Adoption & Fostering
Abstracts

Spring 2002 - Vol 26 (1)

Editorial Malcolm Hill

Newspoints

Placement with grandparents: the issues for grandparents who care for their grandchildren
David Pitcher

This article describes research undertaken to understand the needs of grandparents who take on the care of their grandchildren following abuse or neglect. Thirty-three families were interviewed between February and April 1999. Most of them had substantial involvement with social services in placement, assessment and support. The study concluded that many grandparent carers experience a sense of isolation from their families and friends, and feel that social services have left them to get on without clear channels for help. It also revealed the real delight many carers have in their grandchildren, and suggested that this is a special quality of these placements. The article ends by describing local developments that have resulted from the study.

David Pitcher is a social worker with Plymouth City Council

Adoption after bereavement
Eve Hopkirk

Hopkirk explores a particular aspect of adoption practice: those who apply to adopt after the death of their birth child. These applications can prompt professional concern that such parents are seeking to ‘replace’ their deceased child through adoption. The author describes her own study which investigated the thinking on this subject of a range of key professionals in the adoption process. The study also examined the views of a small number of bereaved families who had successfully adopted. The themes raised by the adoption workers differed from the views and experiences commonly related by the families. The paper challenges received wisdom about bereaved parents as prospective adopters and children who could be suitably placed with them.

Eve Hopkirk is a family placement social worker in a local authority adoption team

Contact after adoption: the role of agencies in making and supporting plans
Elsbeth Neil

Using questionnaire data about 168 young, recently adopted children and interview data about 36 children having face-to-face contact, Neil explores how agencies formulate and support post-adoption contact plans. It was found that while most children were planned to have some form of contact, adoption agencies differed in the extent to which this was promoted, especially face-to-face. Agencies seemed to play a leading role in determining whether or not face-to-face contact should occur, and what form it should take. However, for contact to be successful it was important that agencies did not just insist on contact, but that they helped adoptive parents to feel positive about it. There was evidence that some agencies that planned face-to-face contact remained ambivalent about its value, indicated by formal, low-frequency contact meetings that were controlled rather than supported. Such arrangements could convey negative messages about the importance of contact and the capacity of adopters and birth relatives to manage arrangements directly. A more successful model of agency involvement empowered adopters and birth relatives to find a plan that suited them, incorporated positive messages about contact and provided support where necessary.

Elsbeth Neil is Lecturer in Social Work, Centre for Research on the Child & Family, University of East Anglia at Norwich

Fostering changes: a cognitive-behavioural approach to help foster carers manage children
Clare Pallett, Stephen Scott, Kathy Blackeby, William Yule and Roger Weissman

A project has been set up in a socially deprived inner-London borough to provide foster carers with practical skills in the management of child behaviour. The authors discuss why the project was established and consider how carers learn best. Social workers often provide good general support to carers and placements, but may not offer more specific practical advice in managing behaviour so well. A training course based on cognitive-behavioural theory is described and case examples given. The evidence presented shows significant improvements in carer-child interaction, child difficulty, specific child problems causing most worry to carers, and child emotional symptoms; insignificant improvements were seen in hyperactivity and conduct problems.

Clare Pallett is Co-ordinator of the Fostering Changes Programme. She is social work trained and works for the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust

Stephen Scott is Consultant Psychiatrist with the National Specialist Adoption and Fostering Team at the Maudsley Hospital, London, and Senior Lecturer in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, London

Kathy Blackeby is Co-trainer and a Social Worker, National Specialist Adoption and Fostering Team, Maudsley Hospital

William Yule is Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Maudsley Hospital, and Professor of Applied Child Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry

Roger Weissman is Child Mental Health Social Work Manager, London borough of Southwark

The impact of fostering on foster carers’ own children
Angie Watson and Denis Jones

Findings from a questionnaire survey of over 100 foster carers’ own children are presented in the context of a literature review of what is known about the impact of fostering on foster carers’ own children. A mixture of findings are described, some very positive and some extremely negative, raising cause for concern. This paper highlights the need for support for this group of children, and for training to ensure that social work and family placement staff are able to provide it.

Angie Watson is a Level 4 foster carer for West Sussex County Council and a social worker in the East Sussex County Council children’s disability team

Denis Jones is a training and development officer in East Sussex social services department, with a lead responsibility for fostering staff training

The aims and principles of independent fostering agencies: a view from the inside
Clive Sellick

Attitudes within the wider child placement public sector towards the place of independent fostering agencies remain largely negative, especially when expressed by local authority senior managers. Sellick considers these alongside some other views that have merged from the findings of relevant research. He goes on to examine the mission statements of 55 independent fostering agencies included in a recent national survey of services, costs, staff, foster carers and children and young people in placement in these agencies. The author has undertaken a qualitative analysis of these statements in order to identify the aims and principles that underpin agency practice. Three main themes emerge relating to promoting children’s welfare, providing a range of services for children and carers and creating a competent and available foster carer workforce. These are considered alongside the profiles of ten agencies to illustrate the breadth of provision available to local authorities. The author concludes by suggesting that information about the purpose and provision of independent fostering is likely to lead to a more balanced view and use of this sector.

Clive Sellick is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of East Anglia

Legal notes: England and Wales
Deborah Cullen

Legal notes: Scotland
Alexandra Plumtree

Legal notes: Northern Ireland
Kerry O’Halloran

Legal notes: USA
James Marsh and Daniel Pollack

Medical notes: objective assessment of vascular disease risk in prospective adoptive parents
Dr Peter Lindsay with Dr Catherine Hill

Book reviews

Abstracts

Diary

Index