Policy & Practice: Soapbox - Ignore adopted young people's needs at your peril

The programme caught up with the family 16 years after the brothers had been adopted to find that 18-year-old Jason has a serious drug and alcohol problem and Andy, 21, is serving a two-year prison sentence for arson.

Unfortunately, this is the experience of hundreds of adopters in this country and exactly the kind of scenario that those with younger adopted children fear most. Abuse and neglect are the main reasons why many children need an adoptive home. But early trauma can often result in severe emotional, behavioural and developmental difficulties that do not respond to ordinary parenting and love.

In my role with the adoptive parenting charity Adoption UK, I hear daily of parents struggling to cope with children and young people who are mistrustful and frightened. Young people who struggle to maintain the control that may, at one time, have kept them alive. Parents find themselves dealing with unusual and difficult behaviours that may include lying, stealing, urinating and defecating around the house, hoarding food, self-harm, self-loathing and aggression.