what do you think adoption will look like in the future?

[Snazzygoldfish]

Just that really. I think open adoption will become much more common and adopters will become more like long term foster carers with ongoing contact with birth families facilitated wherever possible.

My suspicion is that one of the things preventing this now is that adoption is a cheap option for LA's compared to long term foster care.

Personally, I would be open to face to face contact but only on the condition that there were strict boundaries in place and whatever support was needed for all involved in the adoption triangle. This too would be costly in comparison with adoption as I know it. I'm aware things are different in different parts of the U.K.

The people I spoke to appeared to center birth parents' wants and needs, at least as much as (and could be argued more than) children. I'm not sure that's right.

Yeah, my SW acquaintance said the same thing. They were very frustrated by many cases of watching BPs come in and out of children's' lives with repeated devastating effects. There system has a lot more resources allocated to BP support and contact management than ours.

I can also believe that standards of foster care are very different to here. While here there are many great, dedicated foster carers, far exceeding the standards expected of them, I feel UK standards are set quite low.

I think it's true that FC in scandinavia is generally better funded. I suspect we do better than we think for what we put in. There are a lot of problems in other systems in the world.

You are always going to get different standards of parenting, perhaps more so in such challenging situations. I think resourcing and training is a big issue but also I'm not sure the LA system doesn't exacerbate the inconsistencies. In our imaginary 'lots of funding' world I'd want to see money going into big longitudinal studies and consistent systems, processes and standards for all LAs.

Completely second hand, it does seem like the move to consortia has had a positive effect on some of these issues.

I would like to see all the recommendations in the enquiry taken forward, and in particular the obscene amounts money currently going to private companies for accommodation for children in care and foster care companies ploughed back into properly run services, support for families in need whether adoptive or bio, and a complete reassessment of how adoption is done.

@taketotheskye no my bio child. Caused by illness which was triggered by an accident which no I was not responsible for. But still significant trauma, in case you want to minimise my experience further.

taketotheskye

Moving the conversation onward, I sadly find myself agreeing with every word of your last post.

I seem to recall a project under Labour which involved putting lots of resources into CP really early (stuff that would not meet the threshold normally) and training SW to be much more robust in interventions which had startlingly good results, then got dropped. Any SWs recall it or have a link?

@donquixotedelamancha I take it you mean "moving forward" ie ignoring my posts - that is fine - as long as you don't aim any more unpleasant comments in my direction, that works fine for me too.

Early intervention is pretty big in Scotland at the moment, with multi-agency involvement from a pretty early stage, not always involving social work because it’s not met the threshold for child protection. The results are a bit mixed, but CP registration rates have fallen certainly in my authority area which may suggest a measure of success. I think there’s also been a reduction in permanence and adoption rates but I’d need to check.

sassygrommit- so your child is not adopted. Equating your experience with those of us who parent adopted children is minimising our experience. (I parent children via both routes of entering a family, it's different.)

Your opinion and voice as an (one, you don't speak for all) adoptee is important, and interesting. But you're not a psychology expert, and you're not an adopter, and so I, and others, will interpret and weigh that opinion accordingly. My opinion is that don is not ignoring your posts, just stopping your opinions dominating the conversation.

as long as you don't aim any more unpleasant comments in my direction

I haven't aimed any unpleasant comments. I have disagreed with you and criticised some of your comments. I have ignored you calling me crass, goady and making ill-informed comments on my birth family based (again) on out of context misquotes from an unrelated thread. All this after you claim to want to be constructive.

After all that personal abuse you have audacity to whine that I am ignoring you because I don't immediately reply to your constant @ ing and try to focus on issues.

Go away. If you direct one more comment towards me I will ask MNHQ to look at your posts and consider a ban for harassment.

I think I have jinxed the thread by saying that things don't turn nasty on here !

but if you talked to someone with more expertise than you, you might find the same advice.
You have absolutely no idea who I work with, who I consult with in my personal and professional life, the people I study with, research with and collaborate with.

I’m tired of you. Tired of your endless passive aggression, your misrepresentation of what posters write here in good faith, your utter disregard for the experience of others, your lack of care and empathy for others here. Please don’t tag me, respond to me or engage with me and I’ll do you the same courtesy. I really should have stuck with my earlier wisdom in that regard.

I wish you no ill, I just don’t want to be involved in discussion with you any longer.

donquixotedelamancha

"Moving the conversation onwards, what other changes do we think adoption will undergo over the next few years?"

Coming from a county council adoption service where we have truly had fantastic post adoption support I would like to see post adoption support more in place from the start.

If families do not need it, great, but I think the assumption should be that children exposed to neglect, drugs, alcohol, violence, etc etc may well need it. So when they ask the adoption services should supply it.

My area is really doing good work and I know some other areas of the country do not have this support. I often feel on here a bit embarrassed because we have had such good support! our son has been with us for 5 and a half years and we still get support when we ask.

I agree Italian. I think the lack of automatic support and the difficulty in accessing more expensive support when needed is a travesty when you consider the relative cost of adoption compared to ongoing FC.

I think I have jinxed the thread by saying that things don't turn nasty on here. Nah, we are usually very lucky. Stuff like this comes along every year or so. Just highlights how constructive things usually are.

I think trauma due to abuse/neglect by caregiver(s) is acknowledged to be particularly damaging and long-lasting. That is not to dismiss the impact of other types of trauma, but being hurt by the person/ people you rely on for survival is especially toxic (and let's face it, from the child's perspective neglect is abuse, we as adults separate them out by intent).

A friend's DD had a number of major operations from birth to 3/4 years old, which has resulted in a number of on-going trauma reactions. But her parents have been consistently sources of comfort, even when they could not 'protect' her from painful and intrusive (life saving) treatment.

What does the future consist of? Gloomy reality would suggest further budget cuts, less support for families in difficulty, more children in sub-standard care indefinitely.

I am trying to remember/find the name of the researcher who is looking at different types of permanency in other EU states from the perspective of understanding why the UK is such an outlier for adoption without the consent of birth parents - does anyone else know? Because it would be interesting to know how the long-term care and stability of the children is achieved in those cases. I did read that in France (I think) the termination of parental rights is treated as a separate issue to adoption, so the figures may not compare like with like (once parental rights have been terminated then their consent is irrelevant). But can't now track down where I read it!

I think it would be useful to look at other models of providing long term care where birth families cannot parent, from the perspective of the outcomes for the children.

Have found the report comparing UK adoption with other EU states. Contact post-adoption is mentioned:
<a class="break-all" href="//www.gphandlahdpffmccakmbngmbjnjiiahp/www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/519236/IPOL_STU(2015)519236_EN.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.gphandlahdpffmccakmbngmbjnjiiahp/www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/519236/IPOL_STU(2015)519236_EN.pdf

@jellycatspyjamas @donquixotedelamancha
I have reflected upon this thread over night and I am aware that I could have handled posts far better. In fairness, I don't think I was the only person this applies to, but that isn't the point - what I said I meant in substance but I should have said it a much better, and in a far less patronising, way and I apologise wholeheartedly. I hope you can accept the apology. Totally happy to not engage with either of you in future.

don my posts fall well within guidelines, as do yours - but feel free to get MNHQ involved so that they can tell you that themselves.

@allington your link didn't work but should have been as below I think, assuming it is the report you meant

www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/519236/IPOL_STU(2015)519236_EN.pdf

A friend's DD had a number of major operations from birth to 3/4 years old, which has resulted in a number of on-going trauma reactions. But her parents have been consistently sources of comfort, even when they could not 'protect' her from painful and intrusive (life saving) treatment

I think that that is right, actually - I thought about that overnight too. I had a relationship and connection with my dc before he became ill, and though the trauma reactions came primarily from the fact that his saturation levels dropped to brain damage levels and he had to take medication which suppressed and mimicked hormones for 2 years after which had huge physical affects - the fact that the relationship had been there right from the start definitely did make the recovery easier. There are attachment affects apparently with illness but far less and far easier to overcome. So yes that is a good point.

When a child receives abuse from a caregiver, they are trapped and don't have the language or maturity to seek help, and they often see it as "normal".

I haven’t read the full thread but just a few thoughts.

As much as I would love face to face contact with my son, I do wonder whether I would be able to deal with the emotional impact of saying goodbye again especially as there would be no guarantee that it would take place again and if it’s infrequent then i do wonder whether it would actually be beneficial to my son or to me or whether emotional impact would cause further damage.

In regards to adoptive parents allowing face to face and being reluctant to because the vast majority of children aren’t relinquished- I think this is a double edged sword. I think that as a birth parent the fact that once you decide you can’t parent your child and place them for adoption that’s the end of any part in their life and you have absolutely no say in who they are placed with and no guarantee of any kind of contact, completely severing any and all links between you and your child makes it a lot harder.

It’s hard enough to admit you cannot parent your child and goes against your natural instincts, however then the added layer is not only are you saying you can’t parent your child, you are also not going to see them again. Ok, so you may meet the adoptive parents for an hour - but realistically you know absolutely nothing about the people who will raise your child and even if you don’t like them- the court isn’t going to stop and adoption because the birth parents don’t like the adoptive parents.

Also the support available is abysmal especially post adoption. The only reason I got any counselling was Because my solicitor wrote to the local authority and pointed out that they have a LEGAL duty of care to ALL parties involved in adoption and that included the birth mother.

Contact and changing names are the two adoption debates which are most emotive and polarised - people are coming at it from opposite ends, from totally different perspectives. It is difficult for everyone in the triangle where the debate is emotive and polarised.

The sea change I have talked about is reflected in the 2015 report linked by allington and the 2018 enquiry report - p33 of the 2015 report refers.

In relation to research request, I now link what I think is a really good video about helping children recover from trauma and attachment problems - a number of psychiatrists and psychologists speak, all pulling in the same direction (and generally the same direction as Kolk) I think, about how children can heal. It explains (far better than I have) how scans are now used to look at the brain after trauma and then through the healing process, and it talks about the love connection I have mentioned on other threads again far more clearly than I have, and for a short video it covers a wide range of subjects, it seems to all be very clear about what can go wrong and how and what can be done to enable children to heal.

@sassygromit that video is very interesting, thank you. I hope that the things in the film may provide some keys to help my son. XX

That is great, I am glad you found it helpful.

Why would any intelligent adult adopt a child that they have not got to know intimately well first, so I mean in person, and apart from the money of course, why would any agency wish to place a child with adults whom that child has not got to know equally as well, compatibility is everything, and it cannot even begin to be known on line.

Sure, they would require what they virtually never get, a genuinely therapeutic social environment, so one which constantly embraces absolute and total empathy, and I mean no matter what, selfless and total platonic love, and constant background support. Escaping of environment is a most valuable tool, and for total escape, or something like, adventure holidays should generally be embraced.

Every young person has a "best friend" but very few indeed have a best friend, a friend that is at least as concerned for their psycho-emotional well being as they are for their own.

The outcomes would be considerably determined in terms of any elapsed time between conception and removal of a child. I believe that babies are for more psycho-emotionally resilient than children.