Adoption Disruption Artcle BBC

[Arran2024]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0kdv1x83gko?fbclid=IwdGRjcAOWpIBjbGNrA5ajsmV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHj2E0wixnkdSOHi_x24ac0hK4gkFMpcvrO119IF8PQWTeFFXniPST25KOofI_aem_AC3sgw9xa0U1QuclunpLzA

Agreed. I suggested this in a meeting with Sarah Johal (MBE - another one who talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk!), the head of Adoption England, yonks ago. Obviously, Adoption England is a failing organisation. Even so, Sarah Johal has recently publicly declared that the reason that prospective adopter numbers are dwindling is due to the cost of living crisis. No, Sarah, the reason that adopter numbers are in free fall is not because of the price of bananas but because the very many thousands of us who have been maltreated are becoming increasingly more vocal and campaigning much more assertively. Of course, the response from Adoption England to the adopter crisis numbers is to come up with a (paper-based) Adoption Support Plan which will apparently follow the child post-placement. You literally could not make up this incompetence. No doubt Sarah will be promoted to a Dame in the next honours list. Meanwhile, I sincerely hope that adopter numbers continue to fall off a cliff. In my opinion, with all the scandals, adoption as we know it will not exist in two to three decades.

This is a great advert for putting people off adoption.

It must be easier surely just to get on with your lives and not too bother.

Raising a family is difficult, adopted or not actually.

Agreed. Too many of us have been persecuted for seeking help. Good luck if you’re not there (yet). I will not be responsible for other prospective adopters being comprehensively lied to by local and central government. How would that be fair or kind? Other adopters are free to make up their own minds. I’m not a poster girl for adoption so I feel under no obligation to put a positive spin. I do get on with my life, in between the beatings, the police visits, the social worker visits and the endless battering on closed doors for help for my family. My elbows literally could not be any sharper. Why should my voice go unheard?

Good.

Name changed.

We haven’t had police involvement or anything that would register to most as serious. In fact, I’m sure many would look at our experience of parenting our adopted children and say ‘most kids are like that’, similar to @Netcurtainnelly

But we already know we will have limited or no contact with our eldest who is 17 when he’s an adult. The constant lying about everything, as well as the lack of taking responsibility for absolutely anything (including stealing, college/work refusal etc etc) and general refusal to engage in life means we just can’t help him. This would be ok, but he has an absolute refusal to help himself. An example being the admission that his long term plan is for us to die so he can inherit our house ‘because it’s the law’. No thought whatsoever for his sister who he professes to love endlessly.

It took us 10 years to get his ADHD diagnosis and 3 years worth of fortnightly visits to a Clinical Psychologist specialising in developmental trauma helped not a jot. DS ran rings around him. It’s heartbreaking for him.

@UnderTheNameOfSanders

As EHCPs aren't really fit for purpose either I'd go further and suggest adopted and fostered children should have something completely different.
All children coming into the care system should have an assessment identifying risk factors (eg exposure to drugs) and ACEs, with a sibling assessment where applicable.
All children should have an set allocation of funds for the adopted family to draw on as and when they need it up to the age of 18.
Not everyone will need it, and there should be a further fund to apply to in the more extreme cases.
Children should also be automatically entitled to DLA and PIP upto the age of 18.

Please, get specialist advice on your wills. You can do this legitimately. Also, I hear you. My AD1 turns 18 at Christmas. My obligation ends there, legally and (to me) morally. I am looking forward to not having to house her. Yes, I’m sure that some here will think I’m an unfeeling monster. In response, I will state that anyone who wants to live with seven years of extreme violence, false allegations, verbal abuse, endless thefts to the point that I sleep with my purse under my pillow, quite apart from the sibling abuse, the episodes of going missing and probably a lot more that my stressed brain can’t recall, is welcome to swap lives.

I may not be reading this right.
Are you an adopter?
Parenting is hard.
Parenting adopted children comes with its own added extras.

Ah yes - the going missing (often for days, sometimes for up to 2 weeks at a time). I’d forgotten to add that to the mix!

Thanks for your words - it’s validating to know there are others out there. I’m sorry you’re experiencing what you’re going through. I don’t think you’re a monster at all.

Thanks. I will take that as a compliment! Please do check out all of the coverage on the BBC today. You will find all the validation you need there. I hear you re: the countdown to 18 and your plans thereafter. Given how extreme things have been for me/us, I’m mentally congratulating myself on having nearly reached this milestone. Without one of us being dead. But obviously I am not a good advert for adoption. To be fair, my adoption lawyer and various professionals think it’s quite an achievement!

Very controversial view point i know but imo adopters should be properly trained and not just given kids and left to it - and there should be a stay at home parent, so no relying on childcare. And that should be funded in some way. Atm adoption allowances are only available where children are really hard to place and are usually means tested. They should be standard.

At the end of the day, you can put loads of money and services in and it still won't work. I do think there needs to be an ehc plan, dla, paediatrician on tap, therapist.

But I used to be an AUK local coordinator and over about 15 years I saw so many prospective adopters go on to adopt. And nearly everyone disappeared after the adoption order. Then we would hear back from some of them when the problems really kicked in from about year 7 onwards.

The fact is, as long as there are still new adopters coming forward, there is no reason for Gov to act. The fact that applications are down is probably the best chance of getting anything done. Btw I thought surrogacy was largely behind the drop in adoption.

No, cost of living apparently. According to Adoption England. They are wrong, obviously. The very many hundreds of us who have been maltreated are publicising our maltreatment. Word spreads.

And the abuse can continue to adulthood. One of our 4 sons now in his 30s sent me 137 abusive voice mails and 27 emails from 4 different email addresses in one day recently. I had to change my mobile no and no longer open any emails from him that go straight to spam.. i got advice from a domestic violence team re getting a non molestation order but as we dont know his address it can not be served on him . We are downsizing next week and will not be giving him our new address. He of course looked up what we sold our current home for so feels entitled to ask for money! Amazingly my husband and I managed to have successful professional lives ( me 3 days a week) and have been involved on adoption panels /as school governors and sports coaches .
Now mid to late 60s we are aware we have a very different shaped family than our peers with our adult children needing more support than our friends adult children. But there have been times of joy and happiness and the knowledge thst 3/4 love and in their own way care for us !

But we used to have meetings specially for prospective adopters and we would be very open about the difficulties and still people went ahead. I did the very same thing! I went to meetings at Helen Oakwater's house as a prospective adopter - she had 3 very challenging children and I heard all about it (she subsequently wrote Bubble Wrapped Children). I also had a friend who had adopted and when we went round there, she ran out to the car and told me to leave my bag there and every room in the house had a keypad lock on it. I read the "negative stuff in AUK magazines. And STILL I went ahead. Just like we all did.

I was and am properly trained. I could probably go on Mastermind with adoption-related issues as my specialist subject. I adopted as a lone female. I have never had a relationship in the 20 years since I started the process. I gave up a highly successful business to enable me to be at home 24/7. Still, things went spectacularly tits up with AD1.

That’s the thing, I think that adopters are among life’s most resilient and resourceful people. Also, we are probably used to succeeding at everything we turn our hands to so we imagine that we will be the ones to dodge the bullets? I’m being highly facetious here but I hope you get my drift? Also, the drive to have a family is so incredibly strong that, like you say, we don’t want to see the realities right in front of us. Or, even more arrogantly, if we do, we assume that our innate skills will mean that we will bypass any issues?!

We go ahead in the hope that we will be one of lucky ones.
I am.one of the lucky ones. Its not been without its challenges, although nothing of the order of some of you. I know we gave caught some lucky breaks over the years.
My son is reasonably well adjusted, we have a good, solid relationship. He is doing well at university.
Of my many adopter friends there are some who had very troubled teenage years and have come through it, others who are still battling away with young adults producing the next generation.
There is a great deal wrong with the adoption system. Absolutely social services should not be blaming adoptive parents and threatening you with the police. I really hope you get your day in court. You and your children deserve nothing less.

But for some of us it does work out, and that's why people still come forward, in hope that they will be one of the lucky ones.

So sorry to read this. How horrible. I find your story really validating as three out of four of your children are successful at life and maintain relationships with you. The whole point of the BBC stuff today was to highlight the extent of the parent blaming and shaming when things do not work out. As a society, we are only just starting to understand the effects of epigenetics and genetics. Sadly, nurture cannot outrun nature.

Can you point me to the test case in Scotland please!

This one to start.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c623we048yzo.amp

Also, this one. I know who this is but they use a pseudonym.

Matt - not his real name - and his family endured years of violence when his son developed serious behavioural issues. After his son eventually returned to care, Matt took his local authority in Scotland to court over its failure to provide support - citing the Human Rights Act and the right to a family life.

More here.

The level of shame and guilt, it is like grieving for someone who's not dead," Matt said. "You just feel like an absolute failure."

Unusually, he won an apology.
The case was settled out of court with his council paying the court costs. It was not about the money, Matt says, he wanted to get the local authority to "admit that they've done something wrong".
His council said their social workers are committed to working with Matt and his family and apologise for "any shortcomings".

Ah thank you - I too know Matt in real life and was aware of the other case, I just wondered if there was something I had missed. The post adoption landscape in Scotland is even more patchwork than in England, it’s been the subject of discussion at the cross party group on social work a couple of times now.

Part of the problem is families being referred into children and families/child protection team instead of adoption teams when things hit the skids. A mainstream children’s social worker simply doesn’t have the depth of knowledge about adoption and has a process to follow. I’m not saying it’s right, at all, there needs to be more consistent, constructive support.

I had a consultant psychiatrist try to suggest all my DD needed was love and consistency so if I just parented her well she’d be fine. He very quickly realised he’d chosen the wrong parent for that shit.

The parents in this report have been brave, self sacrificing and tenacious. I commend you all.

Thank you. We have stuck our necks on the line, especially as some of us have gagging orders imposed by the family courts, because of LAs. Ah, yes, that old trope of ‘you just have to love them to cure them.’ Utter BS. Like you can correct generations of epigenetics and genetics, notwithstanding all of the stuff related to being removed from families of origin.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this reporting - I’ll highlight it as much as I can, there needs to be some way of keeping momentum going. Adoption gets overlooked in just about every policy discussion or dismissed as a niche issue.