telegram
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Interesting Adoption Resource

18 Tuesday Jun 2019

Posted by Natasha in Adoption, forced adoption, Researching Reform

≈ 6 Comments

The Donaldson Adoption Institute is based in New York and promised to offer  “independent and objective adoption research, education, and advocacy that addressed the needs of birth parents, adopted people, adoptive parents, the people who love them, and the professionals that serve them.”

However, the Institute appears to have closed its doors, or at least shut down its adoption reform efforts, though they have kindly left a lot of their research up on their site and some of it is free.

While this is a US based organisation and some of the content may not apply to the UK directly, it may offer some powerful insights where US and UK policies on adoption cross.

While we have not had the chance to look at the publicly available content on the Institute’s site, at first glance it looks very interesting.

Here are some reports we thought our readers would find useful:

  • Adoption and birth certificates (access, rights)
  • Birth Parents (safeguarding the rights and wellbeing of birth parents, best practice)
  • Identity (pioneering research on adoptee identity)
  • Openness in Adoption (ongoing relationships between adopters, adoptees and birth parents)
  • US Adoption reform (recommendations)
  • Opinion Surveys on Adoption (adopters, adoptees and birth parents)

There’s also an archive with the Institute’s newsletters, which offer emerging issues in adoption law, policy, practice, research, news and resources up until 2018.

OpennessCurriculum_LandingPage_11.2.2016-1024x522

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • WhatsApp
  • Pocket
  • Telegram
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Ground-Breaking Public Consultation on Open Adoptions

13 Monday May 2019

Posted by Natasha in Adoption, Researching Reform

≈ 5 Comments

Ireland has just launched a public consultation on open and semi-open adoptions which could pave the way for biological families to participate more fully in the adoption process and stay in contact with their children after adoption.

The country’s department for Children and Youth Affairs is holding an open debate today which will include adoption experts, service providers and groups focused on children’s rights and their perspectives on welfare issues which affect them.

England and Wales currently practice a form of open adoption though contact between birth parents and their biological children usually ends after an adoption order is made.

The Children and Families Act 2014 in England and Wales allows post-adoption contact with birth parents, but it is heavily tilted in favour of the wishes and feelings of the adoptive parents, rather than the best interests of the adopted child.

A growing body of research produced by social workers and child welfare experts is also starting to challenge what are increasingly being seen as damaging and restrictive policies around child contact with birth parents within the adoption process in England and Wales.

While the terms set down for open and semi-open adoptions can vary, the consultation page offers these definitions and examples of open and semi-open adoptions:

“‘Open adoption’ is most commonly understood to refer to arrangements involving post-adoption contact between members of birth and adoptive families of adopted children under 18.

‘Semi-open adoption’ usually means arrangements for indirect contact such as the sharing of information and or items between members of birth and adoptive families, usually facilitated or mediated by social workers. In practice, open adoption and semi-open adoption may take on many different forms, including:

  • Birth parents providing information to social workers about themselves and their lives, such as their medical histories or family background, so that these details can be shared with the adopted child;
  • The adoptive parents writing to the birth parents by regular arrangement to let them know how the adopted child is getting on, in school, for instance;
  • Face to face meetings or visits between the adopted child and his or her birth parent;
  • Birth parents sending birthday cards to the adopted child; or
  • Arrangements for the adopted child to meet up with his or her birth siblings or grandparents.”

The questionnaire contains sections which ask for your views on open and semi-open adoptions.

Ireland’s Children and Youth Affairs minister Katharine Zappone is concerned about the impact of current adoption policies on children’s health and wellbeing.

Zappone told the Law Society Gazette Ireland, “Understandings of what is meant by open or semi-open adoption vary but these terms usually refer to arrangements for information sharing between adoptive and birth families as well as an option for contact.

“This is a complex and sensitive issue.  As we are in the early stages of having this discussion in Ireland, it is vital that we gain the views of those affected by adoption as well as other key stakeholders in order to find out what works best for children and families.”

She added, “Adoption is a hugely significant event in the life of a child,” Zappone said.

“When considering any proposed change to adoption policy, we must be guided by what is in the child’s best interests.”

You can respond to the survey here. 

Further reading on the subject can be found in these Researching Reform posts.

open-adoption-with-biological-family-contact-word-vector-12639619.jpg

 

 

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • WhatsApp
  • Pocket
  • Telegram
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

MPs Launch Inquiry Into The Future Of Post-Adoption Support In England

11 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by Natasha in Adoption, Researching Reform

≈ 7 Comments

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Adoption and Permanence (APPGAP) has just launched an inquiry looking into post-adoption support for adoptive and Special Guardianship families. The inquiry includes a survey for children, families and child welfare practitioners.

It would be heartening to see similar funds operating for families who have lost their children to the care system.

The APPGAP, which was set up in February describes itself on Parliament’s Register of APPGs as a group to, “amplify the voices and experiences of children and families engaged in adoption and other forms of permanence to inform parliamentarians and promote the development and implementation of effective policy and practice. To provide an opportunity for the ambitious exploration of innovative solutions to enable adoptive children and families to thrive.”

The Group is sponsored by Adoption UK and Home For Good, who have so far given the APPG around £10,000.

Adoption UK has a page on its website which outlines the purpose of the inquiry in more detail. The page explains that the inquiry has been launched to look at The Adoption Support Fund (ASF) and try to secure a long-term commitment from government for the ASF to fund its therapeutic support for adoptive families.

The inquiry page says that the fund has delivered more than £100m worth of support for around 35,000 families.

As part of the inquiry’s work the APPG is inviting written submissions from adoptees -including children – adopters, social workers, agencies, local authorities and support providers about their engagement with the ASF. The inquiry is particularly keen to hear from children who have engaged with the fund.

The APPG would like insight into the following areas:

  • Accessibility of the ASF, including timings and the application process
  • Types of support accessed and gaps in support provision
  • Long and short-term impacts of support accessed through the fund

The survey for children and young people can be accessed here. 

The survey for adults can be found here. 

Terms of reference for the inquiry can be read here.

If you have any questions or comments you can send them to: info@appgap.org.uk

The deadline for sending in submissions is 24 April, 2019 at noon.

adoption (1)

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • WhatsApp
  • Pocket
  • Telegram
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

First Ever Post-Adoption Contact Appeal Confirms Adopters Have Final Say

12 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by Natasha in Adoption, forced adoption, Researching Reform

≈ 30 Comments

A couple asking for post-adoption contact with their daughter have lost their appeal.

Judges in the Court of Appeal concluded that a refusal to accommodate contact by the child’s adoptive parents trumped the toddler’s right to stay in direct contact with her birth family.

The case is believed to be the first of its kind to reach the Court of Appeal since the implementation of s.51A in the Adoption and Children Act 2002 (ACA 2002). The legislation allows for contact with family members and other significant individuals in a child’s life, after adoption.

The judges hearing the case dismissed the challenge after the adopters in the case refused to accommodate meaningful contact between the toddler and her birth parents.

The judgment reinforces the current legal position that post-adoption contact will only be granted in rare cases and usually only where adopters agree to such an arrangement.

The birth parents who have learning difficulties were unable to cope with their daughter’s day-to-day care, and after an assessment the local authority began care proceedings. The local authority then asked the court to grant an adoption order.

Prior to the adoption order being made, the toddler and her birth parents had contact at regular intervals. That contact was reduced, and eventually stopped.

The biological parents applied for post-adoption contact at the same time as the adopters issued their application to adopt the birth parents’ daughter. The application for post-adoption contact was refused. The birth parents then sought permission to appeal the refusal, which they were granted.

The Court of Appeal heard the birth parents’ challenge on 30th January and the judgment published on BAILII is very much worth a read, for an explanation of the law as it stands since the new legislation on post-adoption contact came into force – and for everything that is wrong with the way our family courts work today.

The judgment outlines a discussion on post-adoption contact which looks at whether the current legislation should be interpreted to mean that courts must now lean in favour of post-adoption contact or stick to the old position, which does not create a presumption for or against post-adoption contact but does in most cases give adopters the final say in relation to contact between birth parents and their children.

The judges concluded that the old position was correct when considering post-adoption contact and that “Parliament’s intention in enacting s.51A was aimed at enhancing the position of adopters rather than the contrary.”

The underlying reasons for this position are not at all geared towards the welfare of children in these cases and are clearly designed to protect adoptions while ensuring that adopters are not put off by the inconvenience of having to accommodate post-adoption contact arrangements.

The barrister for the local authority offers the following arguments to bolster this position, which are included in the judgment at paragraph 44:

“Mr. Goodwin supports the maintenance of the current law, as stated in Re R, on the basis that there are sound policy reasons for not imposing direct contact upon unwilling adopters, save in exceptional cases. It is submitted that if adopters are led to believe one thing, but forced to accept another, the pool of potential adopters may shrink.”

And it gets even more ridiculous. The court found that while there was a clear and growing body of work which supported and even insisted upon post-adoption contact, the research was not considered appropriate to the case because navigating that data would require the case to turn upon child welfare based concepts, rather than legal ones.

This really is one of our biggest bug bears at Researching Reform. What on earth is the point of having a family court system that is required by law to act in the best interest of every child that comes before it, if that court cannot respond and react rationally and in real time to the latest scientific evidence in order to ensure those best interests are met?

Stark. Raving. Mad.

The idea that adopters’ rights trump everyone else’s, including the adoptee child’s, is also utterly wrong. Adopters should be viewed as enablers, not dictators, in cases where children have a very real and important need to know their birth parents. That need is rooted in their psychological and emotional development and should not be obstructed unless the birth parents present a real danger to the child.

On that basis, allowing post-adoption contact to be blocked by adoptive parents is clearly a breach of an adoptee child’s human right to know his or her birth family.

We are going to have a cup of tea to cool off.

Further reading:

  • The case -Re B (A Child) (Post-Adoption Contact) (2018)
  • Current flaws in post-adoption contact legislation (page 27) – excellent read (2018)
  • Top Social Workers: Adopted Children Must Have Contact With Their Birth Families. (2018)
  • Contact After Adoption – Resources (2017)
  • Applying For Contact After An Adoption Order Is Made (2016)
  • High Court: Family Rights Between Biological Parents And Their Children End Upon Adoption (2015)
  • Government U-Turns on No Contact for Birth Parents Post Adoption But Clamps Down on Contact “Without Clear Purpose” (2013)

LoveMe.jpg

 

 

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • WhatsApp
  • Pocket
  • Telegram
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Adoption Agency Caught Illegally Registering Births Goes Into Voluntary Liquidation

15 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by Natasha in Adoption, child welfare, Researching Reform

≈ 59 Comments

An adoption agency in Ireland which was found to have registered births illegally has gone into voluntary liquidation.

St Patrick’s Guild’s liquidation which was announced in December comes seven months after The Department of Children and Youth Affairs confirmed that the agency had been responsible for 126 births being illegally registered between 1946 and 1969. The liquidation raises questions over whether potential and pending legal claims against the agency will ever be settled.

The phenomenon, which goes hand in hand with illegal adoptions, is not just a historic one. Last year media outlet the Irish Examiner revealed documented cases of illegal adoptions and illegal birth registrations taking place in Ireland as recently as 2010. The newspaper also revealed that the Adoption Authority (AAI) had warned the department about the size of the problem on three separate occasions, first in 2011, then in 2013, and again in 2015.

The news of  the illegal birth registrations at St Patrick’s Guild led to Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone announcing a “scoping exercise”, to see whether the practice was widespread. The exercise, which began last year, involves the forensic examination of records.  The final report was due in October 2018, but has now been delayed until April, as the number of potential illegal adoption cases continues to rise. The Times reported in June that a further 140 cases of possible illegal adoptions were being investigated by Ireland’s Children’s Minister.

The department has declined to reveal details of the 150,000 records that have been examined in the review or the methodology used. The scoping exercise has also been criticised in Ireland for only focusing on illegal registrations instead of including all types of illegal adoption.

Families in Britain are also accusing  local authorities of registering births and adoptions illegally with documented cases seen by this site as recently as last year. A growing number of birth parents who have lost children to the care system are calling out adoption agencies who fail to record their child’s details properly on adoption certificates, and in some instances never going through with the adoption at all. Child rights campaigner Michele Simmons, who made a Freedom of Information request in 2017, is concerned that the errors are deliberate omissions made with a view to making children taken into state care untraceable.

Simmons would like policy around adoption certificates changed so that every agency and council is under a mandatory duty to provide parents with copies of adoption certificates as soon as they are produced.

fake birth certificate template free Last Fake Birth Certificate Template Uk Certificate HE-63779

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • WhatsApp
  • Pocket
  • Telegram
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Adoption Agency Marketing Children On Facebook Sparks Public Fury

03 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by Natasha in Adoption, child welfare, Researching Reform

≈ 15 Comments

Facebook users were left furious last week after discovering that a local authority had been advertising children for adoption on the social media site. The page offers full length descriptions and links to photos of the children.

Suffolk Fostering and Adoption Agency, which is run by Suffolk County Council, is advertising children for adoption on Facebook through its business page Suffolk Adoption Agency.  The move prompted Facebook users to leave negative reviews on the page, which has a rating of 2.3 stars out of 5.

Families were shocked by Suffolk Council’s Facebook page, calling the strategy deeply insensitive to parents who had had their children removed through care proceedings. Many of these parents are active on the social media platform. Seeing children being marketed online by Suffolk Council led to one mother leaving a scathing review on the page:

“This page is disgusting, sharing children like animals… how do you think their birth parents would feel? It’s wrong and disgusting…. If I ever see my children on here all hell will break loose… disgusting the lot of you…. children… are human beings and deserve better than this.”

Reacting to an advert featuring a newborn baby on the Facebook page, a family law activist said, “Hang your head in shame Britain… up for sale like puppy farming, except these babies are worth £33,000 once they find adopters, #SS you disgust me.”

Another poster left a plea for help on the review section, asking the council to give her parents a second chance.

The adoption agency’s Facebook page was shared by Facebook users over the weekend, with dozens of private comments left under the shared content.

Concerns over a child trafficking epidemic in the UK do not seem to have stopped adoption agencies from marketing children online, despite the level of detail being offered by these agencies which is visible to everyone around the world. Pages and sites offer the names of councils and the whereabouts of agencies, making it easy for offending paedophiles to locate and target children, placing not only those children advertised at risk, but every child within the agency’s location. The ability to like and subscribe to Suffolk County’s adoption page also means that offending paedophiles could be tracking the adverts without the council knowing.

Allowing councils – who are responsible for assessing parents in child protection proceedings – to run adoption and fostering agencies creates a sharp conflict of interest. The dual role gives councils every incentive to remove children from parents so that the government can take advantage of adoption and fostering placements, which are big business inside the sector.

Suffolk Council’s Facebook page has over 800 likes, though it is not clear whether the engagement is organic, or has been paid for by the council. The page also mentions that the agency received an Outstanding rating from Ofsted in 2011. In 2016, the agency was rated Good, by the inspection body.

The current policy of protecting children’s identities during child welfare proceedings and then making their identities public to secure adoption and fostering placements is also ineffective, and in several instances, illegal. Parents are being contacted by friends who are seeing their children being advertised online, causing the families even greater distress. There is also no evidence to suggest that the strategy of advertising children online is working – a significant percentage of placements break down, and in January 2018, it was revealed that placement breakdown was on the rise.

Councils also do not have a legal right to advertise children where parents still have parental responsibility, which is the position in the vast majority of cases where a child has been placed in foster care.

Very many thanks to the wonderful Michele Simmons and the very generous posters who gave Researching Reform permission to quote them.

SFA

 

 

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • WhatsApp
  • Pocket
  • Telegram
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Councils Showcasing Kids For Adoption Are Breaking The Law

13 Tuesday Nov 2018

Posted by Natasha in Adoption, Foster Care, Researching Reform, social work, Vocie of the Child

≈ 17 Comments

That’s what Researching Reform thinks about councils and agencies posting photos and information about children online, with a view to securing fostering and adoption placements. To expose the practice, this site has started a petition asking the government to acknowledge that the practice is illegal, and to end it. 

Our petition explains how the current practice of children being advertised online and publicly, is a breach of their human right to privacy. The practice also ignores other legislation, which says that parents of children in care must be consulted on all important decisions affecting their children. Councils and agencies are routinely failing to get parental consent before marketing children online. The practice is also placing children’s lives at risk, as more and more children are being sourced through the internet to be sexually exploited.

We asked Twitter users what they thought of the practice, in a survey. The majority of those polled (82%) did not think councils should be able to advertise children publicly online for the purpose of finding adoptive families or foster carers, with 43% saying that placements were not about looks, and the remaining 39% believing that the practice put children in danger. A further 16% offered up other reasons as to why they felt the practice was not acceptable, or that it was reasonable, depending on their view. One tweeter thought that it was a pragmatic way to find children carers in an imperfect world, while another suggested that financial incentives for carers was a fair way to compensate foster families. Other survey takers were not comfortable with the fees offered to carers. A small minority of those surveyed (2%) thought that the practice was acceptable, taking the view that it was a buyer’s market.

Adoption Survey

When a child goes through child protection proceedings in the UK, names and other details that could identify these children are not allowed to be publicised in the first instance. The measure has been designed to protect a child’s right to privacy and ensure that they are not compromised through their identification, in any way. Most family court hearings are protected, which means that unless a judge gives permission for a case to be reported, and lists what information can be released, every detail that could identify a child remains private.

That right to privacy is taken away from children once a care order (placing a child in a children’s home or with foster parents), or an adoption order is made.

The removal of that right to privacy, which is protected by both the Human Rights Act and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, amounts to a breach of the law. In addition to these protections, both the UN Convention and the Children Act 1989 make it compulsory for all government bodies to ensure that any decisions made about children are always in their best interests.

If the government wanted to argue that the practice of publicly advertising children online and elsewhere to find them foster homes and adoptive families – and removing a child’s right to privacy to do this – was in their best interests, it would be an impossible position to hold today.

Research has made it clear that the government’s processes for finding children foster homes and adoptive parents are not working. A recent report by the Children’s Commissioner confirms that a large proportion of children in care experience more than one placement during their childhoods, with almost 2,500 children in care experiencing five or more changes over a period of three years.

That process includes advertising children online and in physical newspapers and magazines. The advertisements are intended to give prospective adopters and carers a chance to virtually meet these children and see if they like ‘the look of them’, but given the number of adoptions and fostering placements that break down, it’s become apparent that the practice is doing nothing for these children, and very obviously doesn’t have their best interests at heart.

It also puts children at risk of sexual exploitation, and death. The UK is facing the worst child sex trafficking epidemic it has ever seen within its borders. Last year, 10,000 children in care in the UK went missing, sparking fears that they were being sexually abused and exploited. The NSPCC called the internet “a playground for paedophiles”, and in a report published in 2011, The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre confirmed that a disproportionate number of sexually exploited children were looked after by a local authority, before or during exploitation.

Councils and agencies have no formal right to publish children’s photos and details online, especially in circumstances where children are old enough to understand the practice, or where family members still have parental responsibility for a child.

If a school wants to upload a photo of a child who is not in care onto its website, permission always has to be given by the child’s parents before the school can post the image. That is because parents have parental responsibility for their children, and a request by a school to upload an image of a child onto the internet is significant enough for it to require parental permission. Parental Responsibility is more than just a general description of a parent’s duties towards a child. It is a legal term which vests a duty in parents to look after their children and to be involved in material decisions which affect them. That responsibility still belongs to parents whose children are in care and have not been made the subject of an adoption order. This means that most of the time, decisions like posting photos of their child online, still rests with the parents, and not the local authority. If we follow the logic through, councils then, must always ask parents whose children are in care for permission to use their photos in adverts.

The government might also argue that being able to post these photos is no different to a child posting a photo of themselves on social media, but that’s not right. Being placed on a website where people know you’ve been in care, and that you’ve had difficult experiences, carries a stigma and can be extremely traumatic for children. Unlike a child posting a photo of themselves on social media, that breach of their privacy, not only places them at risk of identification from peers in their community, but also signals to sexual predators that they are vulnerable and by virtue of the agency’s details being on the site, much, much easier to locate, and target.

Getting the government to ban this practice won’t be easy. Despite an economic downturn and massive budget cuts to the family justice system, the fostering sector is booming. Valued at £1.7 billion, fostering agencies have become so lucrative that the sector has seen a sharp rise in foster care companies backed by large private equity funds. The adoption sector, too, is driven by financial incentive, as can be seen by these interagency fees from the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies. The government has also introduced adoption targets, which invite councils to hit a certain number of adoptions in order to qualify for a cash prize.

Adoption and fostering agencies count on these advertising techniques to secure placements, often with the addition of deeply misleading narratives about the children they’re marketing. And if agencies are able to make money from multiple placements per child, there is little incentive to stem the high number of placements that break down.

While our petition demands that the government acknowledges that the posting of children’s photos and details online and in public documents for adoption and fostering placements, is illegal, there is more that needs to be done. The following issues are also connected to the marketing process used by councils and agencies:

  • The need to ensure that councils always ask parents’ permission to post these details where parents still have parental responsibility
  • A review is needed to see which aspects of the fostering and adoption process are not in a child’s best interests and which policies and cultural norms inside the adoption and fostering sectors are breaking the law
  • A consultation into better ways forward for finding high quality placements for children who need carers, without breaching children’s right to privacy
  • The current failure by adoption and fostering agencies to be open about these children’s pasts and make sure that their disclosure during the placement process is full and frank, and meets the highest standards of disclosure.

If you would like to sign our petition, you can do so here.

A very big thank you to Jane Doe, and several other parents who very kindly spoke with us, and shared evidence and personal stories for this post.

Ad Pet.png

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • WhatsApp
  • Pocket
  • Telegram
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...
← Older posts

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 7,052 other followers

Contact Researching Reform

Huff Post Contributer

For Litigants in Person

Child Welfare Debates

December 2019
M T W T F S S
« Nov    
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031  

Children In The Vine : Stories From The Family Justice System

Categories

  • Adoption
  • All Party Parliamentary Group on Family Law and The Court of Protection
  • Articles
  • Big Data
  • Bills
  • Case Study
  • child abuse
  • child abuse inquiry
  • child welfare
  • Children
  • Children In The Vine
  • Circumcision
  • Civil Partnerships
  • Consultation
  • Conversations With…
  • Corporal Punishment
  • CSA
  • CSE
  • Data Pack
  • Domestic Violence
  • Encyclopaedia on Family and The Law
  • event
  • Family Law
  • Family Law Cases
  • FGM
  • FOI
  • forced adoption
  • Foster Care
  • Fudge of the Week
  • Fultemian Project
  • Huffington Post
  • Human Rights
  • IGM
  • Inquiry
  • Interesting Things
  • Interview
  • Judge of the Week
  • Judges
  • judicial bias
  • Law to lust for
  • legal aid
  • LexisNexis Family Law
  • LIP Service
  • LIPs
  • Marriage
  • McKenzie Friends
  • MGM
  • News
  • Notes
  • petition
  • Picture of the Month
  • Podcast
  • Question It
  • Random Review
  • Real Live Interviews
  • Research
  • Researching Reform
  • social services
  • social work
  • Spotlight
  • Stats
  • Terrorism
  • The Buzz
  • The Times
  • Troubled Families Programme
  • Twitter Conversations
  • Update
  • Vocie of the Child
  • Voice of the Child
  • Westminster Debate
  • Your Story

Recommended

  • Blawg Review
  • BlogCatalog
  • DaddyNatal
  • DadsHouse
  • Divorce Survivor
  • Enough Abuse UK
  • Family Law Week
  • Family Lore
  • Flawbord
  • GeekLawyer's Blog
  • Head of Legal
  • Just for Kids Law
  • Kensington Mums
  • Law Diva
  • Legal Aid Barristers
  • Lib Dem Lords
  • Lords of The Blog
  • Overlawyered
  • PAIN
  • Paul Bernal's Blog
  • Public Law Guide
  • Pupillage Blog
  • Real Lawyers Have Blogs
  • Story of Mum
  • Sue Atkins, BBC Parenting Coach
  • The Barrister Blog
  • The Magistrate's Blog
  • The Not So Big Society
  • Tracey McMahon
  • UK Freedom of Information Blog
  • WardBlawg

Archives

Cancel
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
%d bloggers like this: