Adoption and Looked After Children

As a foster carer looking after children from all backgrounds I am troubled by clause 2 of the Act. Whilst children that were placed with me were not from my ethnic background,I am also supported by the professionals as well as the certainty of established contact with the birth family which is crucial for the child's emotional and psychological development and future personality. Essentially as a foster carer you are prepared for the task of looking after a child who is in the middle of a child protection case with complex needs which is very different from an adopter who are looking for a replacement child for their family. I cannot see how it is in the best interests of the child to further compound their bewilderment and feelings of loss of the birth family, their foster family by then placing them in a family very unlike their own. The lives of these children are not business processes that need to be turned over as soon as possible. The children are the ones that will live to struggle with their identity and most importantly the denial of their history.
There needs to be more joined up working in recruiting adopters rather than placing a false sense of optimism in clause 2.
To sum up, I heard on a training course that 'You can take a child out of the family but you cant take the family out of a child.

With regard to Clause 2 (Repeal of requirement to give due consideration to ethnicity: England) I wish to keep the requirement as it was originally and NOT repeal the point about 'due consideration to be given to religious persuasion, racial
origin and cultural and linguistic background' when placing a child for adoption, for the following reasons :

1. There is no evidence that those people placing children for adoption ever operate a hard line position by not considering a trans-racial adoption where appropriate and in the best interests of the child. This myth of hard-line social workers and others has been wrongly perpetuated

2. It is well known that some trans-racial adoptions have been successful - this is a good thing

3. The original requirement ensured that these points should be 'considered' when placing a child. By repealing this requirement, in the urgency of placing a child this requirement many not be taken into account and that may be to the child's detriment

4 There are anecdotal instances where a black child has been placed with a white family, where that family has little knowledge or understanding of the child's need for a positive identity. Such a child may be unaware of this reality but have a sense of not belonging anywhere. Such a situation is compounded by a sense of loyalty on the child's part to the adoptive parents for having given him/her a home. The child may be extremely reluctant to say anything. So research may not be in a position to identify such conflicting situations. Hence such conflicts may remain dormant.

I, myself, a white woman, have witnessed such situations - where seemingly kindly adoptive parents have given their adopted black children no role models, no support for the inevitable racial prejudice they face and no strategies for coping with any racism they face. These children have grown up not really knowing who they are and with few coping skills for their future lives. Most of these children lived in largely white areas of the country where they never saw people like themselves. They in turn have had their own families and have repeated the inadequacies of their own adoptions.

I am not saying that all transracial adoptions are like this but I have seen the reality of the adoption process NOT considering ethnicity etc. It is ESSENTIAL that the aspects listed in the original legislation should be maintained so that the situations that I have witnessed are not repeated.

5 I wonder if children who have been placed transracially were given the opportunity to really describe their experiences, free of conflicts of loyalty, whether they would be able to identify exactly what factors helped or hindered their process into happiness and belonging.

6 I believe that almost, if not all, the agencies placing children for adoption, agree that the requirement to consider ethnicity should remain. Surely no government wishes to go against the long-standing professional opinions of such agencies

7. This requirement should remain until any evidence is found to refute its relevance in 2013 after many years of its effectiveness

It's extremely important for children to be placed in families of similar religious, cultural and racial backgrounds. Isn't the whole process of adoption already distressing enough as it is, without causing further distress to a child by placing them in homes where the upbringing is totally alien to them? Basic environmental factors such as smells and food is very important to the child's wellbeing.

As a Director of a small independent fostering agency that has placed around 140 children with foster families, I am deeply concerned with clause 2 that removes the requirement to give due consideration to religious persuation, racial origin etc.

As MPs, our representatives, I implore you to take evidence (both anecdotal and researched/evidenced) into account, which shows that looked after children do best when placed in well matched households that reflect their faith and ethnic origins.

As our representatives I implore you to take the views of minority faith and ethnic communities into account, as mainly middle-class white-men our MPs are entrusted to canvas and consider the views of minorities, and these communities are whole-heartedly against the removal of the requirement for matching taking race/religion into account. Waiting for the right match is never an issue, children are always placed in loving foster homes, even if it takes years, so long as the long-term match for that child is right.

I have seen countless examples of fostered children thriving once they have moved from a poorly-matched family (where faith/ethnicity is not reflected) to one where they feel 'at home' where this is reflected. With adoption there is no easy moving if the child feels 'lost', only the pain of long-term identity issues.

Taking all this into account I hope that the right decision is made and children's identities and futures are preserved through maintaining the requirement to take religion, ethnicity and culture into account when finding the right family for children in care.

Clause 2 (specific consideration of child’s race, culture, language, and religion)

We agree with the recommendation of the House of Lords Adoption Select Committee that, rather than removing the requirement to give due consideration to the child’s race culture language and religion when making adoption decisions as proposed by clause 2, these should be specifically included, along with other factors, in the welfare checklist in s.1 ACA 2002.

Clause 7 and 8 (contact)

The effect of clause 7 is to clarify existing law that the local authority must allow a child in care contact with their parents (and some other family members) provided it does not place the child at risk of harm. However there is also provision in clause 7(4) for the Secretary of State to issue further Regulations as to when contact with family members is consistent with safeguarding and promoting the child’s welfare. In our view this would be inappropriate, since social workers should make careful judgements, according to the evidence in each case, about whether contact is harmful to the particular child’s welfare. This is not something that can, or should be, prescribed by Regulation.

Clause 8(1)(4)(c) provides that parents of children who are being, or have been, adopted will need leave to apply for post adoption contact. We agree that the birth parents of children who have already been adopted should be required to get leave but we disagree that this rule should apply to parents whose children are not yet adopted since these parents remain legally related to their child and retain parental responsibility for them unless and until their child is adopted.

We also recommend that a new requirement is added to the clause 7 requiring the local authority to allow children in care contact with their siblings unless it would be harmful to them. 63% of children in care, whose siblings are also in the care system, are separated from them and young people in care themselves feel strongly that they have too little contact with their siblings. This amendment would make sibling contact a priority in social work practice.

Family Rights Group is the charity in England and Wales that advises over 8000 families a year whose children are involved with, or require, local authority children’s services because of welfare needs or concerns. We promote policies and practices, including family group conferences, that help children to be raised safely and securely within their families, and give families a voice when decisions are made about their lives. We also campaign for effective support to assist family and friends carers, including grandparents who are raising children that cannot live at home.

Clauses 1 and 6 (foster for adoption)

We are seriously concerned about the impact of Clauses 1and 6 (foster for adopt) if they are enacted as drafted.
Clause 1 says that local authorities must consider placing a child with prospective adopters (who are temporarily approved as foster carers) as soon as adoption is even considered for a child in the care system. It also allows them to place the child out of their local area, potentially far away from their family (which will interfere with them keeping in touch with their family) and authorises social workers to no longer consider wider family placements in preference to unrelated foster carers. Clause 6 says that the social worker will be able to put the child’s name on the national adoption register to find suitable adopters. We are concerned that:
1. Decisions to place a child in a foster for adopt placement, will be taken in many cases before there has been any final decision by a court that the child should be removed from their family; it will even apply to children who the parents have agreed can go into care for a short period of time.
2. Parents and relatives where the children are accommodated under section 20 will not have any legal advice to make informed decisions about their options in the face of the potentially long term implications of a foster for adoption placement.
3. Clause 1 will squeeze out consideration of relatives who could offer children stability, love, security and continuity. Even when a suitable placement within the family is available, local authorities will be exempt from prioritising such a placement over an unrelated foster for adopt placement. Moreover, once a child is placed in a foster for adopt placement, which may be far from parents and wider family, social workers are likely to stop working with the birth family. Once the child is with potential adopters, courts are very unlikely several months down the line to reverse the decision, as the child will by then have settled with the new carers. Thus the child and their families’ human rights will have been breached.

4. There will not be suitable adopters for these children, as a result many may end up in a legal limbo. There are already 4600 children on the adoption waiting list and numbers are growing. The assessment process and criteria for approving adopters has been reduced which casts doubt on the suitability of prospective adopters in future;

We therefore recommend that
• clauses 1 & 6 should be deleted on the grounds that they breach the child and parents’ right to respect for family life;

• there should be a new duty on local authorities to engage and support families pre-proceedings so as to ensure effective work is undertaken with the family to explore all safe family options for the child, to avert the need for them to be removed into the care system and raised by unrelated carers; and

• there should be:

i. new duties on local authorities to support family and friends care arrangements akin to that provided to adopters,
ii. a national financial allowance for family and friends carers raising children who would otherwise be in care, and
iii. employment measures including paid leave akin to that provided to adopters to maximise optimal outcomes for children raised in family and friends care.

• The government should ensure in Regulation that the approval criteria for prospective adopters who want to be approved as temporary foster carers should include a thorough assessment of their ability to support the child having contact with their family pending a decision of the court and returning home as appropriate.

I am commenting in particular the clause 2. I have had first hand experience in placing children to adopters both with same race background and in transracial placement to white parents. My dealings with them were that with the transracial placements - even with the kind heart and well movitated adopting parents, they were not adequate to handle the child's daily experiences on racial abuse from individuals in their contact and in institutional structural way. While the same race placements were very able to provide the child with identifying and understanding their racial background, cultural and language needs more than their white counter parts. Their handling of of the child's experience in racial issues was immensively successful. They were real cases which I handled in my professional capacity as well as in community contacts.

I strongly disagree with Clause 2 and the removal of the explicit legal wording regarding religious persuasion etc. Adoption agencies must continue to respect all these factors as they form an integral part of the child's cultural and religious identity. Adoption agencies must do all they can to continue to ensure that children are only placed with adopting parents with the same religious background. However, in order to do so, more adopters from ethnic minority and culturally diverse backgrounds also need to step up and assist adoption agencies in this matter. This is a highly emotive issue, but we must respect the religious and cultural identity of the child and not leave this to the discretion of an adoption agency.

Re Clause 2:

I write to express my support for continuing to place adopted children with families of similar religeous and racial background as this is vital for their integration into their new families and developing their self confidence and identity.
Sincerely