Projects
Opening Doors Disability project
 On this page:
> Project aim
> Current work
> Recent activities
> Publications
> Presentations
> Family-finding activities
> Training courses
> Additional activities 2007-2008
> Activities 2003-2007
> Ways you can help us
> Project team
> Advice and information
> How to contact the Opening Doors Team
Project aim
The aim of the Opening Doors disability project is to develop new and more effective ways for agencies to find permanent families for disabled children. We do this through consulting professionals about their practice, reviewing emerging research and developing and disseminating new ideas.
Current work
- Placement parties: Can we do them again?We are convinced that only by families meeting children and responding to them directly, will some children find a family. Video profiling events are successful, but now we want to extend this idea by seeing if, in a relaxed and enjoyable setting, we can actually introduce a group of prospective carers to a group of children. No amount of third-party description or even videos can really convey the whole child – it is meeting the child that counts.
Both 'activity days' and adoption parties were successful in the UK on a small scale in the 1980s (see Argent & Kerrane 1997 Taking Extra Care). They are common practice in over thirty states in the U.S.
Earlier this year we held a series of consultation meetings and discovered that practitioners, though cautious and questioning, were enthusiastic to see if these events could be resurrected. We are now exploring with partner agencies to see whether we can run a pilot project.
- In My Shoes
In My Shoes (IMS) is an interactive computer programme, designed for direct work with children and vulnerable adults (see review in Adoption & Fostering Vol 30:1 (Spring 2006).
IMS is available via a two day training course. For more information see www.inmyshoes.org.uk or contact liza.miller@childandfamilytraining.org.uk
In partnership with two northern authorities, the Opening Doors project has been exploring the use of IMS with disabled children to see how it could be developed to aid child assessment, profiling and family placement. Social workers learned important new things while observing the IMS psychologist working with their child.
- Developmental delay
We think that the labels 'developmental delay' and 'developmental uncertainty' may prevent some potential carers from considering taking children with these difficulties. Therefore the terms must be used with extreme caution, based on informed paediatric advice specific to each child. Developmental delay is such a broad description
and in many cases, where the cause is previous neglect, the child will catch up once they are being nurtured and stimulated in a loving, committed family. In a recent edition of Be My Parent, the words (including 'global developmental delay') were used to describe 25 children - and it will be interesting to see how soon these children are placed and whether new families can
be helped to go the extra mile to find out what exactly is behind each label.
- Fostering with a view to adoption
Because we have seen so many disabled children being adopted by their foster carers, and think that this can be a really important route to permanence, we are interested in exploring this further. We know that this has become deeply unfashionable, and welcome your ideas and opinions!
Recent activities
- Romanian foster care project (2009)
The project consultant returned to Romania with international colleagues to devise and deliver a country-wide system of accredited foster care training. This is another 'Twinning Light' partnership between the European Commission and the Dutch and Romanian ministries.
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Romania is very keen to develop its network of foster carers and 'professional maternal assistants' - to support both birth families in the community and the development of its domestic adoption (see Activities 2003-2007). The training material (a 15 session course with training notes, exercises and supporting theoretical documents and references) was delivered via a 'training the trainers' programme to a trio of social worker, psychologist and foster carer from each of Romania's 47 counties, who will now cascade the training across the country. Members of the government team also attended, and everyone engaged enthusiastically in the interactive exercises, which are a relatively new learning style for Romania. The training was delivered over seven weeks in a remote training centre to which some staff travelled for twelve hours through the mountains. This perhaps demonstrates the commitment that is felt towards developing Romania's fostering service.
- Follow up training was then devised in skeleton form including a 30 hour specialised disability module. Many disabled children in Romania are institutionalised, and efforts are being made via fostering to provide these children with families - but first, carers need to be encouraged and prepared.
Publications
Ten Top Tips for Finding Families
In 2008 the project consultant wrote the third in the BAAF series Ten Top Tips. Readers will find ideas about recruiting new carers, preparing and assessing applicants, producing high quality material about children and featuring them in a variety of ways. This little book also looks at new methods of family finding, including exchange days and video profiling events. Each chapter contains a summary of the tips for easy reference. This book is not exclusively about finding families for disabled children, but issues relevant to disabled children and disabled carers are addressed throughout. For a more in-depth look at placing disabled children, see Every Child is Special, published in 2006.
Next year Jennifer will write a new addition to the Ten Top Tips series on 'Making Matches'. Ideas are welcome.
Child Placement Handbook (BAAF 2009) edited by John Simmonds & Gillian Schofield. This contains a chapter written by Jennifer Cousins - Placing disabled children with permanent new families: linking and matching.
Disabled children living away from home (Mac Keith Press 2009) edited by Claire Burns. Jennifer wrote the chapter called Disabled Children: pathways to care
About to be published in Adoption & Fostering Disability: still taboo in family placement? based on the Annual Lecture 2008.
Look out for an article in a forthcoming Be My Parent entitled Developmental delay: what's behind the label?
Research: see Disabled children who are looked after: Local Authority survey 1999. Research conducted by Justin Simon with Cherilyn Dance, summarised by Jennifer Cousins.
Presentations
BAAF Second Annual Lecture
The project consultant gave the second annual lecture at the 2008 AGM on November 18th. The subject was “Disability: still taboo in family placement?”
Jennifer examined the wider cultural context of disability and how the continued marginalisation of disabled people in our society has an impact upon
family-finding for children. Her main thesis was that disabled children are not a separate group, but are the responsibility of everyone engaged in working on behalf of young people.
Florence, April 2009
The project consultant was invited to give a presentation to a UNICEF Expert Consultation meeting on domestic and inter-country adoption in Florence in March. It became clear that the UK position on inter-country adoption differs
from that of some other countries: we take relatively few children from abroad and our domestic policies highlight the importance of identity and cultural matching when placing children in new families. For the project consultant,
the debate brought home the crucial importance of a strong fostering service to maximise prevention and rehabilitation, and to support the development of an adoption service.
Prague, June 2009
Jennifer gave a presentation on disabled children to the EuroChild conference on 'Children without Parental Care', attended by representatives from 26 European countries, the EU, UNICEF and the Council of Europe. The conference
included presentations from young people who had been brought up in care - always moving and important contributions. Disabled children are many times more likely to be placed in institutions and to remain for their lifetime.
Developing foster care for all children including disabled children is a matter of the highest priority, particularly across Central and Eastern Europe.
Family-finding activities
Video Profiling events
These events are becoming common as an additional family finding tool. Often several agencies have joined together. The project consultant is keen to be invited to more of these in order to build up a national picture of what agencies
believe works best. Any feedback about outcomes would be extremely useful.
Exchange Days
Outcomes from these are difficult to gauge and any anecdotal evidence would be helpful. The Adoption Register also runs these events across the country, with considerable success, particularly the specialised events aimed at placing black
and minority ethnic children. Last year, 28 children from the Register were placed through Exchange Days.
Identifying links
The work has continued on linking children with families through training individual agencies and consortia on the development of video profiling events and profile writing. The exciting service SeeMeFilms is now operating along with
My Parent Online. We believe that these powerful little films offer children the best possible chance of finding a family. For information about SeeMeFilms, contact Mo.O’Reilly – and see a short article on the front page of May’s ‘Be My Parent’.
Training courses
Introduction to ‘children and disability’
This is a one day course for foster carers aimed at dispelling some of the myths about caring for a disabled child. Input and exercises include understanding why we are afraid of ‘disability’ and why we don’t need to be; applying the social model of disability to the care of disabled children; understanding the principles of
good communication with disabled children; and understanding the importance of promoting resilience and a positive sense of identity for a disabled child.
Planning for Disabled Children
This course is of relevance to all child care social workers and family-finders, not only those 'officially' working in disability. The course explores the social model of disability; examines how children move along the various pathways towards permanence, and how new methods of family finding will improve the life-chances for all 'children who wait'. It pays especial
attention to improving children's profiles so that more families come forward.
Making the Match
This is a training course available for agencies and consortia to book at any time and venue to suit themselves. Open pdf file for further information. It is run by Jennifer Cousins, Project Consultant, BAAF and Sue Lowe of Northamptonshire with the aim of introducing agencies to the child-led model of family finding (including video profiling events and activity days).
Helping the Magic to Happen
A one day course on featuring children and writing profiles. This course is designed for family finders, children's social workers, foster carers and publicity or marketing staff in response to interest expressed in video profiling events and exchange days.
Disability and Trauma
A three day course designed for all children's workers and foster carers.
All of the above courses can be requested through Jennifer.Cousins@baaf.org.uk
Additional activities 2007 - 2008
- IFCO 2007 Conference, Malta
The project consultant attended the 2007 International Foster Care Organisation training conference in Malta. She gave a presentation “Helping the Magic to Happen: profiling children to attract a potential family” during which she showed video clips of children and did a live demonstration of
In My Shoes to show the importance of involving the child.
- Romanian adoption project (2007)
In the summer of 2007, the project consultant and a BAAF colleague worked as part of an international team to strengthen the development of domestic adoption in Romania following the moratorium on inter–country adoption. Romania has serious resource problems, and there is also particular
concern for disabled and Roma children. The project staff worked alongside the Romanian Office for Adoption in Bucharest to consult practitioners and to devise and deliver a series of five day training programmes across the country. A good practice guide and training manual were written for future use.
- Research (2008)
The project consultant was a member of the advisory group for the research study 'Linking and Matching in Adoption' commissioned by the DfES. It is hoped that this research will make an important contribution to understanding which factors contribute to making a good match between prospective adopters and children - and
which processes of linking appear the most effective.
Activities 2003-2007
For a summary of work completed between 2003 and 2007, please download the pdf.
Ways you can help us
- Tell us about your projects so we can pass on 'what works'
Opening Doors has relied heavily upon learning from individual professionals and agencies across the UK. Our 'added value' is that BAAF's national profile and networking capacity
enables us to promote and disseminate the innovations we learn about. At the moment we are particularly keen to hear about video profiling events, so if your agency runs these we would really like to hear from you.
We are also looking for agency or consortium partners to run a placement party pilot event.
- The Opening Doors Network
Currently on our network we have around 150 professionals working in child-disability or family-placement with whom we can exchange information and consult on new ideas. A recent development has been the
establishment of links between practitioners assessing Deaf families. If you wish to join the network, please contact jennifer.cousins@baaf.org.uk.
Project team
Advice and information
BAAF offers a comprehensive advice and information service to its members and to the public.
Regional and Country contact numbers are:
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Central & Northern England on 0870 241 0663
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Southern England on 020 7421 2670
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Scotland on 0131 220 4749
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Wales on 0292 076 1155
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Northern Ireland on (028) 9031 5494
If the enquiry is related to a complex disability issue Jennifer Cousins, Project Consultant may be able to help.
How to contact the Opening Doors Team
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