Adopting a child-centred approach

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Adopting a child-centred approach

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The Guardian, Wednesday 26 January 2011

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It is refreshing to read Martin Narey's child-centred approach to the question of adoption (Adoptions need to quadruple, says Narey, 22 January). Over the last 30 years, social work has, alongside much in public life, been stifled by a misplaced emphasis on "political correctness" which has, in fact, displaced focus on central social concerns – in the case of adoption, children's futures.

We know that children's wellbeing is maximised if they can grow in their birth families, but we recognise some cannot and we store up problems for those children whose security and permanent placement we delay. We know children's ethnic background is important to their development, but recognise there are more potential white British adopters than from other ethnic backgrounds. We know, especially, that love, security and welfare are paramount.

Unfortunately, the social work profession lays claim to the values which permeate its work and ethos without recognising that these must serve the end of wellbeing, not an abstract concern. This benighted stance has seen the rigid operation of a policy that in many respects discriminates against the potential security, happiness and wellbeing of minority ethnic children by keeping them in care settings rather than placing them with adoptive families. As an adoptive person myself, I reflect on the possible alternatives: being transported abroad, growing up in residential care and so forth.

Professor Jonathan Parker

Director, Centre for Social Work & Social Policy, Bournemouth University

•?The problem with linking "collapse" in adoption rates to prejudices about transracial adoption is that the recent fall is accounted for by a drop in the number of white children adopted, with black and minority ethnic adoptions remaining fairly constant. Similarly, Martin Narey's call for a return to 1970s figures for baby adoptions suggests lack of awareness of the difference between contemporary adoption from care and historic "relinquishment" of illegitimate children.

Finally, his claims for dramatic difference in outcomes between adoption and other forms of permanence also stem from a bygone era, with research over the past two decades finding at most only modest advantages for adoption once other factors are taken into account.

Derek Kirton

University of Kent

•?Martin Narey writes convincingly about the need for adoptions to be quadrupled because of the large numbers of children awaiting adoption who are from different ethnic backgrounds.

But one factor he does not take into account is the perspective of the mothers of these children; the effect on them of having their children taken away and why they are judged to be unable to keep their children. It is true that many young mothers are addicted to drugs and that this was much less of a factor in the 40s, 50s and 60s.

The effects of losing a child to adoption are hugely detrimental to mothers – and these effects last for the rest of their lives. Our society needs to make it our aim to help young mothers and their own families to overcome their appalling problems. Adoptive couples might consider "adopting" both mother and child, giving them both a home and security until mothers can keep their children for ever.

Helen Tomkins

London

•?Martin Narey says 4,000 babies were adopted in 1976 compared to 70 in 2009, but fails to draw attention to the impact of the increase in abortions by some 92,000 over the same period combined with the greatly increased availability of all forms of contraception. The fact is that there are simply far fewer babies available for adoption now than there were in 1976.

Paul Fallon

Lewes, East Sussex

•?Adoption is at an all-time low among babies, but this doesn't need to be the case. More than 40% of Coram adoptions are among babies under one year of age. Concurrent planning ensures that children who are highly likely to need adoption, because of a history of complex family problems, can go straight into foster families where they can later be adopted if that is the court's decision.

Dr Carol Homden

Chief executive, Coram