Adoption UK’s Adoption Barometer, which polled around 5,000 adoptive parents about their experiences, states that “some of the UK's most vulnerable children are being devastated by a string of missed opportunities to provide them with timely and adequate support”.
Some 70 per cent of parents with secondary school-age adopted children said their child risked gaining very few qualifications because of a lack of support at school.
A further 48 per cent of families with older children report severe challenges, such as being drawn into criminally exploitative behaviour, including child sexual exploitation and county lines activities.
Meanwhile, 68 per cent of new adoptive families had no support in place when children arrived to live with them, Adoption UK says.
“Failures in policy and practice and missed opportunities to intervene mean that problems often build into a crisis,” the report states.
It also highlights increased failure in diagnosing and treating brain damage caused by children being exposed to alcohol in the womb.
The report reveals that one in four adopted children are either diagnosed with, or suspected to have, foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD).
Some 55 per cent of families polled had waited two years or longer for a diagnosis, and 78 per cent felt healthcare professionals lacked even basic knowledge about the condition.
Adoptive mother Rowen said: “When Isabelle came to us at eight months old she was described as a perfect baby. At two-and-a-half she started headbutting, kicking and biting. “Then she became obsessed with sharp knives. She told me she wanted to ‘cut me open and see me bleed’. We went to countless GPs, health visitors and social workers but we got nowhere. We finally got a diagnosis of FASD when she was four years old. It has made a huge difference to the support we’ve been able to access.”
The Adoption Barometer also assesses government policies that regulate adoption in all four nations of the UK. Welsh policies score best, with three areas of policy scoring “good”.
However, all nations score poorly in at least one area of policy. Policy relating to finding families for children scores best across the board.
Policy relating to FASD scores worst, with all nations assessed as “poor”, and adopter experiences also “poor” in all nations.
The report calls on each of the governments to provide detailed therapeutic assessments for every child before they arrive in their new family, with up-to-date support plans to be maintained into early adulthood.
Becky Brooks, author of the report, said: “It is morally and economically imperative that adoptive families are given the right support from day one. Yet 68 per cent of new adoptive families who responded to the survey had no support plan in place. The cost to the child, the wider family and society when an adoptive family falls apart, is unacceptable.”
