Calls to improve services for adopted children
Fiona Simpson
Thursday, February 4, 2021
Campaigners are calling on the government to support mental health services for adopted children including improving the transition to adult services.
In its latest report Giving adopted children an equal chance of good mental health, Adoption UK documents how those who experience trauma in their earliest years are likely to suffer mental ill health.
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It warns that “failing to intervene can be catastrophic in adolescence and beyond”.
More than two thirds of adopted young people and adopted adults supported by Adoption UK last year disclosed they had sought help for their mental health, the report states.
“Three quarters of adopted children suffer significant trauma in their birth families, which can cast long shadows over their mental health,” it adds, noting that neurological disorders such as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and Autistic Spectrum Disorder are also much more common among adopted children.
According to the report, if left undiagnosed, children with FASD are twice as likely to be at risk of mental ill health.
The charity is calling for urgent action to protect adopted children’s mental health by enhancing early intervention services and embedding mental health services in frontline services including schools, youth clubs and within police forces.
It is also calling for a better transition between children and adult’s mental health services.
One child, named Anna, who was supported by Adoption UK was discharged from child services two days before her 16th birthday.
She was then informed she did not meet the criteria to be accepted by adult services.
After a crisis, Anna was admitted as an in-patient to a mental health unit, which ended her college education.
After repeated visits to A&E Anna was accepted by adult mental health services.
Anna, now aged 18, said: “Mental health support seems to be largely crisis led. Since accessing adult mental health services I have had five different care coordinators but only two of them have understood my long-term issues.”
She recently started work with a therapist funded by the Adoption Support Fund and said: “Finally, I’ve got a therapist who sees me for me. For the first time in my life I feel supported, not judged.”
Sue Armstrong Brown, chief executive of Adoption UK said: “Most adoptive families need professional and peer support at some point. But all too often these families are being failed by a system which invests heavily in the placement of children for adoption, then fades into the background, often with terrible consequences for the mental health of the children and their adoptive families.”
Warning of the impact of Covid-19 on people’s mental health, she added: “Given the increase in isolation, depression and anxiety during the pandemic, it has never been more important to address some of the systemic problems in mental healthcare in the UK.”