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?

Agree with all of this.

And also IVF, surrogacy and the cost-of-living crisis.

This was the 80s. The child in question is in his 40s and older than me now. Maybe it was different then? As I said upthread, I know several women who have lost their parental rights and I don’t think any of them surrendered them willingly.

If the UK has such a ridiculous requirement, then I feel bad for the children waiting on families. This is not about the child, but what "feels good" for the adults. If a child has the chance to go to a home that will love them, but is declined just for the fact that the government is forcing contact with birthing mom when adopters want no contact after the adoption is finalized, then that is devastating for that child.

I completely agree with the OP. We adopted 15 years ago and had some contact initially. Every decision we made as parents were questioned by the birth family both through face to face and letterbox including encouraging social workers to be involved. It would always stem from innocent things my kids would say during conversation.

Our decisions were very simple things eg choice of clothing, allowing one of our sons to become vegetarian at 10 (his choice, it lasted 6 months), allowing certain sports / supporting a football team.

We had contact from a social worker a number of years ago because our letterbox contact was 1 week late and it had upset the birth family - we had sent the letter it was just stuck in postal system. I did remind the social worker, the birth family ones always arrived late -usually 3 - 6 months late but we always accepted them and they didn't need to wait for ours to arrive before sending theirs.

There judgemental attitude really got to me and I often questioned my own decisions. It made me so anxious in run upto visits. I felt like I was doing nothing more than babysitting their children.

We stopped face to face before letterbox contact and 5 years ago with the agreement of our then teenage children ceased all contact.

The ASF would be useless for my family even if it were unlimited, because to access it you have to jump through the hoop of LA post adoption service assessing your needs. In our case, our (notoriously shit) LA decided they had assessed that my teenage DD didn't need therapy, despite her and I both wanting her to have it and their 'assessment' not involving meeting her or speaking to her! Post adoption support is a myth and if prospective adopters are more aware of that I'm not surprised they don't pursue adoption.

Can I ask what country you come from? Are you American?

I am a children's social worker of two decades, I have also fostered and adopted. There is a lot of research behind the move to face-to-face contact following adoption and when agreed,it is in the best interests of the child- every thing in the final care plan is centred on the child's interests. I have had a few cases where this has been pretty positive- the underlying thinking is the child has an understanding of their birth family.

One case which worked really well was the adopter was an Early Permancy Carer so had already seen parents frequently when still in proceedings and understood their issues. One parent sadly had learning difficulties and could would never have capacity to care. They have one contact a year, which adoptive parent can stop at any time, and it allows the children to better understand why decisions were made on their behalf.

The bigger issue at the moment is the court's regression to be totally centred on parents' rights above the child. I have been lucky to work in an LA which has allowed really good outcomes to return children home. However, it is now practically impossible to go to court having undergone months of intense work (and maybe years if older children), even having psychological assessments completed pre-birth which categorically say parents cannot make changes within timescales and get an EPP approved. The legal team argue we have written off parents, are anti-parent (even had one advocate argue I was biased against drug users when my early career was working with active drug users and I still volunteer).

Needs to be on a case by case basis, whilst you might not want it, for the children they may prefer to keep contact. I’m hearing what is best for adopters not the children nor the birth family who have very variable reasons for the adoption. Based on how many people seek information at 18, I’m not convinced adoptees wouldn’t benefit

I’m not sure long term fostering is the best solution for any child. It would always feel temporary, conditional, knowing your guardians could give you up at any point, for any reason. That can’t be healthy.

I’m not in a position to adopt, but if I were, I would have no issue with their birth family being part of their life.

I think there should be a way out of a family that’s not yours. I hate my adoptive parents, they are nothing to me.
I was torn away from my mum because she had post partum depression and adopted by an alcoholic man and woman with MH issues and lived in poverty.
I had a terrible upbringing and when I finally escaped back to my birth mother I found a loving respectable family, she’d got better and had 2 other children who she cared for and was a brilliant mum.
I should have been returned to her but because the awful people who adopted me had rights to keep me despite me hating them I had to stay.
Only as an adult have I been able to experience a loving family as that was denied to me growing up.
No adoptive parents will ever be your real parents and I think to adopt a child and keep them separate from their actual family so you can pretend they’re yours is utterly selfish.
I was taken away from my mum because of a perfectly natural condition that she recovered from but I was never allowed to be with the people who loved me and cared.
My mum was heartbroken, I was heartbroken and my siblings and they all said there was a huge hole in the home where I was meant to be and I know if I had been there I would have had a happy upbringing instead.
Adoption is final and so should only be for cases where the actual parents are deceased.

The contact with birth family once adoption order has been made cannot be enforced. Still goes back to choice after that.

I can see you're in America from the word mom? I'm in the uk. It works very differently.

well childten dont always know what is in their best interests. And birth families can be incredibly dysfunctional of course. If they could put their childrens needs first then the children wouldn't need to be adopted in the first place.
It is an incredibly complex subject and no one size fits all of course as you rightly say.

I think you either adopt and the child is with their new family or you foster and the child has contact with biofamily. I don't like this idea of splitting the difference. I'm adopted on the old style adoption where there was no contact. My sister in law adopted and they do write to the bio parents once a year. Their circumstances are bio parents have some learning difficulties and couldn't cope with the baby and they reply to letter sent but it's clear they've had help constructing It.

I think an issue with adoption can be when someone never knew and discovers it and then it's a massive shock. I mentioned I was adopted once to a woman who asked me about it and she told me that her daughter was adopted on that they had intended to tell her 'when the time was right'. She had wanted to do this several times but her husband was against the idea. Her daughter was now older and she was worried that at some point this is going to come out and would be very messy.

I was adopted in the 1960s when it was an absolute. I was always curious about my birth parents and this was treated by my adoptive parents very defensively as if I was trying to separate from them ( I was probably doing my best to test them as a stroppy teen). I was always curious, and remain so having never been able to make contact. However I did benefit hugely from a secure upbringing and I can't see how a more open adoption benefits the children who could easily become conflicted about where their loyalties lie. Contact by email, letter might work, but honestly I can't imagine any state or third sector agency having the resources to manage this properly.

It’s easy for me to say this as I’m not adopted or an adoptive parent but I don’t think I would have a problem with this.

Growing up, my best friend was adopted and she was fascinated by her birth parents who weren’t in the picture and often spoke about finding them when she was older. Unfortunately we lost touch so I’ve no idea whether or not she did and what this was like for her but children will always wonder about what they don't know. Removing some of the unknown around their real families could be helpful in some cases and help them understand the full context of the situation.

I was unofficially adopted by family members after my (very young) mum quickly proved herself to be uninterested in looking after me. She was allowed to visit me whenever she felt like it and caused lasting damage to me in the process. I tried to speak up and say that I didn't want her to visit but was ignored. So my experience tells me that saying contact should be child-led and actually enacting that are two very different things.

Adoption is all about what is best for the children and what is best for the adopters comes a long, long way down the list. Birth family don't 'have reasons for the adoption ' almost all children adopted in the UK are removed by the courts for their own safety, not at the birth families choice.

This is a complex issue which isn't as simple as 'some teenage adoptees seek contact via SM therefore it must be good for them'. My DC birth father is a dangerous, volatile, diagnosed sociopath. Contact with him or his large criminal family would be incredibly dangerous to them.

Thus why OP is saying that this policy is hurting the children in the UK. It should be up to the family that is adopting the child on what they want to do as far as contact goes. There are plenty of people who would agree to it. But to say that you have no choice in the matter is hurting children who would otherwise be going to a great home.

Sometimes, it's wise to change v unusual names, especially if the placement is near birth family, to reduce the risk of the children being identified

Generally, I agree with you. And it's a good example of how adoption has changed. It's now recognised that the first name is an important link to birth identity, although it's common to change middle names

Cringing at myself as just realised I typed “real” families. I appreciate that adoptive families are real families and meant to say birth families. Apologies for any offence caused, genuine mistake.

Also based on contact i have with children’s services for work, most available children have complex needs or may have due to alcohol or drugs during pregnancy, this could be the reason for not adopting, the kids do deserve to have permanent homes but it’s quite complicated

Because not all of them are babies?

A friend's sister had her four children taken into care. She has issues; and the children are better off away from her, that's a fact. She neglected them, the eldest often went to school hungry and dirty, and had to do a lot of care for the youngers. One of the four went to live with her Dad, one went to my friend, and the other two were adopted.

Apart from the youngest, they all remember their mum. The eldest likes to meet up with the second eldest, who lives with her Dad. They see their mum once a quarter. It's a nice trip for them all. For that bit of time, she can be a good mum. For any longer, she can't. But the older kids know that she is their mother.

The kids deserve to be able to go and see her. They shouldn't be forced and they're all still pretty young, i'd imagine there will be periods where they don't want to go, and they shouldn't be forced... but these aren't all tiny babies being placed with new parents. Some of them remember. Cutting that off isn't massively healthy.

@ISeeYouHere this is why they do a lot of work with adopters and adoptees now around life story work. My son has a book all about his early childhood and can ask questions. He has an age appropriate understanding of why he was adopted and what the problems were.