Adoption & Fostering
Abstracts

Winter 2001 - Vol 25 (4)

Editorial Malcolm Hill

Newspoints

Adjusting to a foster family: children’s perspectives
Ellen Heptinstall, Kalwant Bhopal and Julia Brannen

Looked after children’s adjustment to negative experiences of family life and the move to a foster family have traditionally been approached in terms of resilience in response to adversity and adaptive strategies related to insecure attachment. In the context of a general study about children’s experiences of family life, the authors add to this psychological approach to children’s adaptation by introducing the sociological notion that children actively make sense of their experiences. Case studies highlight the different ways in which children perceive their foster care situation. Comparisons with children living with at least one birth parent show that in some respects looked after children’s perspectives of family life reflect their adverse early experiences, while in other ways their interpretation of their situation is based on common perceptions they share with other children.

Ellen Heptinstall is Research Associate at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, and a Research Officer at the Institute of Psychiatry, both part of the University of London

Kalwant Bhopal is Lecturer in Sociology at Middlesex University, London

Julia Brannen is Professor in the Sociology of the Family, Thomas Coram Research Unit

‘A life more ordinary’: what children want from foster placements
Ian Sinclair, Kate Wilson and Ian Gibbs

Based on findings from their recent study, Sinclair et al discuss the criteria which foster care needs to meet if it is to fulfil the requirements of looked after children. Analysis of 150 postal questionnaires from foster children showed five main preoccupations: the care they received from their foster families; the relationship between their feelings for their foster and their birth families; their contact with and prospects of return to their birth families; the predictability of their care careers and their own say in them; and the ‘ordinariness’ or lack of it in their lives. Despite these common preoccupations, the children varied widely in what they wanted (eg whether they wanted to return home).

Ian Sinclair is Research Professor and Co-director of the Social Work Research and Development Unit, University of York

Kate Wilson is Professor of Social Work, University of Nottingham

Ian Gibbs is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of York, where he is currently engaged in research on foster care and children’s homes

Mental health services for looked after children: implications from two studies
Helen Minnis and Christina Del Priore

Two recent studies by Glasgow researchers have highlighted the high level of emotional and behavioural difficulties experienced by looked after children. One was a survey of children entering the care system (Dimigen et al, 1999) while the other was a randomised controlled trial of a training programme for foster carers. The survey was carried out in Glasgow, while the trial was carried out across another part of the Central Belt of Scotland. Despite their different designs and geographical areas, the two studies came up with complementary results. The authors synthesise these results and use them to argue that practitioners need to take a fresh look at mental health services for looked after children and at the assessments which should determine what these children need.

Helen Minnisis Specialist Registrar and Research Fellow in Child Psychiatry, Yorkhill NHS Trust, Glasgow

Christina Del Priore is Head of Clinical Psychology Service, Yorkhill NHS Trust, Glasgow

After all these years: accessing care records
Derek Kirton, Erica Peltier and Elizabeth Webb While there has been a growing body of research into the experiences of adopted people who approach agencies seeking information or contact with birth relatives, little is known about those formerly in care who access agency records. The findings reported here derive from a file analysis relating to adults previously in the care of The Children’s Society who had sought access to their care records. The aim of the study was to find out more about the care careers of this group and their reasons for contacting the Society. By comparison with their adopted counterparts, those formerly in care tend to access records later in life and are more evenly balanced in terms of gender. The analysis revealed widely divergent careers in care for black and whiter enquirers respectively, with the former spending longer in care and being much less likely to be in contact, or reunited with their birth families. Implications for practice are then discussed, especially the need to develop post-care services which can help to meet the longer-term identity needs of adults formerly in care.

Derek Kirton is Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Kent, Canterbury

Erica Peltier is Senior Post Care and Development Practitioner at The Children’s Society Adoption and Care: Counselling and Development Project in Peckham, southeast London

Elizabeth Webb is Project Supervisor at the same project

Birth fathers’ lives after adoption: the impact of the adoption and the child in mind
Gary Clapton

While considerable research has been carried out on the experiences of birth mothers in adoption, birth fathers remain a relatively neglected group. As part of an ongoing project to redress the balance, Gary Clapton explores the life course of a group of 30 birth fathers ranging in age from 35 to late 60s. Beginning with the immediate post-adoption period, he traces the men’s early feelings of grief and loss, and in a minority of cases, alleged indifference, through to a spectrum of emotions spanning curiosity, concern, regret and ‘connectedness’. Clapton points to similarities with the reported experiences of birth mothers, including a continuing sense of parenthood, and highlights the need to rethink notions of fatherhood. He calls for a greater focus on birth fathers in adoption, not only for them but in the direct interests of the adopted person seeking knowledge of their birth family history.

Gary Clapton is a social worker and a birth parent

The wait gets longer: an analysis of recent information on court delays
Chris Beckett The length of care proceedings in England has been growing steadily longer since the implementation of the Children Act 1989, even though reducing delay was one of the Act’s specific objectives. Figures from eight areas show that, for cases ending in 2000, the average duration ranged from over eight months to a year, depending on area. A significant number of children are waiting much longer. More than ten per cent of cases in a sample from one local authority had been waiting more than two years for a court decision. Beckett presents the evidence and discusses the reasons as well as some possible ways forward.

Chris Beckett is Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Anglia Polytechnic University, Cambridge

Research for practice: what social workers want from research when planning for children’s permanent care
Kate O’Brien and Peter Wrighton

Legal notes: England and Wales
Deborah Cullen

Legal notes: Scotland
Alexandra Plumtree

Legal notes: Northern Ireland
Kerry O’Halloran

Medical notes: report on BAAF’s Medical Group seminar on ‘vulnerable adolescents’
Kay Smith

Book reviews

Abstracts

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