I attended the FJC debate at the Strand Palace hotel on November 24th. I will write a longer article for Jordans Family Law, to do justice to the full range of opinions expressed, but I will set out the highlights here for those who I know were keen to come, but couldn’t make it.
The debate was chaired by Sir James Munby, the President of the Family Division. Speaking for the motion were journalist Louise Tickle and comparative lawyer Dr Claire Fenton-Glynn; opposing the motion were Sir Martin Narey and Professor Julie Selwyn of the University of Bristol.
The Family Justice Council was established in March 2002; its primary role is to promote an interdisciplinary approach to family justice and to monitor the system. It provides guidance and best practice documents and responds to government consultation papers. Sir James Munby opened by recognising that this was a more than usually provocative topic to get an important debate going.
Louise Tickle spoke about how reporting family cases is the hardest work she has ever done, causing her sleepness nights as she was well aware how important it was to represent people’s views accurately. When cases went wrong the harm they caused went far beyond the immediate family but caused horror and distrust for all parents. The Hampshire case which has been widely discussed on the internet was a clear example of that. If social workers are prepared to fabricate evidence and lie, who can we trust.
Rates of child abuse in the UK are comparatively low – we are the 3rd or 4th lowest of 21 European countries – and the majority of parents in care proceedings are damaged, frightened people who often had appalling childhoods themselves. We could not frame this debate in terms of ‘monster parents’.
The media are picking up on the extensive human fall out of adoption without consent. It seems that the orthodoxy in this country is that ‘forced adoption’ has been actively promoted in past 15 years. It is scarey to challenge that but we have to ask ourselves as a society what do we value – society is human communities, made up of families. What costs are we prepared to ask others to bear to keep children safe? Should this really be at any cost. What do we believe about identity and relationships with siblings and extended family?
Louise Tickle’s conclusion was in effect that keeping children safe is a goal, not a value. We can keep children safe by less drastic means than adoption without consent. In Holland only 28 children adopted in one year; they have found other ways to keep children safe. She was not arguing that children should never be removed and not arguing for parents’ rights – but arguing from the perspective – what kind of society should we aim to be.
We can’t pretend to be anything other than we are. We are the child of that mother and that father. Adoption can cause psychological violence to our sense of self. She quoted Lucy Reed at Pink Tape that the drive for more adoptions was ‘legally wrong, morally bankrupt, economically stupid and socially catastrophic’
Louise concluded by saying:
Children suffering should have a chance to live with someone else. It may be difficult if sustaining legal links with birth family. But why can’t we promote the concept of more than one parent? This more difficult path for professionals is better one to tread.
Sir Martin Narey agreed that he had never met a ‘monster parent’ but it had to be accepted that some parents can’t parent decently or satisfactorily. He became more and more alarmed that previous reluctance to intervene meant we returned children to neglectful homes. The research of Professor Elaine Farmer – 138 children in care and returned home. 2 years later 59% had been abused or neglected once again. I reminded ministers that about 66K care population was not a record number. In 1981 92K in care more than a third higher. Has quality of parenting so improved?
People rejected adoption because they believed that 25% broke down but Professor Selwyn’s research says its only 3%. Adoptions were further held back because of restrictive view of matching, freezing white adopters out of even applying to adopt. Insanity of our approach re black or EM children. Condemned to wait in care a year longer than white children because of conviction that transracial adoptions would break down, for which no evidence.
Most of us would accept that there are children who have to be removed from parents and can’t go home. We could look at open adoptions but before doing that they will need to understand the evidence on contact. It can be good, but hugely damaging.
Sir Martin Narey pointed out that the true number of non consensual adoptions was about 2,500 per year. He did not believe that adoption was suitable for all children – this was ‘nonsense’. But more children should be adopted; it offers more certainty than other options.
He said:
There should be no targets for adoption and I regret some of the rhetoric. But actually I have seen in politicians … never seen any demonstration they think adoption is the only answer. They want to see more adoptions. Should absolutely be no targets for adoption. But its unique permanence and helping children catch up with peers, if we are really serious about the primacy of the interest of the child and really serious about taking dutiful approach to rescue children from damage and neglect we need to ensure that as many children as require it get the chance to transform their life.
Dr Fenton Glynn wanted to look at three issues: how to balance the conflict between children’s rights and parents’ issues; is adoption the best option; and who is recognised as a parent and when is their consent needed?
She pointed out that the question who must consent to adoption is crucial for child and that unmarried fathers are often deprived of the ability to have a say about the adoption of their child. This relies on outdated assumptions relating to unmarried fathers. It assumes mothers are the primary carers and fathers play little or no role and don’t deserve to. Having the right to consent is only effective when you are recognised as a parent in the first place.
Dr Claire Fenton-Glynn’s conclusion was that to talk about adoption without parental consent being wrong in principle isn’t just concerned with when we dispense with consent. It goes to heart of how we recognise someone as a parent. We have to look at whole system. Take child centred approach. Right to identity and gender equality. Fathers are of equal value and importance.
Professor Julie Selwyn spoke about her research findings and how the focus should be on children and their outcomes. The debate so far had been about adults and parents.
What we needed to bear in mind is that being adopted is the children’s best chance for developmental recovery after abuse and neglect in birth families. There is a great deal of evidence to support that.
There is a significant proportion of parents who abandon their children and no longer want a relationship with them. Maltreated children find world a frightening place. On entering care they have little language, don’t know how to play, hyper vigilant. Trouble making friends. Disrupts every area. And continues into adulthood – look at the Adverse Childhood Experiences studies in the US.
Need sensitive parents and carers to put themselves in child’s shoes. Stress response is partly believed to be responsible for disruptions in development. Need to be committed to child’s welfare in the long term. Therefore, adoptive parents need full parental responsibility. Why should these very vulnerable children get less than their welfare demands?
She said:
Foster care won’t do. Primary reason is lack of stability. They need to feel secure. Bowlby – it is the world in feeling not as it is. Physical and emotional security. 1 in 4 experience 2 or more moves every year. Every group of care leavers will tell you about their disrupted lives. Children lose sense of who they are. Their possessions. Their anecdotes. Sense of identity….
… Children bear the brunt of abuse and neglect. Children have a right to a family life and be free of abuse and neglect. The Children Act 1989 was a ground breaking shift from ‘owning children’ to thinking about responsibilities. The commitment that adoptive parents make, their ability through adoption order to act as parents NOT carers. Relationship that for vast majority lasts for life makes a difference. Nothing else will do for maltreated children. Its not forced adoption but protective adoption.
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS then followed….
To be clear, where it is said that Louise Tickle “quoted Lucy Reed at Pink Tape that the drive for more adoptions was ‘legally wrong, morally bankrupt, economically stupid and socially catastrophic’” – she is quoting this blog post : Elsewhere on the internet, where I was complaining about the poor quality of public debate about adoption and the failure to distinguish between more adoptions generally and doing adoption better (and faster) for those children for whom it is the right option. I have not suggested that (non-consensual) adoption per se is legally wrong, morally bankrupt etc – sometimes it is the absolutely right option. I just don’t think that a policy of increasing absolute numbers without reference to the individuals needs of a child is either sensible or consistent with our legal and moral obligations.
Agree that simply saying increase numbers adopted is not sensible. But evidence would suggest that more children should have the opportunity. For example 20% of all the placement orders reversed are because adoptive parents could not be found. or Sinclair’s study of over 7,000 children in care who found that the likelihood of adoption varied by council and there was a group of children who had entered care at young ages but for various reasons ended up growing up in care. Of course not all those children should have been adopted but Sinclair makes the argument that it should have been considered for some.
Julie Selwyn- would it be at all possible to have all the panels speeches in written format as the figures & fact are of extreme importance, especially when innocent people are misinformed & given incorrect advice which damage their case?
Amber – a transcript and podcast will be up soon on the FJC website.
Thanks Lucy, sorry I couldn’t find your post to link in the article last night, I will link it now.
The link in your comment doesn’t work? I will try and find another.
fixed it i think – in comment and in post.
I write as a social work academic, currently leading a Post Graduate Diploma in Family Placement for experienced social workers, many of who are troubled by the issue of adoption without consent.
Last night’s Family Justice Council debate was interesting but to I felt it slid past some of the main issues. To my mind there are three main points.
First, targets. Martin Narey said he didn’t find targets for adoption helpful – let that be trumpeted clearly – but we need to address the damaging impact of targets throughout the system. Targets for recruitment of adopters (linked to government grant income) are creating a real dilemma for agencies who may have plenty of potential adopters on their books but many of whom have opted to exclude children with particularly difficult histories to support the children who are waiting for a placement. This is generating sadness, impatience and sometimes anger among those who have gone through the process of assessment.
Second the use of statistics about disruptions/outcomes went unchallenged. It was stated that as many of half the children subject to SGOs no longer have contact with their birth parents – but the purpose of SGOs is not simply to enable contact; it is because it is better for children to grow up with family or friends. And who is to say that such contact may not be resumed in the future, without the torturous process of search. Likewise figures on moves in in foster care are not intrinsically and argument in favour of adoption. Moreover they do not mean that foster care is always bad. The figures need to be examined in the light of ages of children and compared with the outcomes of adoption of similar aged children. And then again, perhaps these children are just too damaged at present to settle anywhere. There were some extremely weak – and even non existent – causal links.
Third, there seemed to be little recognition that for many children growing up within their own families there are more than 2 parents. Vera Fahlberg’s later work acknowledged the potential of relationships, whether through adoption or fostering, of positive relationships with birth parents as well as with adopters or foster carers.
Only at the end of the discussion John Simmonds of Coram BAAF raised the central point that there are many routes to permanency apart from adoption. This could have been raised in more constructive detail. The real difficulty is that with the pressure of targets on time and spending, adoption is almost a reflex recommendation and my suspicion, backed up only anecdotally, is that the pressure to recommend comes from management rather than from social workers. Exploring options with birth parents can help them to reach agreement with social workers about the best futures for children. Surely we need to address improvements the quality of all possible forms of substitute family care – which often come down to funding. It goes without saying that adoption offers the cheapest solution, whether or not there is consent.
Sorry for the long post but I had hoped for more from the debate
Inevitably when you only have 12 mins to speak complexity can get lost. I agree targets unhelpful. The efforts to increase number of adopters was to find parents for the large number of children waiting. These were mainly sibling groups and older children. This has been largely successful as there are now only about 700 children on the register. Of course reduction in POs has also had a big effect.
I’m sorry if I did not make my point clear. I was trying to get across that adoption is often talked about in relation to loss but there is a lot of loss for children who remain in foster care. It also cannot be assumed that just because in foster care or with kin ( I did not mention SGOs ) that there is more contact with birth family. In one of our studies adopted children had more contact than those in long term foster care. I did state that I was talking about maltreated children who had no family to care for them. There is only 6-7% of the care population adopted.
The point about contact is exactly what I was trying to separate from the value of SGOs, and should not be a criteria for the success of SGOs. Contact may, or may not take place in SGOs but that is not the purpose of the order – as I have always understood it the SGO means the child is cared for within the extended family or close friends with or without contact. Certainly where children have been harmed contact would not always be desirable – though the SGO might be the placement of choice.
Where I think we needed more clarity on Tuesday was in the age breakdown of your statistics regarding disruptions and moves in non-adoptive placements 9they are far from the same thing). We also need to be arguing for stability in foster placements and ensuring that children in foster care are not victims of austerity when they are moved from successful specialist placements because they cost too much.
And I wish I had your confidence that adoption support is being rolled out in an evidence based way.
Anne- I think we’re in agreement. SGO perfectly good order when it meets the child’s needs. Concerns are: that it is being sought because the threshold appears lower than adoption, assessments poorer, carers not given full information , children don’t have the same detailed medical reports as in adoption, orders made to relatives who have never met the child and have no ” real” relationship, foster carers feeling forced to take out an order, and carers sometimes struggle with difficult contact with little support. These difficulties do mean that we need to think about how to make SGOs more secure and that they are used to meet the child’s needs.
Statistics on adoption disruption published. Looked at over 37,000 adoptions over a 12 year period. Repeated in Wales with the same results.
I think it was inevitable that a lot of the nuance would be lost in the format but I think it was a worthwhile attempt to bring the discussion out into the open. However, with so much that needed to be discussed, it was very frustrating that people such as Ian Josephs was given time to go over the same stale cliches.
But it was heartening to hear what was said about targets. It will be even more heartening if politicians will take note.
It was good that it was made clear that other countries do not collate data as the UK do.
I have worked in a number of central/east European countries over the last ten years and the situation is sometimes barely comparable with the UK. Lithuania, for example, sends a number of younger (under 5 years) children to northern Italy with little or no preparation for the children. It is hard to get figures and no details are available re consent – in fact professionals have always appeared somewhat reticent to discuss it. Other countries make use of hot boxes which count as abandonment. In other countries there are still large ‘orphanages’ or ‘institutions’ mainly but not exclusively for children with special needs and for Roma children. Many of these practices are closely tied to cultural/religious values.There are also definitions of ‘foster care’ that would be challenged in the UK.
However, UK policy on the consent issue shouldn’t be determined by what they do or do not do, but rather by what is socially just and respectful of rights of both children and birth families. I think it is more helpful to look at Germany (though it is a hotbox country) and Scandinavian countries,where the standard of residential child care is very different to ours.
Anne I thought we were in agreement but just read your comment that policy and practice should be decided by what is socially just and respectful of rights. That takes us back to ‘ Whose rights?’
Do look at the outcomes of children in these different systems
see for example file:///C:/Users/swjts/Chrome%20Local%20Downloads/essop_2011_hjern_foster_care_sweden.pdf
mmm… politicians such as UKIP, lucy allan- hemmings puppets?
Er no, I was hoping those politicians actually in a position of power might be prepared to accept a more nuanced debate and reign in the cliches about ‘warm and loving homes’ etc, etc.
I have very little hope that UKIP wish to be a responsible voice in this debate, given for e.g. that Douglas Carswell refused to engage with the Transparency Project on the grounds that we are a ‘cartel’???
It’s good to see the issue of forced adoption being debated at last & timely in the week that NICE guidelines on attachment are published with emphasis on how to help improve parental sensitivity. We have to get better at helping parents change if we are going to stop cycles of poor parenting. Lane Strathearn’s research on the potential therapeutic value of oxytocin with drug addicted mothers should give us all hope