How a scheme prevents adoption breakdown

Project
SafeBase Parenting Programme

Funding
SafeBase costs about £20,000 for 20 families. Key cutting and shoe repair firm Timpson raised £1m, enabling the charity After Adoption to offer a match-funding deal to local authorities

Purpose
To improve the stability of adoption placements

Background
The Department for Education estimates that around 20 per cent of adoptions break down. Adoption agency After Adoption had noticed an increase in demand for support from adoptive parents and in 2004 developed the SafeBase Parenting Programme. The scheme was piloted between 2005 and 2009 and is now operating as part of wider adoption support services in 12 local authority areas in England with a franchise arrangement with St Andrew’s Children Society in Scotland.

Action
The programme, which is based on attachment theory, has three main strands, starting with an individual “family observation” by two workers in which the relationships between all children and all adults are assessed. Families get feedback to help them understand the dynamics in their household. Adoptive parents then do a four-day training programme in which they learn about attachment theory and child development, the impact of early trauma on children and techniques to build positive attachments and cope with difficult behaviour.

Finally, parents can attend regular SafeBase parenting support groups, where they can share experiences and support each other.

The programme is designed to help families look at their problems and strengths and work out how to apply what they have learned to their unique situation, explains After Adoption chief executive Lynn Charlton. “Parents say ‘this is fantastic because it enables us to see our children in new ways and respond accordingly’,” she says. “The feedback is that they have a much greater understanding of how a child might be feeling and their behaviour so, for example, a child may be 12 but actually have the parenting needs of a much younger child, needing more nurture and structure in their lives than another child of the same age.”

Families report feeling more positive about the future and more able to enjoy family time, says Charlton. “If you have a child with attachment difficulties they have a need to control everything. So something as simple as playing a ball game is not the easiest thing in the world as the child will take control and may challenge the parent’s authority,” she explains. “What we do is give parents the tools to make changes and the overwhelming response is that it works.”

Outcome
To date, 435 children have benefited from the scheme, with 259 families attending the course since 2005. The majority of referrals to SafeBase – 50.4 per cent – come from local authority children’s services, with 28.7 per cent coming from After Adoption workers, 9.3 per cent from Adoption UK’s family placement service, and the remainder ?self-referrals from families.