The House Magazine: Approach to Adoption

Written by Annette Brooke and published in The House Magazine on Mon 28th Feb 2005

Annette Brooke speaking at BAAF fringe meeting at Lib Dem Autumn Conference 2004

Adoption is an enormously complex subject. It invariably involves the most vulnerable children in society. Where the state is responsible for the welfare and the wellbeing of children, it is a reflection of our society of how we treat them and how we manage the situation they find themselves in. Increasingly, children who need to be adopted are in the care of social services, either in foster care or are looked after children, and many have had difficult experiences in their early lives. Now, and for far too long, these vulnerable children and young people have had the worst education, health and social outcomes.

Above all, any adoption or fostering policy should put the safety, stability and security of the child at its heart as the first step to improving his or her life chances. A civilized and developed nation should put this commitment highest on its agenda.

As parliamentarians, we are responsible the laws that govern adoption issues and we take this responsibility very seriously.

In 1999, my colleague Mark Oaten MP, now the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, introduced a Private Members' Bill on Adoption (Intercountry Aspects) which became an Act in 1999. This Act introduced for the first time specific provision to regulate intercountry adoptions, and also enabled the UK to ratify the 1993 Hague Convention on the protection of children and co-operation in respect of intercountry adoption. The Act also introduced measures to address private arrangements for adoption to ensure that all prospective adoptive families undergo proper assessments, home visits and proper approvals by a local authority or and approved adoption agency before an adoption can proceed. These, and others, brought about long overdue improvements to the system.

The new draft Children (Contact) and Adoption Bill will enable intercountry adoptions to be suspended where there are concerns about a child's welfare and also introduces measures to further minimize the risk of trafficking. We believe that such moves make sense and therefore welcome the tightening up of such regulations.

With regard to intercountry adoption, we regret that many couples find the process of interviews and assessments far too lengthy. Many Local Authorities simply do not have the capacity to undertake swift and thorough assessments for prospective adoptive families needed to place local children, let alone those hoping to adopt from overseas. In terms of priorities, when resources are scarce there is a difficult balance to strike when dealing with home adoptions and intercountry adoptions. We would like to see all potential adoptive families be assessed in a reasonable amount of time, to enable families to provide a secure and stable family environment for a child, and this requires more resources to enable this to happen. It is also important to note that Intercountry adoptions are complex in their own ways, and such families should have as much right to post-adoption support as other adoptive families.

It would be a false economy not to invest sufficient resources in adoption services to maximise the number of successful adoptions. Adoption services have historically been under-resourced and social services generally are being squeezed, in spite of increased funding.

There is a huge a shortage of social workers nationally and many social services departments face significant problems in recruitment and retention of staff. Social workers deserve more recognition and remuneration for the highly stressful, demanding work they do.

According to estimates by the House of Commons library, children's social worker vacancies in 2003 were around 2,700, with the turnover rate in Children's social workers at 12% in 2003. The extent of the crisis in social care is highlighted in this statement in the 2002—3 report of the Chief Inspector of Social Services (para 2.76):

"The workforce issues facing social care services are all too familiar to everyone working in them. It is estimated that, to meet new service development requirements and get vacancy rates down […], we need an additional 50,000 people to join the workforce - about 350 more workers in an average council area."

As the measures set out in the Children Act 2004 set in, we should see social workers managing smaller case loads, receiving more and more relevant training, increased standards of management and supervision. But such measures must be taken very seriously if children's services departments are to benefit greatly.

Liberal Democrats believe that targets - whether for the number of placements and adoptions or for waiting times - are useful as monitoring devices, but when they become an end in themselves, policy and procedures may be diverted to meet them. Some people believe that the introduction of adoption targets has kickstarted the process of focussing the minds of social services departments on the need to improve and speed up adoption services, which is a positive development, but quality of the placements must not be compromised. Also, it must not be forgotten that adoptive parent assessments and child placement are just the beginning - post adoptive support is often vital for a successful placement.

Adoption Plans place a duty on the local authority to provide support for the family relationship in the longer term. Again, this places a lot of responsibility on local authorities for longer term funding streams, as families may need on-going support for many years. We are concerned that the high cost and long term nature of such funding does put pressure on Local Authority budgets, and that this vital 'investment' in the whole family might be compromised.

We also support calls from the specialist organisations for the speedy introduction of Adoption Support Services Advisors in all local authorities who have responsibility for the overall health, education and social welfare of all adoptive children and families.

Liberal Democrats believe that in many areas, the voluntary sector is under utilised in the provision of public services. A highly trained and specialised group of over 30 Voluntary Approved Adoption agencies, including Barnardo's and NCH, currently undertakes the assessment of prospective families, resulting in around 15% of child placements.

The voluntary sector could provide a much more effective and co-ordinated service to Local Authorities if the funding mechanisms between them were better organised. The 'Interagency Fee' paid to the voluntary organisations seems relatively high compared to the fees charged between local authorities, but they reflect more precisely the whole cost of the adoption process.

We would welcome the improvement of funding mechanisms to voluntary organisations which would enable them to provide a continuous pool of assessed adoptive families for children in care, without the financial insecurity and uncertainty of re-couping the cost of finding adoptive families only when a match is made.

Another priority that we would pursue as Liberal Democrats, is the importance of Concurrent Planning. This allows a child to be placed on an interim basis with carers who can, if the need arises, become his or her permanent carers, and move to adoption. Scientific evidence proves that brain development is closely related to care, attention and love in the early years. Emotional neglect of the young can, and does, lead to serious emotional and social problems in a person's later life.

Children in need of adoption may well have suffered a lack of bonding with a carer, so it is important to ensure continuity of care and carer while permanent familial or adoption arrangements are worked out. Although a relatively expensive option in the short term, we believe that Concurrent Planning, should be mainstream in children's services as a means of preventing long-term emotional neglect in the future.