Adoption and Looked After Children

Clause 2
I think 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?
I really wish the process of adoption itself was made a bit easier too as there are plenty of loving families out there ready to adopt only to be told they can't.

I strongly believe it's very important for children to be placed with a family of similar or same background especially regarding religion and ethniticity. Placing children with a family of different religion/ethniticity can be very unsettling for a child but more importantly can have severe long term effects on their upbringing and their beliefs. Children need to have a sense of identity and be able to feel a sense of belonging? Changing the law on this would cause long lasting consequences to children who have already been uprooted at least once in their lives.

I OPPOSE CLAUSE 2. FAITH AND CULTURAL BACKGROUND OF ADOPTEES SHOULD BE RESPECTED AND PRESERVED BY FINDING ADOPTERS WITH THE SAME BACKGROUND.

It is absurd to think that social workers will no longer be under a duty to consider religious persuasion, racial origin, and cultural and linguistic background. It is a crucial part of a child’s identity and it becomes increasingly more important as they grow older and make contact with their peers, and the wider world in general.

I am Special Guardian to my lovely little granddaughter, who has been very happily settled with us and thriving well in the two years she has been with us. I just want to express my concerns as to how the new bill might jeopardise the chances of wider family members being even contacted and then considered and assessed for permanent care of a looked after child. We ourselves had to fight for a year through the courts to be able to bring our lovely granddaughter home to us and not lose her forever to stranger adoption.

My main point is that the proposed new time frame of six months is in no way sufficient to locate and assess suitable family members. In many kinship carers' practical experience it can take weeks to order and secure an assessment and then another 3 months to carry it out - the wheels turn extremely slowly. By the time prospective kinship carers come forward, or can be assessed, the child/ren in question may well be already placed with and settling in with foster to adopt carers, and a judge is unlikely to then remove them from a settled placement. My concern is that kinship placements are not even mentioned in the bill and I feel it should be clarified in the bill that kinship options are to be thoroughly explored and that wherever possible prospective family and friends carers should be assessed BEFORE adoption is at all considered, the child's name is entered on the adoption register, and is removed hundreds of miles from its birth family so making contact difficult if not impossible, especially in the case of small babies. Please give all members of the birth family a fair chance and enough time to be assessed before stranger adoption is seen as inevitable for a child.

As regarding clause 2, I feel it is highly beneficial for children to have some connection with their own ethnicity and this may be more important than people think. In my own case my granddaughter is half Thai and benefits from having contact with members of her Thai family - just seeing her resemblance to her birth mother and other family members gives her a vital sense of her own cultural and ethnic identity.

I urge the government to acknowledge and support kinship care as it has been shown that children do very well when settled with loving relatives.

I strongly oppose the removal of clause 2. I believe a child would be lost without his/her identity and only become more confused. A child needs to have stability and a family which he/she can relate to. They should continue praying to who they were praying and how they were praying without feeling the pressure to change religion on the basis of just trying to fit in.

I strongly disagree with the amendment to the clause regarding consideration of race, ethnicity, religion and so on when matching children with prospective adopters.

I believe it's very important for children to be placed with a family of similar or same background, religion and ethnicity. Placing children with a family of differing culture, religion etc can be very distressing for a child. They need to have a sense of identity and be able to grow in comfortable environment where they can relate to thier family. It would be very stressful if the child was brought up Muslim and was placed with atheists. How would this possibly contribute to the happy placement of a adopted child?

As a Friends and family (kinship) carer who has raised 2 relative children to adulthood under a residence order and is currently raising a 3rd under a Special Guardianship Order, I have particular concerns about Clause 1 that exempts the council of the duty to place children with wider family if adoption is considered.
Adoption for my youngest niece was definitely an option and had clause 1 been in effect at the time she came into the care system I have no doubt it would have become a reality. The effects of that would have been devastating to the whole family and her siblings in particular.

Adoption should always be a option. But it should be an option that is considered alongside all other available placement options, it should not become one that specifically excludes another.
My young niece is thriving in my care. She is happy, healthy, excelling at school and is a very much loved member of the family. She has the benefit of maintaining close relationships with her extended family and she is very close to her two older siblings. She is growing up knowing her background, there will be no nasty surprises for her later in life nor will she ever feel the need to go in search of her biological family, either openly or in secret which I believe many adopted children feel driven to do in order to make sense of themselves.

Friends and family care may not be suitable for every child and must be assessed carefully and thoroughly to ensure the placement is the right one. The proposed reduced timescales for care proceedings could potentially restrict friends and family carers as these assessments can take time. The danger is that assessments may be dismissed out of hand due to that lack of time. Timescales need to be flexible to meet the needs of the child/ren. Drift and delay is not acceptable but the process is, and should always be, about the children and securing the best outcomes for them, not about getting cases through court as quickly as possible.

I also have concerns about the foster to adopt plan. Only a court can make a final decision as to where a child will be placed permanently. Adoptive parents are already in short supply and I feel this may further discourage adoptive parents to come forward once they are faced with the very real possibility that a court could make the decision to return the child to parents or to an alternative placement and they could lose the child they hoped would become their own.

If a childs cultural, religious and ethnic needs are given little priority over the desire to achieve an adoption regardless of the cost then these children (and their adoptive parents) are likely to suffer greatly. These are important aspects to a childs development, sense of self and identity. Where they shouldn’t be the only consideration they should be a very important one. Family and friends care is more likely to match a childs needs in these areas. A placement could be wasted and irreversible damage done.

All children have a right to family life. That right should be respected and protected. With the amendments this bill propose children will have that right taken away. To preserve that right all possible permanent placement options should at the very least carry equal weight. The timescales should be flexible to meet the needs of the child and children should only be placed in a placement that is intended to be an adoptive one once the court has made the final decision there is no better or alternative option.