Adopted children want to know their past and their future
21 November 2006
Adopted children want more information about their birth family
and why they were adopted, according to two reports out today.
Read the reports called:
The reports from the Children’s Rights Director for England and
the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) have found that
children want to know what led to them being adopted and many want
to be kept informed about their birth families.
About Adoption reveals the thoughts of adopted children about
how the process can be improved, what they liked and didn’t like
about being adopted and what they needed to feel more
supported.
CSCI’s report, Adoption: messages from inspections of adoption
agencies, analyses the performance of adoption agencies against
national minimum standards.
Children’s Rights Director, Roger Morgan, said:
“Children who are adopted tell us they need to find out about
their birth families so they can get a fuller picture of their
backgrounds.
Their responses varied from ‘if you know what happened you can
understand your feelings better’ to ‘it is important to know their
[the adopted child’s] history – you can’t just wipe away parts of
somebody’s life’.
“It is really important that children are consulted before,
during and after the adoption process and given all the information
and help they need to be able to settle in with their new family
and to make sure the right decisions have been made.”
CSCI Chief Inspector, Paul Snell, said:
“Between 2000 and 2005 we have seen a 38% increase in the
numbers of children in care being placed for adoption, which is
helping to provide stability for children.
Also, agencies are recruiting adopters from a wider
background.
“It is vitally important that adoption agencies engage
effectively with birth parents so that they can provide accurate
and balanced information to children about their backgrounds.
Agencies are becoming better at this, although more improvement is
needed.”
The CSCI report on inspection findings says that, generally,
adoption agencies have increased their support to children and
their adoptive families, as well as to birth parents.
Many adoption agencies have a problem recruiting skilled and
experienced staff, says the report.
High turnover rates and the use of employment agency workers can
have a significant effect on the quality of service to the children
who are to be adopted.
For example, CSCI has concerns about the quality of assessment
reports on children for over half of all agencies.
Assessment reports need to provide a balanced view, which is
helpful for the matching process and for the child in the
future.
When it comes to meeting government standards, voluntary
adoption agencies generally outperform council agencies.
When their performance is aggregated across the 31 national
minimum standards, the percentage of voluntary adoption agencies
meeting the standards is 73 per cent, compared to councils’ 50 per
cent.
The Children’s Rights report, About Adoption, found that being
adopted has a positive effect for many children, making them feel
settled and happy.
Nearly a quarter of children questioned said the best thing
about being adopted was joining the new family and feeling good
about them.
Children’s comments included: ‘I had a mum and dad who could
support me’, ‘I like my mum and dad’ and ‘[adoption meant] that I
was going to get a good future’.
But adopted children often felt the whole process took too long:
‘it went on forever and forever’; ‘get the paperwork done quicker
than three years’; and that they were not involved enough or kept
informed about what was happening.
Ends
Notes to editor
1. The reports are available on our website: www.csci.org.uk
2. Children’s views for the About Adoption report were compiled
by sending out question cards to adoptive parents to pass on to
their children if they felt it appropriate. 208 children responded,
their ages ranged from six to 22.
3. The Adoption: messages from inspections of adoption report
analysed scores that all adoption agencies achieved against the
national minimum standards from April 2003 to March 2006, reports
of 45 council and 14 voluntary adoption agencies inspected in
2005-6, questionnaires completed by adoption inspectors and the
responses of a group of stakeholders to these findings.
4. The report is designed to help agencies improve their
performance and to meet the requirements of the 2002 Adoption and
Children Act, which requires agencies to ensure that children’s
needs are paramount in the adoption process. The report describes
the work of adoption agencies prior to the full implementation of
the Act in December 2005 but is written in the context of the new
requirements.
5. The Children’s Rights Director for England, Dr Roger Morgan
OBE, is based within CSCI. He has a statutory role to ascertain the
views of children in services the Commission inspects, about issues
concerning their welfare.
6. The CSCI is the single inspectorate for social care in
England, responsible for regulating and inspecting all social care
providers - whether in the public or independent sector, and for
assessing the performance of local councils in delivering their
personal social services functions.
7. The Commission’s primary aim is to improve social care by
putting the needs of people who use care services first.
8. The Commission is chaired by Dame Denise Platt DBE and has
five Commissioners. The Chief Inspector is Paul Snell. CSCI staff
work across nine regions in England – aligned with the government
offices of the regions.