An end to adoption delay benefits all concerned

2 September 2011 1 min read John Freeman Social Care Fostering and adoption

When I became a director of children's services, adoption was new to me. I spent time with social workers and a family court judge, and met several families going through the process. I was forcibly struck by the incongruity between the genuinely good intentions of all the professionals concerned and the lived experience of families and children.

Taking a child from its birth parents and placing it with other parents is a serious step. The state must consider all those concerned, starting with the best interests of the child. Before a decision is made, everyone must be certain that the proposed adoption is right for the child.

In my experience, all the professionals were struggling to make sure they were doing right by the child and its family. The social workers were often working on the cusp of trying to keep a birth family together and making the decision to split the family because it could not be saved. Finding the best adoptive parents was always a challenge. The judge was doing his best to make sure that the evidence was sound and the social workers had jumped through the right hoops. But what prospective adoptive parents experienced was excessive bureaucracy, interminable delay and stress, while the children suffered major uncertainties at a critical period in their lives.

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