Adoption and fostering - the government would like to hear your views

[KatieMumsnet]

Following on from yesterday's webchat on adoption with Oona King and Jeffrey Coleman, we've been asked by No.10 to find out a bit more about your thoughts on adoption and fostering.

This isn't a formal consultation, but a 'national conversation' that will be used to gather views for the policy people at the Department for Education and is party of a wider programme of activities for the national Give a Child a Home campaign.

Please feel free to post your thoughts on any issue relating to adoption or fostering, but in particular we've been asked about the following questions:

• What more might be done to help speed up the adoption process for babies in the care system?

• How might potential adopters and foster carers be matched with children more quickly?

• How could support for foster carers better reflect and support the valuable work they do?

• How can we improve the quality of support provided in children's homes?

• How might foster or adoption placements be made more stable? For example, use of respite care.

• Leaving care can feel like a cliff edge for young people. What might a better package of support for care leavers look like?

Many thanks

MNHQ

There should also be a higher professional status (with higher pay) for staff who work in residential homes- 4madboys, am I right in thinking that the highest qualification available is a level 3 GNVQ?

Many residential staff leave to go on and train as social workers or to join another profession. There is no progression route or specialist traiing available for the people who spend the most amount of time with some of the most vulnerable children in our society. This is simply absurd.

The process of purposley seeking out compettitive matches is awful. If there is more than 1 match for a child then the best option should obviously be found, but actively seeking out contests for a match is unfairly giving hope to people. It is bloody awful when you dont "Win" and even worse knowing that for the agencies involved it was just a procedure they had to follow and you were used.

Paperwork should be sorted on both sides so when a child is legally ready for adoption everything is ready to go. paperwork should be filed as quickly as possible to minimise delays.

Hester I couldn't agree more with you, especially your last point. In my opinion, we need to change the way in which adoption in advertised and also maybe change the way in which we prepare PAP's. Maybe spread out the prep course over weeks whilst the homestudy is going on, so people have more time to take it in. And I think the triad themselves should be more involved in the courses. Our group first time got a talk by just one adopter - it would be better if the courses were largely run by other adoptive parents I think

I completely agree with thingsbeachanging's point about competitive matching. Never been up for one myself, but I think the downsides completely outweigh the advantages in most cases.

Thanks for the agreement, Lilka . In my case, I adopted a very young child (under 1) who so far is developing normally (though still is considered at higher risk with ?FAS and neonatal abstinence syndrome or whatever it's called). In the year since she joined us, we haven't needed much in the way of outside help and I haven't asked for much in the way of outside help.

However, I was shocked at how little support we received with the bits of help we did need. There was no package of support at all. No financial help, obviously (obvious to other adopters, though I'm surprised how many of the general public assume you get some kind of financial help when you adopt). No help with transitioning her healthcare from her area of origin - I had to fight and nag to get her health records transferred, then to get the tests she still needed, then to get proper advice on her immune status and vaccinations. Thank goodness I remembered that she shouldn't have live vaccines till her HIV status was rechecked, because it wasn't written down somewhere and I kept getting arsey reminders from the GP who had received no information from another health professional and obviously didn't trust me. Thank goodness I queried the GP's insistence that she needed certain other (non-routine) vaccinations that she didn't need at all, based on an assumption about what 'children like her' would be at risk of. Thank goodness I ignored the well-meaning health visitor's recommendation that I try 'cry it out' sleep training. Thank goodness I stood my ground and argued with the GP who initially refused to re-prescribe the prescription formula she was on in her first year of life. My argument: "I'm happy to see a dietitian and discuss whether this is the best formula for her to stay on, but one week into placement is not a good time to force her to change her milk". Her argument: "The NHS is not here to subsidise your lifestyle choices". In the end she would only agree to prescribe one small can at a time, forcing me to return for a repeat prescription every 48 hours until the the appointment with the dietitian came up.

AND I HAVE HAD IT EASY COMPARED TO MOST ADOPTIVE PARENTS. My dd is young and healthy and settled with us as easily as is ever possible. Our needs for post-adoption support have been minimal, nevertheless life would have been easier if the system had matched its expectation of us with some respectful partnership from the professionals involved.

It completely boggles me how the support disappears on the day your child arrives home. For example, how a Looked After Child is given first priority in most school's admissions policies, but a recently adopted child has none. You can, of course, argue social priority if you can get the professionals lined up to support you with that. Not relevant in our case, but if it had been I can say with confidence that our social worker wouldn't have got it together to do that. She didn't get it together to do anything else - letterbox arrangements, passport, life story book, later life letter, risk assessment of violent and vengeful birth parent, transition of healthcare records and appointments...

Ooh, that rant was like therapy. I feel a lot better now

tethersend i dont know about in general but no in my dp's home which is run by the charity childhood first, they are degree level educated to get the jobs (in the main) and then they ALL have to do a diplome and can go on to do an MA, this is done on top of their normal work and regular training such as retraints training and all the health and safety stuff such as fire safetym, food hygeine.

if you look on the childhood first website it tells you about their training system, my dp is a deputy team leader and a shift leader and has been asked to be a team leader, he is also a key worker. LOTS of responsibility for not mujch more pay as ever.

the hours are shifts and chop and change all the time, he is also 'on call' and has to go in if there is any need ie a kid having difficulties behaviour wise. its evenings, wkends, overnights often 24-32hr shifts, very anti social and not great for us as we have 5 kids of our own, he generally gets a 4 wk rota in advance but it is ALWAYS subject to change, so its very hard for us to try and plan/organise a family life around it.

he does love his job on the whole but its physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting and the fool has now also signed up to run the london marathon for childhood first to fund raise

I only went halfway through the process (had a successful PG after 7 M/Cs). But from my experience you need to properly 'professionalise' the whole thing. That IMO would involve:-

1. Taking the initial steps of the approval process out of local control into a nationally-managed process. That would mean one set of criteria across the whole country, and one application process with most checks taking place completely away from the LA. When those checks are all passed, then the LA get involved. National control should = faster processing and more open and consistent rules.
2. Simplify the checks and make them more relevant. The hoops are ridiculous.
3. Get parents to classify themselves honestly, don't make them go through hoops and try to bribe them to profess themselves able to handle difficult children when in their hearts they know they won't be able to. Likewise classify the children honestly using a national standard disclosure file with full information.
4. Split social work roles into fostering/adoption OR child protection/family welfare and stop trying to combine them. Having people whose sole role is to ensure children are successfully placed without asking them to also do all the gritty social work stuff means they are not trying to put too many hats on at once, and you can then get some meaningful (again nationally-based) training and quality control.
5. Set up more state-sponsored boarding schools using normal OFSTED values and criteria but offering round-year care and open to both children in care and other families.

that should be diplomA and reStraints training, which incidentally my dp is going again today (they do it every year or maybe every 2 years to keep it up to date)

i have to say the diploma and ma are all very well but there needs to be more practical support when it comes to dealing with the emotional needs of the children, the home my dp works in has challenging children with a variety of issues. some harrowing backgrounds :( i dont know the details and tbh i dont want to know a lot of the time as its very upsetting, my dp has sat and cried whilst reading their case histories etc. and tho the staff do get to kind of 'de-brief' once a month or so and can chat with each other etc, there needs to be a better system i think of them having more training/discussion on how to help the children and also for the staff to vent/unload as its a lot to deal with. and on the physical side, you try explaining to your own children why daddy has come home from work with bite/pinch/scratch marks etc, like i said it isnt necessarily a job that gels well with family life!!

Once peple have adopted once there should be a way of fast tracking a second or subsequent adoption. I ahve a friend who adopted her son 2 years ago, she would love him to have sibling but cannot bear going through the whole process again. This seems ridiculous!

To go against the trend I would also like to see more childrens homes run by professionals than foster care. Good foster carers are brilliant and bad ones are a dasaster and the movement between foster carers is a big problem for childrne.

My son spent teh first year of his life in a foreign institution and contrary to popular belief I beleive that it did him less harm than a succession of foster carers might have done (compared to other childrne I know).

His home was staffed by very kind people with not enough money but a good basic standard of food and medical attention and his life was stable and structured and no one person was having to deal with him (or any other child) on their own without professional support.

Institutional care and lack of one to one care has left its mark but overall I would say it was less damaging than variable quality of some of the foster care that his contemporaries have had and even where they have had good ones to move from the good foster carers to poor ones has been disasterous for the children.

Good foster carers who have recommended psychiatric support for a child have been ignored and the child moved on - I have no idea why but it ended badly with a subsequent disrupted adoption when the full extent of the issues coming to light. I often wonder if the original foster carers had been listened to if things might have worked out differently.

kew i think you are right the kids in dps home have really suffered from being moved from foster home to foster home, some have had over 3 or 4 in the space of a few years, it is crap for their attachemnt, esp at a young age :(

I know a child who had 27 moves by the time she was 8 yo

it is utterly frightening that adoption is to be sped up. My child was taken from me adopted out against my will, without proper assesment of me or me even having a chance.
4 years later I was a perfectly adequate mother to another baby and stayed away from SS.

If a natural parent is struggling, don't take the child and keep them in care for a year while a couple of hours per week assesments take place.
PUT THE PARENT IN SUPPORTED HOUSING IMMEDIATELY, GIVE THEM A REAL CHANCE TO BE PARENT (over half of adoptions are against the natural parents will).

It will be quite obvious fairly quickly if birth parents have real in depth full time assements.

It's incredibly rare that a natural parent actually harms their child, it's usual SS's paranoia over future possible emotional abuse, which my two children who live with me are not suffering thank you very much.

and of course the blindy obvious.
Don't be racist when it comes to whom will make a good parent.
One of my sons doesnt look like me, he's half korean, and love and support him more than anything on earth.

Kristina how horrible for her. Sadly I'm not surprised in the slightest

I think we need more therapeutic treatment homes for children with serious disorders - either paid for by government or with easily accessible grants for families. We need to recognise that some children can be abused to the extent they will never heal before they are even out of toddler age, and for some of these children attempting adoption might not be a good idea. Adoption isn't some cure-all, and we need more recongition for those children suffering from complex PTSD, RAD, DID etc. DON'T BLAME THE PARENTS!

There needs to be more sheltered accommodation for care leavers, with support. They need to be specialised not just put with all the other people in sheltered accommodation. They need clear support plans and stability.

I also think that supported mother and baby accommodation should be the first step (not independent living) for mums who are struggling.

Yet we need to stop giving parents so many chances and put the needs of the child first.

Putting pressure on to speed up the process risks creating perverse incentives: to remove and put up for adoption "easy to adopt" children, leaving more difficult and needier cases in dangerous situations.

I'd hope ss would resist those incentives, but if you force them to "improve their adoption statistics", then that's the obvious route.

I was in care many years ago and it seems things are as bad now as they were then.

Why is it more important that someone has a degree than someone who has lived the system and knows what it needs to be improved, rather than someone who has passed a few exams but has no real understanding?

umf seems like any assessment of how successful the process is should take the 'long tail' into account too, then, and look at what is the longest period of time a child has been 'looked after', what is the greatest number of moves a child has had to make (27 is appalling) and provide incentives for bringing those numbers down, too.

melrose good point - I also know someone who was told that after adopting her first, she and her DH would have to go through the entire process again for the second child, less than four years later and with no issues having arisen with the first. Waste of everyone's time and resources.

There should be a policy of ZERO TOLERANCE towards parents or step parents who are violent, abusive and drug/alcohol dependent. The baby should be put FIRST and there needs to be a change in policy whereby human RESPONSIBILITY comes before RIGHTS.

In my view, 'speeding up' matching, as in saying that LA's must place ALL children within x months of placement order, will lead to more lying and covering ups. Information was hidden from me about DD1 (a lot of info actually) and obviously since I didn't know this I was more eager to go ahead - I would have thought longer about the match had I known all the facts

Imagine in two years time, if DC and co. brought in targets in placing children, and even worse, sanctions (in money) for those authorities who 'fail'. Imagine an LA secure a placement order for a child who has (made up example) a birth parent with Huntingdons disorder, and this child has known exposure to one drug, and suspected exposure to several others. Say this child also is very active and unable to concentrate on much, and ADHD has been suggested by one person at least. Now, how easy would it be for that LA to bury most of that information? After all, they need to get that child adopted in a quick time frame. Answer - very! Information about birth parents illnesses is easily hidden, just don't say anything, and bury reports deep in files. Ditto with the information about suspected drug exposure. Bury any reports which suggest difficult behavior. Now it will be much easier to find parents! It has happened, it will continue to happen, I think it could get worse. Honesty is a must

Actually, I think it should be MANDATORY to see the childs whole file before adoption. And the law should say that AP's have a legal right to have the whole file after adoption. Right now, many LA's refuse to hand them over siting 'confidentiality of birth family's information' etc, to the complete detriment of the child. Child comes first, and the law should be clear that confidentiality can and should be compromised if it is in the childs best interest to do so!

We are very recent adopters, having adopted a beautiful 3 yr old girl earlier this year through the Scottish system.

I believe that the checks must be rigorous, and have absolutely no complaints on the 2 years it took us to be placed with our daughter. We were completely honest and open with our social worker and if you are taking responsibility for a child's life then you must be totally prepared to open yourself to all investigation.

What we did object to was the year of court visits in order to complete the adoption. The system allowed for an extremely unfit birth mother to contest simply for the sake of it.

I believe that when a match is made and the appropriate procedures have taken place which have placed the child in care, then the system must be hastened to allow this new family to get on with their lives.

theorigionalfab its not that important that the staff in a childrens home have a degree, just that in the home my dp works in they are primarily well educated to degree level adn whilst they work there they then do FURTHER training, both pracitical and non practical which is the diploma/ma, but what they do is obviously geared towards the setting they work in.

i have no idea what things were like, but i do know that the home my dp works in the children are well cared for, the staff care and work hard, but given the nature of the job, working with extremely difficult children (ages 11-18) who are often violent and abusive, its not easy and many people start and then cannot cope with it. they have a very robust interview selection process, including pyshcological evaluation and counselling etc to try and make sure they get the right people but nothing can really prepare someone from working with these kinds of conditions, hence people start and then leave. my dp has been there years now and has no intention of leaving at all, and they do have many other members of staff the same BUT they need quite a lot of staff, at least one if not 2 pre child at all times and it has to be staffed 24hrs a day, so obviously they need a large team to do this, well largish. as it is my dp has gone to work this morning to do a 24hr shift, where he wont sleep, then he will come home only to go back in less than 24hrs to do another 12 hr shift. having already done another overnight shift this week and a 32 hr shift. they strive to give these children stability and continuity and a loving home.

see here www.childhoodfirst.org.uk/home.html this is the charity that my dp works for, i cant say where obviously! have a look and see what their aims are and how they work before slating the sytem completely.

obviuosly this is a charity but a lot of their funding comes from government sources, i cant say how homes run by the state work but i can say that this one does well, have a good ethos and is working in the right direction, but i am just pointing out that it is a hard job and the staff could do with more support to help them to continue to work as well as they do so they dont get burnt out and then maybe so people would stay longer. this thread was set up to ask what could be done to change things, so i answered from that perspective and yes it probably does sound very negative, which gives a bad view. the reality is that children are doing well with this charity and it is making a difference, but from the point of view of the people working their it is HARD work and i am trying to say that they need support and giving them support can only benefit the childrne they care for also :)

4mad, you are talkimg anout your dh doing a 24 hour shift and there being at least 2 member of staff per child. Im sure its a very hard job. But Many adoptive parenst are doing a 168 hour shift, with no traing, counselling, annual lleave, public holidays. No pay of course. And no suport or recognition either. On the contrary, they are blamed for their childrens problems or told it was their own choice to adopt so they brouhgt it on themselves.

No one seems to be talkig about how we can hepl and suport familes who are living with these violent and disturbed childre, day in day out. Its very easy to talk about gettig cute little babies adopted quicker and off the public payroll. A lot harder to provide the rescources to deal with the problems that can result later

i am just stating that his job is hard, the kids he looks afer cannot be fostered/adopted as they have to many behaviour issues and are violent!

i am sure that it is hard for foster carers/adopters as well and they TOO should get MORE support, i am not stating one case over and above another, its simply this is an area that ihave experience (from dp) and know about, i dont know anything about adoption/fostering (tho its something we may look into in the future) so i cant comment, make recomendations on something i dont know about that is all :)