Wednesday 20 September 2017

The Adoption Contract

It feels like the time is right to ask the difficult questions about adoption. During an average week I speak to many adopters, adoption professionals and a few adoptees, what strikes me is the gap between the lived experience of adopters and much of the media portrayal and popular perception of adoption. I know I’m banging the same drum that I always seem to be banging, however it remains true.

The adoption contract used to be simple, nice childless couples, with a good reference, committed themselves to raising nice babies that the State could not look after and nobody else wanted.

The State committed to not meddle and the couple committed to not ask for anything else.

The children’s duty in all this is to be glad for the opportunity to live a better life and remain silent on the issue if possible. 

Biological parents were expected to understand the consequences of their actions and quietly accept their fate, ideally without fuss.

How gloriously convenient, fantastically simple and resolutely final. Secrecy was encouraged and many lived under its protective but stifling shroud. Adoptees silenced by deception or indoctrination. Adopters following instructions; Parents shamed into silence. It seems a nonsense from this side of history, but it was real and echoes remain.

Though tinkered with and given a new slap of paint contemporary adoption is based on the same foundation. Adults raising other people’s children, a legal change of identity and a severance of the past for children. We’ve broadened out the criteria of who can adopt reflecting the changes in our society and our ideas of what makes an appropriate parent. We’ve introduced modest changes and channels of contact between birth families and their children.  In reality not much has changed.

By the end of the 1960’s 25,000 children were adopted from the care system, that has now reduced to a relative trickle of less than 5,000 children a year. Society and culture has changed beyond all recognition since then and we’ve reduced the number of children adopted to the most vulnerable, the most impacted, the most hurt children. Caring for hurt children can be hard. Adoption is not what it was. It does remains a safe and secure place for children but the reality for many adoptive parents is that they’re struggling. This deal or contract was not what they feel they were sold. Up to a third of adopters describing themselves as having major difficulties and 8% of them talking in terms of adoption disruption; is it time to think again about renegotiating the adoption contract? Many adoptive families are discovering that their involvement with social care and  mental services stretches beyond the first months of placement through childhood and transforms into involvement with adults social care. The idea that we’d take our children and move into the mythical happy ever after has gone, adoption is not what it was if it ever was. Some adoptive families now find that they feel as vulnerable as the families that their children were removed from. 


The landscape has shifted for all persons in this contract, social care is having to evolve, with varying success, to meet the enduring long term needs of families, it’s getting better but it’s not there yet. Adopters have changed, yes the criteria to adopt has shifted and mirrored changes in culture but challenges remain. Expectations have to be managed and that’s hard. Many infertile couples have traversed the painful and extracted medical processes to try for their own biological children; bruised by this process like no other generation adoption may be their third or fourth choice. When it does not reflect the happy ever afters of popular culture then the fall can be hard.   

Adoptees now live in a world that is connected like never before through social media. The time and effort that tracing family members created a buffer and time to think and reflect. Now, connections can be made with the tap of the finger in seconds in an impulse. Many children are looking to join the dots of their lives and be connected to some of the key people in their life stories.

Birth parents and families are no longer shackled by society’s shame and conventions like in earlier times. Families are asking difficult questions about the legality and the ethics of this severance and removal. Language is emotive and tabloids run stories of social care mistakes and judge’s rulings. Difficult and challenging stuff.

So, is now the time to re write the adoption contract? To build a new model of permanence for our most vulnerable children? To offer them the legal stability and security that remains elusive in foster care? To provide additional parents that can keep them safe and help them make sense of their lives? To offer, where possible, real and meaningful contact for parents and families to the children that they cannot and perhaps should not, look after? To provide adoptive parents with the preparation, resources and recognition that they deserve and need? To prepare children and support them in this new landscape and where possible be given tangible and meaningful connections to the people that make up their lives and stories?

I think now is the time.



I'd like to acknowledge Andrew Christie who during a conversation sparked this post. 

16 comments:

  1. Followed a Mumsnet link here. Thought provoking entry. As someone adopted in the 70s and protected (yes, I use that word deliberately) from contact with biological family, I find the current arrangements for adoption astounding. I am glad that I grew up before the internet and I genuinely feel for adoptive families now. I don't believe that there needs to be "real and meaningful" contact between adoptees and their biological families until they reach at least the age of 18... how in God's name could it ever be a benefit?? It's messy, confusing and blurs identity. Adoptive parents need to feel secure (as do the children) in that they are purely responsible for bringing up their children, adopted or not. I cannot begin to fathom the 'interference' levels in adopting today. I remember being young and adopted. I don't think as a child I would have been able to cope with the system now. There probably does need to be a review of the contract, but I don't imagine my version of it would go down too well with social services and biological families...

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    1. Thank you for taking the time to comment. I think I tried to reflect the changing nature of adoption. With that change we've come to know that for some, not all, contact with safe and reliable family members can be a positive. Of course that is not the case for all families but as you note Facebook can remove adoptive parents control and autonomy this level of planned and controlled contact can remove this concern.

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    2. You may not be aware but many many parents with learning disabilities lose their children to adoption who have never harmed their child deliberately, often accused of neglect by omission or risk if 'future harm'. Often without being given the chance to get support to help them parent. Anyway they love and miss their children everyday for the rest if their lives. Some meaningful contact with their children would probably be beneficial to them and their children.

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    3. Hi, thanks for your comment. I know that parents with learning disabilities often find themselves at the mercy of child protection professionals and the complexities of there circumstances are hard to squeeze into the current system. One size does not fit all and I agree that 'meaningful' contact would benefit parents and child but achieving that is fraught with challenges. We need to re negotiate the contract!

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  2. As a kinship carer who is constantly juggling contact between my grandchildren & their mother - my daughter - and living with the fallout of the effects her life choices and the consequences those have on the children, plus the effects on me - I KNOW that my grandchildren have been damaged more/suffer more trauma from having her in and out of their lives and being exposed to her problems and chaotic lifestyle than they would have been if they had no contact... Going on my experiences as a kinship carer I can only imagine that the way adoptions are in these times with contact between birth parents and the children it must surely make things harder both for the children and the adopters.... Many might disagree but I live with the fallout - the aggressive, violent, behaviour, from the bad contacts and the huge emotional impact from the numerous letdowns - I am certain things would have settled down when they were younger if they hadn't felt so torn between us....
    I agree with the comments left by the previous person who is coming at it from the adopted child's side....
    It's so incredibly difficult knowing what to do for the future, for the best outcome - for myself as a grandparent kinship carer it's been an incredibly steep and disturbing learning curve with very little advice or support...

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    1. Thank you for taking the time to comment. You've highlighted a challenge with any contact and you have limited control in your circumstances and consequently are left picking up the pieces. I'm an advocate for safe, controlled and appropriate contact when it demonstrably benefits children. If it brings no positives then I see no point.

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  3. I am a therapist and work for a charity that supports people affected by adoption. I generally work with birth families and support them with letterbox and counselling. I also work with adoptive parents and adult adoptees. I would welcome a new reform that reflects contemporary adoptions (1980s onwards).

    I have seen the devastating impact adoptive parents experience when they have not received counselling to deal with not being having to have children themselves. There is also (in my opinion) a lack of resources going into preparing them with important issues key to adoption such as attachment theory, trauma, identity and foetal alcohol syndrome.

    I also believe that having some contact with birth families through letterbox or SGO can be traumatic, but so can it be true that some children suffer not having such contact. And unfortunately, whether we like it or not, many adopted children do want to 'know' and if not supported, they will look on Facebook on their own without support. I'm working with the fall out of an adopted adult and her adopted parents because she was told her birth parents never wanted contact, only to discover that the birth mother wrote every year which she discovered when she applied for her adoption file. It's not easy. No child is the same, I get that. However, the current system is old fashioned and failing all parties- most of all the children.

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    1. Your experience and first hand knowledge of the system and it's impact on all parties is essential as we consider what adoption should look like in the future. I think I agree with all that you've said.
      Thanks for commenting!

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  4. I agree. We are working towards adoption and have been learning about it for 4 years now. We were assessed and told our income is too low so we are working on that. After everything I've read I know it is not all roses and daisies and any child we brought into our family would need serious support for years to come. I enjoyed reading this! Angela- The Inspiration Edit.

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    1. Hi, it's encouraging that you're taking your own readiness seriously and yes there are challenges but I can confirm that there are moments of absolute joy!

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  5. Far too many mistakes are made, children taken that shouldn't be: its not talked about. There are too many financial interests effectively selling babies - too many agendas, Coram, Martin Narey, Private Equity, Core Assets, expert witnesses, lawyers, and Local Authorities all clipping the ticket. I feel as though you have an occluded view - you need to see what happen at the baby-removal end, to understand why so many adopted children are being damaged. Six, perhaps seven placements between removal and adoption, and parents fighting the injustice as best they can, siblings disregarded and thrown into foster care - collateral damage on the path of getting a valuable commodity-baby.

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    1. Thank you for commenting, though I'm not sure I agree with you on all points. My professional and personal experiences has seen some of what you speak of but we cannot exclude from the conversation the intentional and unintentional harm that some children have experienced from their biological parents. Yes, there is a financial component to the systems around adoption and I don't like all of it but I do not believe that children are removed as a commodity.

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  6. Thank you for this blog piece, which reflects our family's own experience so well. I agree with you that there are enormous joys and positives, as well as some depths that we have sunk to as a family that we would could never have imagined at the start of the adoption process. As you say, there is a long-term toll on the new kind of adopters (1980s onwards) that results in (mostly) middle class parents who were once seen in the eyes of Social Workers as highly desirable "rescuers" of children. treading what seems to be a downhill path to being viewed as problem families who ourselves, on occasion, need "intervention" or even "rescuing". After years of battling with schools, health and social care services and often disability benefits agencies as advocates for our much-loved and oft-misunderstood damaged children, we seem to have become the opposite of what we were. Labelled by some professionals we have challenged - possibly on record - as difficult, we are emotionally, physically and financially drained, our 'next generation' families often dysfunctional as our children in turn struggle to become good parents and partners. Our status reduced, when we step in, once again, to "rescue" our own grandchildren, it is a huge struggle to even establish our credibility in the eyes of social workers, let alone to obtain support, which is often totally absent. We become foster carers without the financial or even moral support, or the positive status in society. Sometimes we have to resort to legal challenges even to retain our grandchildren within the family. Now in our 50s, 60s and soon to be in our 70s, others generally view us as the possible source of our children's social inadequacies, and would usually question us being given support to raise our own grandchildren. False comparisons with "normal" families abound. Adoption today means a lifetime of commitment and care for parents who must have not only love in abundance, but the wherewithal to engage with professional agencies from mental health to the criminal justice system. And the inner strength to fight, not just battles, but an on-going war on many fronts with state services being cut to the bone to secure fair and just provision for our children, who will always need us.

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    1. Thank you for taking the time to share your experiences. I see your journey echoed across many families that I know, what was once seen as a minority experience is now becoming worryingly too common.
      As you say many will be providing over and above what is normal care til we're old.

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  7. It's such a difficult question. I'm not sure a one-size-fits-all solution can work, but tailoring each situation is costly and difficult to do. However, it is important to ask the questions and not just do things this way because that is "the way we do it" - there are lives at stake.

    Someone loved this post so much, they added it to the BlogCrush linky! Feel free to collect your "I've been featured" blog badge :) #blogcrush

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    1. Thank you for commenting. You're right it's costly, expensive and complicated but I think worth it.
      I'm flattered that it was added, thanks.

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