Adoption & Fostering
Abstracts

Winter 2000 - Vol 24 (4)

Editorial - Malcolm Hill

Newspoints

Ethical issues in adoption
Madelyn Freundlich and Rena Phillips

As part of its remit to critically evaluate adoption policy and practice, the Evan B Donaldson Institute, based in New York, recently held a major international conference on the role of ethics in adoption. In collaboration with former Institute Director Madelyn Freundlich, Rena Phillips reports on some of the conference discussions and debates around four key ethical issues in adoption: secrecy and openness; the role of race, culture and national origin; market forces; and the relationship between adoption and the emerging reproductive technologies. Parallels and differences are drawn between the United States and Great Britain, and questions are raised as to how ethical standards can be developed and monitored.

Madelyn Freundlich is Policy Director, Children's Rights Inc., and former Executive Director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, New York

Rena Phillips has retired from lecturing, but is still based at the Department of Applied Social Science, University of Stirling

Providing a birth parent intermediary service: the adopted person's perspective
Janet Smith and Rose Wallace

The past decade has seen the continuing development of intermediary services for birth relatives of adopted adults. The Department of Health in London has now published practice guidelines to encourage uniformity and good standards of provision nationally. Janet Smith and Rose Wallace examine the messages for the provision of intermediary services from the recent Children's Society research study into adopted people's search for identity and reunion. The article focuses particularly on the views and experience of non-searching adopted people who have been contacted on behalf of a birth relative.

Janet Smith and Rose Wallace are Senior Social Work Practitioners in The Children's Society's Post Adoption and Care: Counselling and Research Project, London. They were members of the research team for The Children's Society's study.

Calling for post-adoption monitoring and support: a personal statement
Kay Challand

Kay Challand describes her own unhappy childhood in not just one adoptive household but two. As Kay's story movingly illustrates, a second or even third failure of a family that is meant to be 'forever' can be catastrophic. She also shows how outwardly a person may appear successful and materially advantaged, yet inside feel bereft and confused.

Kay makes a plea for children's placement with adopters to be monitored after the order is granted and for the children to have access to support when they need it. The informal and casual nature of Kay's original adoptive placements also highlight the importance of careful assessment, which is worth bearing in mind at a time when agency scrutiny has been criticised by some for being unnecessarily intrusive. Kay is now working for all those involved in the adoption triangle, to improve the system which failed her as a child.

Kay Challand is currently working for a Staff Development Unit. She also co-facilitates a local Support After Adoption group for adopted adults and is a registered Contact Leader for NORCAP.

Developing a post-adoption groupwork service for non-consenting birth mothers
Jenny Jackson

Jenny Jackson describes an informal groupwork service offered by Support After Adoption to birth mothers whose children have been in care and then adopted. The service described in this article began in 1998 in Nottingham and is now being extended to the Mansfield area. Jackson outlines the background informing the development of this service, including links with other agencies working in this way, the options considered and chosen, and the aims and value base of the service finally offered. She describes the composition and process of the group as it developed and the themes which emerged. Finally she offers workers' and participants' evaluations of what these birth mothers gained from the group, highlights some of the learning outcomes for Support After Adoption and considers ways in which the team hopes to take this work forward.

Jenny Jackson has been employed in a variety of local authority social work settings since l977. She works for Nottingham City Social Services Department's Adoption and Fostering Service and for Support After Adoption, the Nottinghamshire Post-Adoption Team.

Inviting applicants, birth parents and young people to attend adoption panel: how it works in practice
Sarah Pepys and Jenny Dix

Based on their experience as advisers to the Isle of Wight Adoption Panel, Sarah Pepys and Jennie Dix examine the practice of inviting adoption applicants, birth parents and young people to attend adoption panel when their plans or assessments are under consideration. They look at the setting up of a pilot scheme in 1994, which focused on preparing panel members, drawing together procedures, addressing practical problems and, finally, how practice could be adapted to incorporate the findings. The authors argue that inviting all parties to share their views leads to better informed panel recommendations and enhanced planning for children for whom adoption is being considered. Mindful of the forthcoming implementation of the Human Rights Act, with its emphasis on fairness and the need to consider each individual's rights, it is timely for adoption agencies to consider how they demonstrate the openness of their practice.

Sarah Pepys is Family Placement Team Manager with the Isle of Wight Social Services Department

Jennie Dix is Adoption Officer in the Family Placement Team with the same local authority

Infant adoption in England: policy and practice at placement
Jenny Castle, Celia Beckett, Christine Groothues and the ERA study team

Infant adoption in England: Openness and agency practice at placement Jennifer Castle, Celia Beckett, Christine Groothues and the English and Romanian Adoptees (ERA) study team

Following on from their article, 'Infant adoption in England: a longitudinal account of social and cognitive progress' (Adoption & Fostering, 24:3, 2000), Jennifer Castle, Celia Beckett, Christine Groothues and the English and Romanian Adoptees (ERA) study team focus attention on the same age group in relation to the policies and practices of social services and voluntary adoption agencies at placement. From interviews with adoptive mothers of a sample of 52 infants, placed between 1989 and 1991, they examine differences between the two sectors regarding issues such as contact, links with family background, openness and post-placement support. The authors also report on adoptive parents' opinions about the provision of pre-and post-adoption services. They conclude that co-operation between social services and voluntary adoption agencies could do more to improve both services.

Research for practice - Justin Simon

Legal notes: England and Wales - Deborah Cullen

Legal notes: Scotland - Alexandra Plumtree

Medical notes: looking after carers - argument for the hepatitis B immunisation - Anne Grant with commentary from Cathy Hill

Book reviews

Abstracts

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