It concluded that adopted children and young people have enhanced outcomes across health, education and future employment compared with those in other care placements.
The findings show a positive impact of adoption on children, and reduced reliance on publicly funded support in childhood and later life. The report did not set out to (nor did it) devalue other forms of care and permanence such as special guardianship, foster care or kinship care; nor did it advocate for reducing investment in keeping families together. It did make a very strong, child-centred case for ensuring that adoption remains an option for that very small group of children for whom permanence is necessary, but family and community options are impossible.
The review set out to provide an evidential platform to inform a national debate. The adoption system in the UK is not working well for children: the number of children in public care is close to an all-time high, but the numbers of children being adopted from care are at an all-time low and continuing to fall. Reversals of adoption plans are also rising. While this picture is due, in part, to the welcome rise in the use of kinship placements and changing attitudes to fostering, neither option is without its challenges, and both require long-term support which is currently underdeveloped.
Publication of the report prompted accusations that its methodology was flawed and presented a hierarchy of care with adoption at the top. Other concerns were that it minimised the complexity of placements of older children and discounted the views of adopted adults. All these issues were addressed to some extent, however, and the fact remains that the evidence for adoption is strong and unless a case is made for it continuing, it is in danger of falling off the list of options for our most vulnerable children.
The report calls for radical improvement in support for children maintaining connections with their birth families: the evidence from adopted people about their needs makes this a priority. It also questions whether decision-makers, from local authority social workers to judges, receive sufficient feedback about the impact of their decisions to pursue adoption (or not) when making finely balanced judgments about long-term best interests.
Despite having adoption as a longstanding priority, the government has created a vacuum in leadership in the sector. Its Care Review was virtually silent on the issue, and it recently ditched its own leadership body without any apparent thought as to how the complex adoption system would be held together.
CVAA will be holding a number of events over the coming year, hoping for some robust debate about ways to ensure that adoption doesn't simply wither on the vine.
