Oxford University research reveals 17,000 out-of-area placements in England can be attributed to the corporate takeover of care

The corporate takeover of children’s care has led to more children moving between short-term, unstable placements far away from their families, according to research.

The Oxford University study – which drew on more than 600,000 care records – revealed 17,000 out-of-area placements in England can be attributed to the outsourcing of care to for-profit providers between 2011 and 2022.

The research, to be published on Monday, also shows growing private involvement in care provision has disrupted the lives of vulnerable children, with higher rates of outsourcing linked to higher rates of placements breaking down within two years, which is regarded as a benchmark of stability by the government.

“Our analysis shows that for-profit outsourcing is consistently associated with more children being placed out of area and placement instability,” said the study’s co-author Dr Anders Bach-Mortensen from Oxford’s Department for Social Policy and Intervention and Roskilde University. “Over the last decade, we see that these outcomes have deteriorated or stagnated while for-profit outsourcing have increased.”

Ihe question of access to knowledge of personal origins entered social and political debates a few decades ago in many countries of Europe and North America, concerning adoptive family situations, which became transnational at the end of the XX th century, then families resulting from assisted procreation involving a third party donor. Carried by the claims of movements militant for the rights of people born in secret or abandoned, then by the demands expressed by people conceived by gamete donation, it called upon knowledge in psychology, the opinions of lawyers and the lighting of social sciences while leading to lively societal exchanges and several parliamentary debates. The legislative changes that have occurred in recent decades bear witness to the growing importance recognized in origins in conceptions of identity, but they also lead to new questions about the limits of kinship.

2Based on the case of France, we propose, in this article, to return to the way in which the question of origins was first manifested by issues relating to fundamental rights, linking protection of children and construction of personal identities. , then to consider its effects on the transformations of kinship and its borders, seen from the angle of anthropology. What forms of links can it give rise to, and to what extent do these transform the relational environment of the people concerned?

(Dis)placed children, adoption and origins

The 2002 law and the CNAOP

3In France, as in the United States a little earlier, claims for access to personal origins emerged in the field of abandoned childhood and adoption during the last decades of the 20th century . They echo old situations: the history of Public Assistance traces the secrets and silences imposed on foster children

Network meeting 17 June 2023

Meet & Greet for Haitian adoptees (17+)

Meeting, connecting and sharing Haitian roots

Date : June 17, 2023

Room open : 3:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Lost between two continents, Priyangika starts a quest to uncover the truth about her adoption.

Adopted from Sri Lanka to Norway at only seven weeks old, Priyangika has always longed for her biological family.

She travels to Sri Lanka to fill in the missing pieces of her identification papers, her family history and her broken heart. But finding her birth mother does not bring her the peace of mind she is searching for. Instead, a need to uncover the secrets of her past leads her to an investigation of the complexity of the international adoption process.

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The first violence that affects a newborn baby is the name that he or she or them never chose themselves. There will be much more after that: potty training, learning to walk, talk, compulsory schooling, et cetera. It is best to change a first name later in life. My sister did, but it only helped a little. I run into her every year, just this week at the Javaplein in Amsterdam. She sits there forever being 29 years old, I walk up to her expectantly, it's now or never, and as I hear myself talk I know it's in vain.

Me: "Do you know me. We know each other, don't we?” and I know the answer the moment I ask the question. No. A pretty young woman, ethnically mixed, with a head of curly hair and some freckles on her nose. Elsie. My sister. Already 30 years dead. Later in life she called herself Tilasmi, a name given to her by the Baghwan. Still later I was allowed to say Elsje again, and I still do that in my mind.

Sister was also adopted, she was Surinamese/Curacaos/Indonesian and Dutch. A moksi, a mix. Was calling her 'Elsje' necessarily a colonial act of my parents? I do not believe it. I know a very Surinamese lady called Els. 'Kwame' is not for everyone. Parents appropriate a child, especially culturally, and I wouldn't know how else to do it.

Now I read Trouw columnist Babah Trawally, and I do so more often, usually with pleasure. This week he wrote: “You cannot adopt a black African child and then call her Wietske or Tjitske. This is like writing a scientific book without citing the source.”

Would it? Raising a child has nothing to do with writing a science book. 'Cultural appropriation', to put it in good Dutch, is even a necessity in education. “Cling, bonding,” my therapist used to yell.

The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 sought to keep Native children in tribal communities. The Supreme Court may change that this spring.

Childhood photos of Chris Stearns, who was born a Navajo, but was raised by white parents in New Jersey. One photograph of him, at about age 3, shows him wearing red overalls. The other shows him with his adoptive parents.

Childhood photos of Chris Stearns, who was born a Navajo, but was raised by white Evangelical parents in New Jersey. Credit...Kholood Eid for The New York Times

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The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 sought to keep Native children in tribal communities. The Supreme Court may change that this spring.

Childhood photos of Chris Stearns, who was born a Navajo, but was raised by white parents in New Jersey. One photograph of him, at about age 3, shows him wearing red overalls. The other shows him with his adoptive parents.

Childhood photos of Chris Stearns, who was born a Navajo, but was raised by white Evangelical parents in New Jersey. Credit...Kholood Eid for The New York Times

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On May 13, BCNN issued a call in Trouw on behalf of 36 organizations to give children with disabilities in low- and middle-income countries a home, instead of a home.

The full opinion article:

'On May 15, the international day of the family, worldwide attention is drawn to the importance of a family and family for the upbringing of children. Worldwide, an estimated six million children grow up in children's homes and not with their own families. A substantial part of this group of children has a disability: physical, mental or both.

Children with a disability are much better off if they can grow up in a family or with relatives. We therefore call on everyone to no longer maintain homes, but to support organizations that offer help to children with disabilities and their families.

Why is taking care of children with a disability in a home not a good idea? Children are disadvantaged and damaged by living in a home. The United Nations, renowned scientists and many development organizations are unanimous: even if there is good care, children in homes are damaged. Children suffer further delays in physical growth and cognitive development, they develop separation anxiety, develop attachment problems and develop low self-confidence. This is due to the lack of individual attention from permanent caregivers who are always there for a child.

Another 237 cases will be looked into by the commission, which had already begun a probe into 34 cases in December 2022

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Korea plans to investigate the adoption process in 237 cases between the 1960s and 1990s involving South Korean children suspected of having been adopted overseas under false pretenses.

This second decision to initiate an investigation comes after a prior one made in December of last year. Among those whose adoptions are being investigated is the US citizen William Vorhees, whose story was shared in a recent Hankyoreh report on fraudulent adoptions.

According to the Hankyoreh’s investigation on Tuesday, the commission plans to make a decision as early as June on initiating a second investigation for possible human rights violations and abuses of public authority in the overseas adoptions of 237 South Korean children.

Between August and December 2022, 372 applicants and the organization Danish Korean Rights Group (DKRG), which is the world’s largest Korean adoptee community, submitted investigation requests to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which made an initial decision in December to investigate 34 of those cases.

On Sunday, VG revealed illegal adoptions from South Korea. On Monday, adoptee Uma Feed (40) reported the state and the adoption broker Verdens barn for human trafficking and knowledge of document forgery.

On Monday afternoon, adoptee Uma Feed reported the Norwegian state for illegal adoption practices.

The report follows VG's revelations about illegal adoptions from South Korea to Norway.

After several years of searching, Feed (40) has recently found his biological parents in South Korea. The answer came when she got a hit in a DNA database .

The parents in South Korea have said that they did not know that their daughter had been adopted away, and that they had been looking for her since she was ten days old.