Post adoption contact has ruined the chance of adoption for so many children

[Popcornhero]

I am a paediatrician, Mum of three children (who arrived by adoption) and have several foster carer and social worker friends. I keep seeing children no longer getting adopted now there is an expectation for face to face contact with birth families.

I have seen this through work recently, and today was chatting to a foster carer friend who was saying how many children in their fostering network are no longer being adopted. Shehas a 14 month old in her care, who she's been approached to keep as a long term foster as he's been up for adoption for a year with no one to take him.

The rules now around face to face contact with birth families have meant adoption rates have plummeted. I'm so angry about it. Children deserve a fresh start with their new family & they aren't getting it because needs of birth parents are being prioritised.

Some research suggests adoptees would have liked more contact, but there is a bias in the literature. It's those most affected by the adoption that are coming forward not those who grew up and moved on and adoption is only one part of their story.

I know we wouldn't have adopted it we had had to maintain face to face contact with the birth family. They are our children and they have a lovely protected life. We changed our children's names to give them a better chance in life ( they had for example names like Thor, Loki and Renesmee and are now, Theo, Luca and Esme) **just an example. We never send photos so they can be captured in birthday parties and their identity remains safe. They know their story, they know why we are their parents. We write to the birth family yearly. It would be awful for them to feel split between two worlds.

Surely they need to review the impact this has had,before more children lose the chance at having a family?

It’s just another false narrative.

I do very much get where you're coming from with this, and you're of course right that adoptee voices should be championed in any space/ discussion that could affect other children/people with experience of adoption or care. At the same time I don't think the pp has pretended to know "exactly what it's like" or has said such unless I've missed it in their posts. They've given information based on what it's been like for people close to them and have been open about that. Any points of view I've formed my opinions on have been directly from adoptees because I do listen more than I talk, I had to as I've done research on outcomes for young people with experience of different types of care experience and my background is advocacy work and helping young people with different types of care experience to lobby for system overhaul. I think the source is important and I'd see someone as having a worthwhile perspective if that perspective is shaped from really listening to someone (or ideally multiple people) with direct lived experience which that pp has done. The other side of that is I tend to work with people where things have gone wrong and where adoptions have broken down/ hit crisis point and you can be sure those adoptees aren't on mn advocating for themselves (because of their circumstances or also because of their age) which is why it's important to allow for different experiences to be heard? Adoption/ the care system in general is ever changing so it's important there's still space made for young adoptees voices because they are the ones going through the current system?

Well, this thread illustrates the complexity of adoption. Plenty of competing anecdotes, and yet so many insisting that the answer is simple.

All I'll add, as an adopter of 15 years vintage, is that the current model of adoption isn't working. The challenge is enormous (vastly different from parenting a birth child - I've done both) and the support almost non-existent. Opening up adoption further to increase f2f contact is a huge ask of adoptive parents. If the benefit to the child demands it, fine, but it will only work if it is properly resourced (and in adoption, NOTHING is properly resourced).

Two more relevant points: according to my adoption agency, most birth parents don't keep up with the letterbox, so you have to factor in the risk of repeated abandonments. And for those decrying the idea of adoptive parents 'owning' their children, it comes down to whether you think adoptive parents should have the same rights and responsibilities as all other parents. Because our system does rest on the assumption that parents know their kids best.

Oh, and piss off to those of you who are hinting that adoptive parents are all poshos who want to rebrand their Chardonnays as Ophelias and sign them up for pony riding. My own adopted child has dropped out of school, struggles with basic literacy, smokes weed and is definitely 'street'. She is also loving, loyal, funny and kind. Most importantly, she has been spared the absolute horrors her birth siblings went through. She is not involved in crime, bullying, sex work or family violence. That is what I count as a successful adoption.

You sound like a great mother to your ADD : there are definitely posters on here making unpleasant & unquestioned assumptions about adoptive parents.

When yo say 'current model' - what changes do you think should be made? Primarily, more funding?

Do you think the current model was more designed for previous cohorts where the main reason for adoption was often illegitimacy, and where there would be no expectation for contact with birth parents?

Thanks Carla, I think we have to accept that most adoption today requires high intensity therapeutic parenting, and that parents who are up to providing that don't just fall from the trees. The training/prep I had, 16 years ago, was a lot of information-giving (mostly geared at seeing if they could frighten us off) and after that we were pretty much guaranteed to get through because of our racial mix. Once we were deemed good enough we were matched, and there the support ended.

Looking back, I think they could have expedited that process and put much more into continuing training/support over the next few years. Adoptive parents are not special people, they just have to learn to parent differently. And that is often very lonely because the world doesnt understand and you can often feel criticised for being too soft or whatever.

So yes, I think that there should be ongoing education and support throughout the parenting years. For the most challenged parents, there should be respite care and subsidised parental leave. I am now a solo parent (my ex developed young onset dementia within a few years of adopting) and it has been beyond difficult juggling full time work with raising two children, one with high care needs.

I also think all adopted children should be entitled to CAMHS assessment every five years if the parent wants it. My dd was a baby when I adopted her, so all the consequences of the circumstances of her birth were hypotheticals. Since the damage has suefaced, CAMHS has refused to assess her, because she is out of school and because she has disordered attachment which I am required to 'cure' BEFORE they will assess her. It stinks. Yes, CAMHS needs reforming for all children, but I do think the state has a special responsibility for the children that have been in its care.

Finally,on direct contact with birth parents. I'm not anti, I just think its not as straightforward as some posters seem to think. In fact we were lined up to adopt another little girl and we were asked if we would be happy for the dad to have direct contact. We said yes but he then rejected us for being two women. They upheld his right to do that, which is a bit odd as he was giving up his parental rights. I think that is one risk of direct contact - of birth parents having Opinions on the upbringing of their child (how could they not?) and the pressures on adoptive parents to comply or close contact.

Another risk: that the abusive dad coerces the scared mum to disclose clues on child's whereabouts. Third risk: if my child had direct contact we would have spent a lot of time visiting prisons which I dont believe would have been good for her.

Now, all these things can be worked with, but not without really skilled support. Support which currently doesnt exist. This is about so much more than 'selfish' adopters.

I too agree more ongoing training than 20 years ago.
Regular CAMHS assessments if requested sounds good.

I also think that adopted children should have EHCPs by default. Giving priority entry to preferred schools for adopted children is a start but insufficient imo.

Not if the gamete donation is in another country.

We have a donor conceived child and the conditions of the other country (in Europe) required that the donor be anonymous.

I don't believe there are any reliable statistics on how many UK parents have gone abroad for treatment.

I think this is an excellent point the lack of resources and specialist support is really a key issue - how can people be expected to take on a role we aren't equipping them for to help them feel capable and confident to navigate?

I think when it comes to contact, there needs to be a comprehensive risk assessment completed taking into account the physical and emotional safety of the child as well as the child's wishes and fears and that should form the basis of the type of contact, if any, so it's completely individualised. That should also include what information is shared during contact and how safely this can be filtered to protect the child's placement and anonymity.

In terms of birth parents having opinions, I don't think you can treat them like they've lost their parental rights until the ink is dry on that front. Up to that last moment, they still have parental responsibility, or at least shared parental responsibility for their child and providers would be legally remiss not to treat them accordingly. Once adoption has gone through, I think this is where support is needed to help adopters (and bio parents) to navigate this sensitively as of course there will be opinions and differences and lots of emotion in the mix too. This can be done well, I work with someone who is now sober and is extremely thankful for the adoptive family who her child lives with and how good they are to him, but they've also made a lot of effort with her to build a good relationship there and that took a long time. Now she sees it as her role to back up their parenting and have a kind of supportive mentoring relationship with the child like an aunt would when she sees them and it seems to be working well for everyone despite a naturally rocky start.

This post and your quoting from Google just shows that you are pretty ignorant about the whole process!

Literally just repeating what she said but is a pre-approval SW, not post so obviously has less to do with the allocation side. I will earn enough to be able to support the child fully from my income so anything surplus I'll save for their future

I think you will want to check this. The fostering agency I went with were insistent that at least one carer had to be full-time at home, for at least the first year of the placement. They said there could be more flex on part-time work when the child was older and if in full-time education. And that this might be slightly different for LA now I think of it, so maybe that’s your position. As a single carer by then that wasn’t financially viable so in the end I had to withdraw. Prior to that I was due to adopt children well over 3 years old. Two siblings, but there were many individual children over that age. It’s true though that fewer families want to adopt older children, and the lack of post-adoption support is a big factor. Although it wasn’t my initial choice, the benefit of fostering - for me - was the ongoing support and a network of other carers. But I just couldn’t make it work.

Just adding my own experience as an adoptee... I won't be too outing, but I met with my late birth mum and I found it really gave me insight into a lot of unanswered questions that I'd had before we met.

I was born 3 months prematurely and was weaned off heroin, saved by the wonderful doctors at King's College hospital NICU. I had a wonderful childhood and upbringing, and know my birth mum would never have been able to deal with a tiny, very vulnerable baby with complex medical needs. My drug addict birth dad went AWOL so I never know what happened to him.

I think that the law changed around the time when i first met my birth mum, so that birth parents could decide on when to meet their birth children. I think in some ways, it was probably a good thing as I remember really wanting to meet my birth mum, but not knowing how on earth to start the process.

Just to add, and I’m not sure if you’re planning to foster or adopt, the needs of your children may be too great to allow you to work. Especially as a singleton. I’ve not managed to work in paid employment for years. Being an adoptive parent is a full-time job. Being an SEN parent is a full-time job. There is significant overlap between the two so you can imagine how my days are spent, battling for the practically non-existent support.

fair enough though you may well find that you cannot work full time in a high pressure job and foster. It is easy to underestimate the amount of meetings,appointments and commitments involved.
Also the sw will have the say on things like savings and once they are university age they will be an adult and you will not have any further input. Of course you have no say before they are 18 either as all.decisions are made by the local authority which is something else to be aware of.
My general point is that many sw are clueless even when they should know better and misinformation is a common problem. And goalposts are frequently moved ime as well.
But anyway all the best with your foster journey.

I'm an adoptive Mum to 2 DDs (16 and 13). They are birth siblings. I would have been very happy to have regular contact with their 2 other siblings, who are living with different families. But their adoptive parents didn't want it, and I respect their reasons for deciding this. It really isn't enforceable and I suspect there are plenty of other adoptive parents who decide that contact with birth family wouldn’t be beneficial.

As for me, I think direct contact can be very helpful and we’re currently supporting DD1 in seeking direct contact with her birth parents. I don't think it would have been beneficial when she was younger as they are both very damaged and in a very dysfunctional relationship.

Thank you for posting and I’m sorry for your experiences which resonate deeply for me as they mirror those of my AD1. You raise a really good point about being able to ask questions of birth parents. Knowing the medical history of birth parents can be very helpful, for example.

My mum sees it in a similar way, that they gave me a "better chance". To be honest, that is true in many ways, and I don't see it as hyperbole or mawkish.

I certainly would have had a much harder life, probably brought up by grandparents, not a great childhood and fewer opportunities etc. Yes, i agree you can't rebrand children like that, but it would be too dismissive to say that the life given to them with adoptive parents isn't giving them a more stable life.

Declining adoption rates are, in my opinion and experience, more to do with information being more readily available (through the internet and social media especially) about the challenges almost always faced post adoption. It’s not like the 60s when children were adopted for no reason other than having an unwed mother. We now know that autism, learning disabilities, ADHD, all of them comorbidly etc are passed through generations. You are adopting a baby or child that has a considerably higher than average chance of a lifetime of significant needs, which can’t just be loved out of them. It changes the trajectory of your life for many - often can’t go to after school clubs or even attend school full time, so one or both parents lose their careers and so on. Being a SEN parent is really hard. The likelihood of being a SEN parent as an adopter is much higher. This wasn’t known until the last few years because it wasn’t accepted that autism, ADHD etc were genetic.

The majority of people whose children are adopted will have needs (often still undiagnosed or misdiagnosed as bipolar, depression etc) which have contributed to their failure to be able to parent properly. The adoptees may have inherited these needs, and the severity will be unclear until they’re much older. People are becoming more aware of this, and more wary of adopting because of it.

I have seen this happen with close friends of ours, and their lives have genuinely been turned upside down.

As others have said, it’s also now easier to find out who your biological family are/contact them than in previous times. I don’t think it’s so much about the contact in terms of pretending the birth family don’t exist, but more about having potentially parented until the difficult teenage years hit, and being rejected in favour of an alcoholic or drug addicted birth parent who allows the child to visit with no boundaries/exposes them to drugs and alcohol and you can’t do anything to prevent that influence (especially for post 16). It’s a potential lifetime of extra challenges, heartbreak and difficulties in a way that’s talked about far more publicly now.

This is different in countries where the welfare state is not as strong - in America for example, children are still regularly given up for adoption in a way that doesn’t happen here. In the U.K. you’re adopting children who have been through significant trauma, likely exposed to drugs and alcohol in the womb etc. This will impact them for the rest of their lives and cannot just be nurtured out of them. A lot more is understood about nurture vs nature these days.

I agree things are different now only severe cases are kids taken from their parents back in the 60/70/80s or whatever all it took was being unmarried all my kids probably would’ve been taken then because I’m still unmarried and was only 15 when I got pregnant with my oldest.
These days are different.
I see alcoholics who never wash their kids and the kids always have bruises still have custody. It takes a LOT these days. A heroin and crackhead I know had her child removed at birth and I sincerely hope she’s never allowed contact while that child is a child she would be such a bad influence and is currently dragging her teenage niece into her lifestyle

I think ivf probably is another cause for declining adoption rates though

I adopted 19 years ago and I'm surprised by OPs post. Changing of names was a big no no when we adopted. My son has a name that would not have been one we would have chosen in a million years but it was his name and part of his history so we kept it. It has not held him back in life.

I know many adoptive parents and none have had to maintain any face to face contact with birth parents.

We are very unusual in our group of adoptive parents in that our children have had face to face contact with siblings.

Contact with siblings has been very important to my children and has been a very positive experience for my DD. I am very fond of my DD's older sister and they have a nice relationship. I also get on well with the sister's adoptive mum.

Sadly contact with DS's older siblings broke down when he was 10 due their guardian struggling to facilitate it. It was tough for him but they live so far away it was only ever a once a year event anyway. As a 20 year old he ow has no interest in his birth family but that may change.

If we had told our adoption social worker that we wanted to change names of children and that we wanted no contact arrangements at all we wouldn't have progressed to the approval stage. In fact I don't think we would have even made it beyond the initial enquiry stage. They would have told us that adoption was not the right path for us.

Like others have said, it should be managed in a case by case basis.
I think maintains contact can be in the best interest of the child at times and that their identity is incredibly important. Also, a lot of parents deeply love their children but can’t parent them safely for a number of reasons- not all parents who have their children adopted ‘give them up’
I think sibling relationships need to be considered too- these children have not made the choice to be estranged from their biological siblings and deserve to have that link maintained where appropriate

I agree things are different now only severe cases are kids taken from their parents back in the 60/70/80s or whatever all it took was being unmarried all my kids probably would’ve been taken then because I’m still unmarried and was only 15 when I got pregnant with my oldest.

It was also a lot easier for couples to be approved as adopters then, basically you just had to be solvent. Being vetted for adoption now is a gruelling process, rightly so as they need to filter out anyone who is less than wholehearted about it.

Also fully agree that adopted children should have ongoing support via camhs and extra life story work etc as many are just chucked back into a system and parents are left high and dry

Yes, a lot of posters seem to be assuming it’s a parents-only contact situation, but in reality there’s often an entire biological family around them. Sometimes other bio family members can’t be approved as kinship carers for various reasons, but still maintain a loving relationship to the child who would benefit from contact. There are sometimes good reasons for siblings not to be adopted together, but in the situations where I’ve seen ongoing bio family contact work best over an extended period (friends who adopted), it’s most often been with siblings.

The single messiest and most upsetting bio family situation I know of was an international adoption, where the YA seeking to find her bio family in her country of origin was scammed by people posing as them to try to elicit money from her.

Just something I will add (and it's something I've been thinking about a lot recently)... As an adoptee, I've felt very much a different sense of identity, almost fragmented in some ways.

I remember being told that I was adopted around age 4, and my mum gave me a lovely book called "I am adopted" on it. I've always felt like I belonged to my adoptive parents and family, but as I've got older, my sense of identity has become slightly more important, especially as I feel it's been probably affected by intero heroin I had, and possibly might have been a factor in me being (undiagnosed) ADHD.

My birth mum was abused as a child, so i think just that alone would have been a huge factor in her fragile mental health and drug addiction. I often wonder if it was something that was "carried" in her genes, and I know that trauma can be passed on through DNA - although obviously i am probably putting things together here and coming to my own subjective conclusion.

I will say that being adopted has been a very positive experience for me, but I've never been able to feel like I have good self esteem, and often felt I didn't truly have a whole sense of identity with either my birth or adoptive family