Placing Disabled Children for

Adoption

By Dr Sarah Bunt

Programme

9.45 – 10.30 Impression-Managing a Disabled Child’s Identity in Adoption

10.30 - 11.15 Matching the Needs of Disabled Children with Adoptive Families

11.15 - 11.30 Break and refreshments

11.30 - 12.15 Outcomes and Best Practice in Family Finding for Disabled Children.

12.15 - 12.45 Unearthing Motive in Adopting a Disabled Child

12.45 – 1.00 Plenary and Close

The Policy Context

The Adoption and Children Act (2002)• Widening the pool of people who could adopt; • Support packages which are tailored to meet the specific needs of

the placement; and

• A national database which links disabled children available for adoption with approved adopters.

Action Plan for Adoption (2011) specifically focuses on measures which prevent delay and improving the chances of looked after children becoming adopted.

• Adoption score cards which monitor the performance of local authority’s timeliness

The StudyMain Research Aim• To identify the social processes and principle factors that motivate

the decision to adopt a disabled child. Objectives

• To examine the extent to which socially constructed notions of impairment, disability, childhood and the family interplay in the process of adoption.

• To grasp the established rules and character of adoption departments, and the routine social practices and procedures tied with it.

• To explore the motivation and decision making of adopters.

The Study

This research focuses on adoption cases entailing:• interviews with the adoptive parent(s) of a

disabled child and;• an interview with the key social worker

Cases were found through the Adoption Register for England and Wales

Adoptive parents and social workers of 18 children (36 in total) were interviewed.

Defining Disability

• The Social Service Inspectorate (2004): definitions of disability might include broad range of conditions, including; children with physical and sensory impairments, children with a learning disability, and children with emotional and behavioural problems.

• The Adoption Register identifies a child as disabled if they have two or more impairment conditions as outlined on their database.

• Disablism, is due to societal factors such as prejudice, discrimination, inaccessibility in the built environment, and insufficient support (Crowe 1996).

Session 1

Impression Managing a Disabled Child’s

Identity in Adoption.

Family Finding

These are the range of mediums used to promote disabled children:• Regional consortiums, • Exchange days, • The Adoption Register, • Adoption publications (such as Be My Parent and Children Who Wait)

and occasionally • National Newspapers • Television. • Approaching disability organisations

Getting the Balance Right

The language terms that were used and the image they selected gave out particularly intended meanings.

Jason’s Social Worker (SW): ‘Yeah I mean I think the way you profile the child is really, really important. I think you’ve got to have the right information and you’ve got to present that to people in a way that I guess is very clear and balanced because that’s how you get your initial response from people’.  

Nicola’s SW: ‘So when we were doing the profile we… look at the positives that she’s doing and then balance that with, we don’t know, the reality is that we don’t know’.

Impression Managing • Goffman (1959) “The Presentation of Selfin Everyday Life”.

• Impression management requires theindividual to calculate a given situation

whichwill then guide their conduct.

• Individuals act with the purpose of leaving their desired impression.

Signifier and Signified Sassure (1974) Semiotics • Signifier: the form a sign takes• Signified: the concept it represents

The signifier: stimulates instant reactions to its audience since word and image evoke certain meanings to us.

Signified: Social workers play on those shared associations to arouse particular iconic representations. This may involve: • avoiding words with negative connotations attached; and• over emphasising those aspects that may induce an adopter’s

yearning to nurture the child,

Impairment was either down or overplayed.

Sritharan et al. (2010) ‘I think I like you: Spontaneous and deliberate evaluations of

potential romantic partners in an online dating context’.

Comparisons can be made between how adopters select children with the use of online adoption forums and adoption magazines, to dating websites.

When people make romantic decisions there is an interplay between: Deliberative Evaluative Judgement; Spontaneous Affective Response.

In adoption:• Deliberative Evaluative Judgement: based on rational thinking

about the life adopters might envisage with a specific child.

• Spontaneous Affective Response: denotes an emotional connection which draws on a pre-existing drive to nurture.

ActivityDiscuss in your groups – what aspects of their profile did you findcompelling or off -putting?

Identify words and sentences which convey more than one meaning?

Highlight words and sentences in the text which contain implicit messages?

What about their expectations in a partner?

Impairment Descriptors

“Jess has a learning difficulty”

“Joanna has Down’s syndrome and related complexhealth needs “

“Melissa has Down’s syndrome and related health needs”

“Ross is developmentally delayed but this is notsignificant”

“David has a rare condition … syndrome. It is not knownhow this will affect his future”

Spontaneous Affective Response

Adopter’s often found it difficult to articulate why they felt more of a connection to some profiles over others;

Esme’s Adoptive Mother (AM): ‘And at that point I think you have to start

funnelling [focusing] yourself. But you had to sit there and … consider, would [I]? I don’t know why but I wouldn’t’.

Expression

Facial qualities give out information which will evokes particular responses as though you can read an individual character from visual features and expression;

Carl’s AM: ‘I don’t know what it was that attracted me to this cheeky wee chap but, it his little grin in the photograph’.

Sean’s AM: ‘But it was definitely the photograph, it wasn’t the profile. I was definitely drawn to him. There was another boy with disabilities there and he was lovely as well but it was the sadness of this little boy’s face. And at the time I thought it was sadness but he’s a little bleeder. He probably wasn’t sad, it was just the way they took the photograph, which to me identifying with his sadness, “oh I could change that”, do you know what I mean, “he could be happy here”. Not realising that he was a happy little boy anyway’.

Video FootageShort film excerpts can encapsulate endearing childlike qualities through:• movement, • speech and tone, • play interactions and;• behaviours.

Dynamic movement cues have the potential to give a more accurate or positive representation.

Adam’s SW: ‘DVD showed that much better than any report would. Cause you know when potential adopters can actually see walking around and crawling around and him interacting in such a sweet way, that’s going to say that there’s more than just his health needs’.

Louis’s SW: ‘He just was quite a poorly baby so it didn’t read well either. And then like, so we did a DVD of him as well cos he’s such a like bubbly smiley, he’s the cutest kid. And then it looked better with the DVD cos you could see him interacting. Cos when you read it on paper it doesn’t read well, all his medical history, but when you see him you think well, he’s lovely’.

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

Attractiveness of the child is not necessarily based on shared values with regards to perceived notions of beauty.

Nicola’s AM: ‘But the photograph of the child she looked so sad, so erm I don’t know so lost, so in need of being parented’.

The connection attached to the visual photograph cannot be explained by isolating archetypal characteristics associated with idealistic notions of childhood.

Victoria’s AM: ‘Because I think it’s a bit like when I met my husband. There has to be something that’s ‘I actually like the look of this person. I like this person’. And that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re stunningly handsome or beautiful or whatever, but I think there has to be something there’.

Evaluative Judgement If certain criteria are inconsistent with adopter’s preferences the potential match may be discarded.

Adopters need only to give a cursory glance at a child's profile to make a spontaneous evaluation (Sritharan et al. 2010).  

Carl’s AM: ‘The way I would have gone through the magazine every month, I would have got it first and then I read through…So all of that was ruled out so it was now down to, and we looked at the ages of the children, and the descriptions, disabilities and all that, and usually every month of this thick magazine it boiled down to a few possibilities. And then you learn to read between the lines, … you learn to cross match’.

Being Clear on Impairment Classifications

Adopters can often stereotype conditions they have little knowledge of whilst expressing nuanced and positive views what they are familiar with.

Esme’s AM: ‘If you go back to my PAR it says “would you consider a child with a serious illness” and my form says no. And this is questioned when I adopted Esme….. Because I said what do you mean as serious illness and she said “oh well” because also you are a little bit guided by your social worker. Because they have been doing it for years. She said “you know you could end up with a child in a wheelchair”….. If my

social worker had said to me “would you consider a child with cystic fibrosis?” Yes because I don’t see cystic fibrosis as a serious illness. It is all perception, it’s what you know’

Writing Adoption Profiles

Key phrases convey the rewarding aspects of the child which feed into the nurturing drives of adopters 

Esme’s (AM): ‘And Esme’s profile was different, because they normally start off with saying about medical history or different issues. And Esme’s profile started off bright friendly little girl with blues eyes etc, it actually told me about the little girl rather than her issues and I think that stood out. Because you sort of talked about her as a person as a little girl. By the way she has got this, but this is the person she is and that was really quite different from anything I read’.

Health Uncertainty

Social workers had to try and grapple to understand not just the impairment label but how the real child was uniquely affected by impairment.

Social workers attempted to grapple how a child really experiences their impairment through:• engaging with health professionals; • talking to foster carers about the child’s routines; and• directly observing the child.

The understanding of the child’s prognosis was often limited which meant that social workers were often dependent on socially constructed knowledge about impairment.

Two central concerns affected the approaches social workers took in relation to impression managing information.

Securing Permanence : was a concern linked with preventing delay which is seen to jeopardize a child’s welfare.

Ensuring Placement Stability: Some social workers were particularly concerned about the spontaneous affective responses aroused by sensational imagery and text

Ensuring Placement Stability

Concerns that the image presented distorted the reality of the child created unease in social workers:

• Nicola’s SW: ‘One of the down sides of putting up [online publication] is that they look at a photograph erm and the emotional heartstrings are pulled, you know, so and they sometimes forget, or not forget, it’s not forget, but sometimes they overlook the needs of a child because they can see the physical child. Erm and so they will overlook or downplay some of the issues’.

Social workers feared that if the level of care required would be more than originally envisaged by the adopter this could potentially factor in the breakdown of the placement.

•  Louis’s SW: ‘we were sort of this view that we can’t, even though it sounds bad, we can’t not tell people, we can’t sugar coat his medical needs because then all that would happen would be that we place him with someone and they would say I can’t handle it, it’s too much and then it break down. So it was a dilemma cos we were thinking this doesn’t read well’.

Securing Permanence

Social workers sought to demystify disability by describing how impairment plays out in their day-to-day activities as can be seen in the following statements:

Henry’s SW: ‘So I was pulling together that profile, erm…cos the profile is largely around their personality and what they’re like and…so I was able to do all of that and I was just putting together this bit about his disability and about, you know…I don’t like it to be about a list that they can’t do. You know I’ve never liked that – to sort of be putting down he’s not walking like that he’s not sitting up, he’s not this he’s not that. It all sounded really, really, negative when actually he was beginning to roll over and he had

this amazing backwards movement across the floor where he arched his back and went up on his head and moved like a caterpillar going backwards, caterpillar movement. So I was putting all that in about how positive he is and how cheerful and how he really relates well to other children and something like that’.

Recommendations for Practice:The child’s profile should start with positive attributes and

personality of the child before any discussion of the child’s health status.

Impairment may be disclosed in short profiles in creative ways by outlining how it impacts day-to-day life.

Be clear about the scope of available support

Consider the implications of medical labelling

Avoid vague descriptors such as “visual impairment” which only serve to confuse the adopter.

DVD Footage should be showcased more regularly as this may provide a more accurate impression of a child.

Activity days, where the adopter can physically see and interact with the child are likely to significantly improve a disabled child’s chances

of being placed.

Session 2

Matching the needs of disabled children with

adoptive families

Recruiting adopters that meet the needs of children.

• Disabled children have basic universal needs as children as well as additional impairment needs that must be addressed.

• The Child’s Permanency Report asks social workers to comment on: ‘the development of the child’s identity, and those factors that should be given priority in identifying prospective adopters’ (BAAF 2005).

• the prioritisation of needs is likely to be vulnerable to the subjective judgements of individual practitioners

Activity

What types of characteristics would you look for in an adopter(s) to meet the needs of this child.

Placing a Disabled ChildSome social workers perceived identifying the specific needs of disabled children, as a process no different from any other child they were planning for.

Carl’s SW: ‘The system I described to you or the process as I described would be the same for this little boy as a child without identified additional needs…I still think we treat children as individuals, they all have individual needs’.

Others felt that the additional needs of disabled children required specific attention.

Ian’s SW: ‘People say that an able bodied child that gets adopted has the same needs as a child with disabilities. No they don’t, and to say that is overlooking the needs of that child. They have the same needs for love and nurture, legal security and placement, family status, identity, background information, but they have additional needs and to ignore them even at this stage is totally inappropriate it doesn’t make for a sound placement’.

The identity of the child

A looked after identity

A disabled identity

Impairment identity

A hierarchy of needsThe needs of children can be grouped into four competing identities which impact on matching processes. This hierarchy has been constructed to reflect the amount of emphasis placed by social workers on matching the needs children to adopters.

The least important need

The most important need

Recruiting adopters that meet the needs of children.

The Identity of the Child

Social workers were not dismissive of the universal needs of children or the characteristics that made the specific child unique. However, these characteristics were often the least important consideration in the matching process for disabled children.

Social worker’s comments:

Oliver’s SW: ‘I really wanted him to have siblings because he had responded so well in foster care to the other children that were in and out of foster care and in fact he responded more to the children in the family than he did the adults’.  

Carl SW: ‘So picking up on the things that he found safe. A dog for example, the foster carer had a dog, and he loved this dog, you could see him really relax around the dog, he would stroke it and be very kind to it. So animals as we know for a lot of children can be very secure can be very comforting. So things like that, …. can be very important’.

Recruiting adopters that meet the needs of children.

The Looked After Child

Adopters that would be able to have an understanding about a child’s background and offer therapeutic parenting to a child was regarded as highly important, but was certainly not the most important factor in family placement.

Social worker’s comments:

Jack’s SW: “And in Jack’s case as he gets older it may well be that he still does have attachment disorder from prior to coming into care. Because sometimes they can tend to be masked or lost in the search to try to meet his day to day disability needs.”  

Carl’s SW: “But I was looking at ideally two carers, experienced, because this little boy had been very traumatised, confident, able to work with other professionals in terms of understanding his needs and the help that he would need.”

Recruiting adopters that meet the needs of children.

The Disabled ChildSocial workers were often looking for families that would be able to manage discrimination and fight for resources.

Social worker’s Comments:

Henry’s SW: “she’s bloody good she doesn’t give in and that’s the other thing about families where they’ve got disabled children. They are fighters because they know they don’t get given nothing.”

Jack’s SW: “if they were facing any sort of discrimination from people, she would be in there straight away as a very strong advocate. But I think it could be for some people very mortifying in dealing with the looks of people in the street.” 

Ian’s SW: “obviously you’ve got the discrimination that is going to come into it because he is absolutely gorgeous as far as I’m concerned, but not as far as other people are concerned.”

Recruiting adopters that meet the needs of children

A medical identityThis was the most fundamental aspect of family finding. Social workers were very tentative about placing children with adopters that had no experience with impairment or disability issues.

Social worker’s comments:

• Jack’s SW: “our clear criteria would be judging against a child’s needs. So in Jack’s case we’d want to see clear evidence in the PAR that the couple, or a single applicant, would have a clear understanding about disability, and where they would have got this from, either through work or through family caring”.

• Sean’s SW: “It’s always preferable if people have – there were some people that came forward that had a medical background – there was one lady that was a speech therapist. So you latch on and think that could be really good because they could have an understanding of his medical needs, or that particular need with his speech or hearing or whatever”

Assessing Adopters: A Risk Adverse Approach

When asked about the characteristics they were looking for in adopters, the experience of impairment and disability was high on the criteria,

• Henry’s SW: ‘And that’s why I think, you know for these children it is often, if you can find people with that experience you know they already know what they’re taking on board and what the battle’s going to be’.

 • Carl’s SW: ‘You’d also be looking for experience if possible. You

know have they had children themselves have they got disabled children. Have they got someone in the family? You know had they been working in a special needs school. And what is their knowledge because you want sort of erm a reality check’.

Assessing Adopters: A Risk Aversive Approach

Social workers often engaged in a complex process of ‘speculative hypothesising’(Sheppard 2003). Speculative hypothesising, involves envisaging all potential possibilities and the consequences of those possibilities.

Adopters are often asked to project into future despite the fact that very often the prognosis for the child remains unknown.

Nicola’s AM: ‘and they said that they thought we were both naïve because we hadn’t taken on board the fact that her condition was life limiting. And …… when they asked us specifically how did we feel about the fact that her condition was life limiting, my answer as a Marie Curie nurse and having worked around you know young people and old people, people die at any age, you know it doesn’t choose, It just happens. And my question to them was well does anybody in this room know how long they’ve got? So you know anyone of us could be sitting here with a life limiting condition, …. that is life that’s you know life is fragile and precious’.

A Risk Adverse ApproachDifficulties in family placement cannot be regarded as only the result of a limited number of families that come forward.

Carl’s SW: “It was a very emotional response that she gave, I just feel drawn to this little boy, I just can’t take my eyes from the page, I just think I connect with him, and whilst that maybe right for a lot of people, you need to then move beyond that initial attraction to talk about his needs and how he is, and what he will need from his carers, and I didn’t feel from talking to that person, that she would be able to it”.

Henry’s SW: ‘if you look in magazines there’s countless babies with special needs or health issues or difficulties or whatever. And people look and say ah bless I’ll have one of those, and I say look I’m not placing a child with you unless you have some experience that you can prove to me you understand the needs of this child. Otherwise forget it. And I think people are sometimes quite surprised at that. ….. And I say no. Go and see, go and work for a year with 16 year olds with Down’s syndrome and then come back and tell me if this is what you want to do. Because it’s very easy to get carried away thinking I can do that’.   

A Risk Aversive Approach

A sense of realism in adopter’s about the task of parenting a disabled child was a recurring theme:  

Henry’s SW: ‘I say to people when we have the information meetings where prospective adopters come for the first time to hear a talk about adoption and to see if they want to take it further… if you come to me and say you want to adopt a disabled child or a child with Down’s syndrome or a child who’s hearing impaired. Whatever you come and say to me I want to know that you know what you’re talking about’.

Nicola SW: ‘we owe it to any child not to just place them in a family just because they are willing to take a child on, because I think you set people up if they don’t fully understand what they are taking on…. to fail in some cases, and it’s not fair to anybody. It’s not fair to the child and it’s certainly not fair to the adopters’. 

The Existing Pool of AdoptersAt times local authorities face a dilemma where only one potential family come forward. Social worker’s comments:

Nicola’s SW: “But in no way shape or form do we take the first family that comes along if they are not the right family. Just because a child has got a disability does not mean to say that they don’t warrant the same level of commitment then any other child when we are family finding. As I say we would of, she would have remained in foster care if they couldn’t have found somebody that could meet those needs” Adam’s SW: “And you want people to have an understanding of that, you also are limited with the amount of the response you get. I think sometimes as social workers and family finders, you have that dilemma do we take this, because actually there might not be anything else. And we wanted permanency for this child, but there are elements in it that you feel might not quite meet the child’s needs and that’s so you know a bit of a juggling act really.”

Recommendations for Practice:• Social workers should ensure that the child’s holistic needs are

not being overlooked due to concerns about the child’s impairment identity.

• Social Workers should avoid stipulating blanket rules such as: adopters must have substantial experience of impairment and disability. This significantly reduces a disabled child’s chances of being placed

• Experienced adopters of a disabled child could act as mentors to adopters contemplating the prospect of adopting a disabled child. Social workers could then assess the rigour with which adopters have introspectively considered what it might be like to parent a disabled child.

Recruiting adopters for disabled children

Andy Stott, Manager, Adoption Register for

England & Wales

Who is the Register for?

• older children• children in sibling groups• those from Black and Minority Ethnic

backgrounds, and• those who are disabled or with uncertain

development futures

Survey process

• Identification of group of children - 72

• Interview with family finding social worker

• Progress of family finding for each child

Comparison

Disabled children cohort

• 71 % were aged under four • 17 % were from BME

backgrounds • 17% needed to be placed

with a sibling

General referrals to the register

• 52 % were aged under four• 31 % were from BME

backgrounds• 51 % needed to be placed

with a sibling

Categories of disability• Cerebral Palsy• Down’s Syndrome • Cystic Fibrosis• Foetal Alcohol Syndrome • Severe learning difficulties • Severe medical condition • Mobility/hearing/visual/physical impairment• Lasting and significant disability

Outcome for children in cohort - 72

• 32 matched with permanent family -

• 16 with adopters• 16 with foster carers,

of which• 5 placed for

adoption

• 40 not matched with permanent family

Summary of findings

• Age• Ethnicity• Sibling groups• Disability

What works

• Multi agency working is key• Joint working with disability team• Simultaneous rather than sequential practice• Clear tracking mechanisms for children’s plans• The older a child becomes, the less likely it is

that he/she will be adopted. • Importance of profiles and information

•Creative use of media•Exchange days, dvd, activity days•Is previous experience necessary/desirable?•Identify and use the adopters/people who have done it•Clear and agreed support packages•Much of this is the same for able bodied children

Thoughts….

• The importance of the individual worker• Leave no stone unturned -Jennifer Cousins

Session 3

Unearthing Motive in Adopting a Disabled Child

ActivityIn what ways can we assess the commitment of adopter(s) to meet a child’s needs aside from experience of caring roles?

Examining MotiveInstances where adopters embark on adopting a disabled child are significant, as their decision is

made in opposition to a prevailing discourse where impairment in

childhood appears to threaten the quality of life for all family

members.

The Adoption Process• Initial Motivation

• Social Processes • Proceeding with the adoption

The Adoption Process• Initial Motivation

• Social Processes

• Proceeding with the adoption

Initial Motivation• Infertility• Altruism• Social Orientation

Adopters reflect they will attain role satisfaction from parenting their disabled child. 

Nicola’s AM:“I think there is a school of thought that say carers become carers because they liked to be needed. They have a need to be needed. And I think that’s probably true if you analyse it.”

Social Processes

The response to the prospect of adopting a disabled child may depend upon:

• The adopter’s exposure to disability issues;

• The amount of contact they have had with disabled persons;

• Early socialisation experiences that shape how a disabled life is conceptualised.

Social ProcessesAdopters establish their own thresholds on the level and severity of needs that they can care for, based on:

1. their current lifestyle;2. life-fulfilment;3. and their own conceptualisations of impairment and

disability.

Victoria’s AM: So we were quite realistic about that in looking and thinking. Right. Well behavioural problems. We just get on with that. Toileting, washing, looking after, all that sort of stuff fine. But I think you’ve got to be quite clear in your head what can you deal with and what can’t you deal with.

Social Processes• Adopters are asked to select from twelve

impairment classifications which conditions they would be prepared to accept.

• Perception is the only basis on which adopters can make these judgements.

• Adopters feel most confident with conditions where they have some knowledge of.

Proceeding with an Adoption

Adopters invest a significant amount of time gauging whether the match meets their own needs as well as the needs of the child.

Zac’s AM: I suppose having got lots of friends who had got birth children with Down’s syndrome, the difference for us is we took them knowing that it was a lifelong commitment. So where our friends… their children now are young adults think ‘This should be our time now’, ‘We should be having a life where our children have moved on’ and they haven’t because they have got their young adult with Down’s syndrome, that doesn’t bother us. Because we explored all that before we went into it. We knew that we were taking them on for life. We had a choice and we took the choice. We knew that we were taking them for life. For the rest of our lives.

Proceeding with An Adoption

What is also evident in these future projections is the realisation that impairment and disability issues are likely to be further compounded later on in the life course.

Justin’s AF: It is like Justin, I thought to myself …. I have put it into picture, to the extreme, anything less is a bonus. But I can see Justin as being quite aggressive as he gets older. You are all going into adopt a child, you not thinking of your child as an older person. So you don’t really feed a fully grown child, you don’t realistically in your head, but you should prepare yourself for that.”

Proceeding with An Adoption

Thus individuals invest in the things that matter to them most while accepting the costs to themselves in doing so.

Esme AM:: It’s inevitable, it’s going to happen, it’s not what if, it’s going to happen. What we don’t know is when. She could get into her teens, she could reach forty. Average age at the moment is 36 or 38. ..yep it’s black and white, this you will have to deal with at some point. But prior to having to deal with that, look what you could have, look at the life you could give her.

Proceeding With An Adoption

For other adopters the prognosis of the child they were matched with was much more blurred. Adopters had to reconcile with the uncertainty of children’s conditions, particularly if they were represented as potentially life-limiting.

Louis AM: But as I say he’s not without his problems and anything that he does facing the future I’ll face with him, help him to the best of my ability.

Henry’s AM: So it may just be a deaf person who lives perfectly independently. Like any other deaf person. But if he’s not I will be here for however long I am here to look after him.

Nicola’s AM: But I guess you know, you have to live with that uncertainty don’t you. I think it makes you live in the moment more and worry less really. It’s no good thinking well what are we going to do, this time ten years’ time. Yes you have to think about that but you can’t ever really prepare for it can you.

Alternative Ways of Assessing

Alternative ways of assessing whether these adopters were both capable and dedicated to meet the child’s impairment needs:

Connor’s SW: ‘but I don’t think you would dismiss people if they ticked the other boxes. ….. I mean this couple were willing to go and spend time with Down’s groups in order to get more experience you know. So it’s that sort of willingness – they recognise maybe they don’t have that – it’s great if they have experience because then they’ve got much more insight. So they were definitely trying to – bless them – prove to me – they made a big commitment, ….. you can’t ask for more than that’.

Alternative Ways of AssessingWhile some social workers are wary of the emotional responses adopters experience when children are featured, for others evidence that adopters display outward signs of enthusiasm for a child is a prerequisite for pursuing a match.

Ian’s SW: ‘You make that into a jigsaw and that all fits into a box. But this child isn’t going neatly into a box, he needs that warmth as well, he’s not a project with these people that have adopted him, he’s part of their family…. And I think I know you can feel that warmth when you get to that stage but we have to feel that earlier on in the linking stage, that we can pick up some of that warmth with people that have never met the child’.

Rationalistic or Commitment Approach

Rationalistic Approach: Social workers may feel emotionally invested in a child and their need for permanence. However, applying blanket rules is an attempt to safeguard the child and their professional integrity from the unintended consequence of the placement breaking down.

Commitment Approach: Adopters take on a role which is does not appear produce an “outward advantage”

Recommendations for Practice• Approaching disability societies. Adoption could appeal to birth parents of disabled children who may wish to extend their family by adopting a child who also experiences some form of impairment.

• Assess the lifestyle of the adopter. In effect, do they invest their time and energy in people over and above other interests

• Aspects of commitment can be assessed in adopters: willingness to gain direct experience; the outward enthusiasm they display about the child;

the extent to which they have introspectively thought through the potential implications of the role of parenting a disabled child.

• As preventing placement breakdown is a central concern for local authorities finding strategies to assess the extent of an adopter’s commitment might help in ensuring some sense of placement stability. This could entail: systematically examine the commitment of adopters through their activities in the community, the support they offer and engagement with others, in particular, those in some way disadvantaged.

Three factors that make family placement difficult

• One: an existing pool of approved adopters may not necessarily be prepared to consider a child with a significant level of need.

• Two: difficulty in recruiting adopters that can meet the identified needs of a specific child

• Three: a risk adverse approach in adoption in regards to family placement.