Policy and Practice Implications from the English and Romanian Adoptees (ERA) Study: Forty Five Key Questions
By Michael Rutter, Celia Beckett, Jennifer Castle, Jana Kreppner, Suzanne Stevens and Edmund Sonuga-Barke
Price: £6.95
BAAF, 2009
ISBN 978 1 905664 75 7
The English Romanian Adoptees (ERA) study is a remarkable exploration of the experiences of children whose early lives in Romanian institutions were unimaginably poor and who were then adopted into English families with all the material, emotional and social advantages that this brings. This publication focuses on the policy and practice implications of this internationally known study.
Initiated in 1992 because of the major uncertainties about what would happen to children adopted by UK families from extremely depriving Romanian institutions, the ERA study has been reported on, at initial and then follow-up stages, over the past 17 years, with the most recent findings published in 2009. To be able to follow these children longitudinally over so many years, and to track their progress and understand the influence and interaction of both their poor start and their later advantage, has transformed the understanding of child and adolescent development.
This book considers the policy and practice implications of what has been learned through this longitudinal study. Rather than focusing on the research findings as such, which have been reported upon elsewhere, this publication tackles those questions most often posed by practitioners and policy makers, including the following:
Does the removal from institutions and the adoption into well functioning families bring about recovery for these children?
What are the challenges for the children and for the adopting families?
What are the effects on the young people of leaving institutional care?
What are the effects of deprivation on physical development and psychological functioning?
What are the service implications of these?
The book begins with the necessary introduction to the ERA study, proceeds to answer 45 key questions, and ends with overall conclusions. It will be of great interest, both in the UK and internationally, to practitioners, policy makers, adoptive families, academics and all others interested in the outcomes for children adopted into the UK from institutions overseas.
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