Keywords

Introduction

Adoption entails the permanent transfer of legal rights and responsibilities for a child from birth parents to adoptive parents. Inevitably, such a procedure can be controversial, for adoption has a profound and permanent impact on the lives of all the parties involved—the child, the birth parents and the adoptive parents, as well as grandparents, siblings and other relations on both sides. It also raises numerous ethical and philosophical questions concerning the appropriate role of the state within the family; the balance between parents’ and children’s rights; and the circumstances under which the blood tie can, or cannot, be broken.

However much an adoption may be in the best interests of a child, it will also entail feelings of grief: for birth parents, who mourn the loss of a child; for children who may lose contact not only with birth parents, but also with siblings and grandparents who were important to them; and sometimes for adoptive parents, especially if it reignites unresolved emotions concerning infertility (Neil, 2013; Thomas, 2013). It is therefore not surprising that the adoption debate engenders strong feelings and these can be exacerbated by media campaigns from individuals and pressure groups, supporting one or other side of the adoption triangle (see Albert, 2016; P., 2016).

Moreover, a series of scandals inform and colour the debate. There is no doubt that in many countries, adoption has been used to perpetrate gross and systematic injustices. In Spain in the 1940s (Richards, 2005) and Argentina in the 1970s (Lazzara, 2013), thousands of infants were removed from dissenting birth mothers and placed for adoption with loyalists as a means of punishing and quashing opposition to the regime. Adoption has also been used as a means of eradicating a culture or race that is perceived as alien: policies designed to eliminate Aboriginal culture in Australia through the forcible removal and adoption of the Stolen Generations have been widely publicised (Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, 1997). In Switzerland, over a similar period, several hundred Yenish children were removed for a similar reason (Meier, 2008), and during the Second World War, thousands of Polish children were also separated from birth parents and placed for adoption with Aryan families for this purpose (Nicholas, 2005).

Adoption has also been used as a means of enforcing conformity to a social norm. Until the end of the twentieth century, in many countries, illegitimate children and their mothers were deliberately stigmatised, both by the law and by social conventions that ostracised those who engaged in extra-marital sexual relations and thereby undermined the sanctity of holy matrimony, for marriage was seen as essential to the stability of the family and, by extension, to the wider society. It was difficult for a single mother to earn enough to keep her child, or to live on state benefits if they were available, and many of those who had insufficient support from their wider families voluntarily relinquished their babies for adoption. Adoption was seen as a means of both enabling young women to dissociate themselves from an unfortunate past, of providing homes for infants who might otherwise have been destitute and of providing childless couples with a family—a solution to the problems of both illegitimacy and infertility in which all parties were thought to have gained (Keating, 2009). Had these infants remained with their birth parents, many of them would have lived lives blighted by poverty and stigma and some would have died (Hopkirk, 1949; Pinchbeck & Hewitt, 1973). There is also evidence that many of these adoptees grew up in loving families and achieved ‘satisfactory wellbeing in adulthood’ (Collinshaw et al., 1998; Maughan & Pickles, 1990). However, although many infants were voluntarily relinquished, subsequent enquiries have shown that some young women were coerced into giving up their babies against their wishes. Some mothers were tricked into believing the baby had died, or signed adoption papers without understanding the implications, and information about financial support that might have been available was systematically withheld. Inquiries undertaken in Australia (Kenny et al., 2012) and Ireland (Milotte, 2012) showed these ‘forced adoptions’ to have been systematic and widespread.

One of the defining features of adoption has been the secrecy with which it was surrounded. Babies placed for adoption in much of the twentieth century were given a new birth certificate and a new identity and records giving details of their birth families were sealed. The aim was to provide a new start in life, both for the child and for the birth mother, and the expectation was that they would have no further contact (Keating, 2009). The traumatic consequences of such policies for both birth parents and children have become increasingly apparent (Kenny et al., 2012; Triseliotis, 1973), and adoption has since become more transparent. Nevertheless, this tradition of secrecy may have provided a useful cover for implementing many of the policies and practices, discussed above, that contravene human rights and disregard ethical norms.

These issues are not confined to the past. Very similar concerns about widespread coercion, disregard for human rights, exploitation of parents and children and lack of transparency were raised over intercountry adoption practices in the late twentieth century and led to the development of the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption in 1993. The Hague Convention is designed to ‘protect children and their families against the risks of illegal, irregular, premature or ill-prepared adoptions abroad’. It specifies minimum standards both for countries of origin and for receiving countries. These are intended to ‘ensure that intercountry adoptions take place in the best interest of the child and with respect for the child’s fundamental rights’, to protect birth families from undue pressure, to protect children from abduction, sale and trafficking, and to ensure that prospective adopters are eligible, suitable and adequately prepared. Although the child’s rights are paramount, the Convention also ‘respects and protects the rights of birth families and adoptive families’ (HCCH, 2017; Phillips, 2013). At the time of writing, 103 countries have ratified the convention or have acceded to it. Nevertheless, although many thousands of children have clearly benefitted from international adoption (Baxter et al., 2015; Rutter et al., 2007; Sonuga-Barke et al., 2017), concerns about unethical and illegal practices, as well as substantial risks of child exploitation, persist (Goodno, 2015; Phillips, 2013).

The blatant injustices of past practices, together with evidence concerning the long-term impact of the lies, coercion and secrecy which have surrounded the families involved, as well as ongoing concerns about unethical and illegal practices, have created a context which sometimes makes it difficult to consider whether adoption might be appropriate for some children, if practised differently and in other circumstances. However, the public discourse on adoption sometimes overlooks the issue of child maltreatment (Ward & Brown, 2016). Evidence from empirical research (e.g. Brown et al., 2016; Davies & Ward, 2012; Radford et al., 2011) and official enquiries (e.g. Brandon et al., 2020; Lock, 2013; US Department of Health and Human Services, 2019) shows that some parents reject their children and others abuse and neglect them, and that family support and social work interventions are not always sufficient to ensure the safety of children within their homes. Where children cannot safely remain or be reunited with birth family members, there is a strong case to be made for adoption providing:

a legitimate model for the alternative care of children, if undertaken within a rights and ethics framework that emphasises children’s best interests, as set out in international conventions and national laws. (Palacios et al., 2019, pp.1–2)

This book focuses on domestic adoption within such a rights and ethics framework. Its purpose is to introduce more empirical evidence into what has become a highly emotive debate. The evidence we present enables us to explore the value of open adoption, as practised in Australia, as a route to permanence for abused and neglected children in out-of-home care who cannot safely return to their birth families. It sheds light on the question of whether adoption provides a better chance of permanence and more positive outcomes than long-term foster care for children whose previous experiences have been marked by extensive adversity. It also helps us to explore whether open adoption, entailing continuing regular face-to-face contact with birth family members, mandated by the courts as part of a legally enforceable adoption plan agreed by all parties, can avoid some of the detrimental consequences of past policies in which adoption was shrouded in secrecy and children frequently grew up with a conflicted sense of identity.

Domestic Adoptions from Care

For much of the twentieth century, in many Western societies, domestic adoption was primarily seen as a means of providing homes for the infants of single mothers who voluntarily relinquished them. However, improved contraception, greater access to abortion, de-stigmatisation of illegitimacy and improved financial and social support for single mothers, together with greater understanding of the adverse consequences of closed adoption, have all combined to reduce the numbers of infants who followed this pathway (Parker, 1999).

Around the time that infant relinquishments began to decline, concerns started to be raised about the failure of out-of-home care to provide abused and neglected children with permanent substitute homes (Parker et al., 1991). It also became apparent that a wider range of children in out-of-home care could be offered family-based, rather than residential, placements (Triseliotis, 1980). Adoption began to be seen as an integral part of the child protection system, with the potential to provide permanence for those children in care who could not return to birth families (Palacios et al., 2019). While infant relinquishments in the twentieth century proceeded, at least in theory, with the full knowledge and consent of birth parents, a high proportion of adoptions from care are made without parental consent. The non-consensual nature of much adoption from care is another reason why this is such a controversial issue.

Nevertheless, at least 50 countries, including all member states of the Council of Europe, the USA and Australia, have provisions for permitting adoption without consent for children who would otherwise be looked after by the state until they reach adulthood. The grounds for dispensing with parental consent include ‘the child having formed a stable relationship with authorised carers’ (Ross & Cashmore, 2016) and ‘abandonment or lack of interest in the child; parental misconduct or deprivation of parental rights; and unjustifiable refusal of consent to adoption when this would be in the child’s best interests’ (Fenton-Glynn, 2015). While some states use a combination of these grounds for dispensing with parental consent, others will only do so on one of them; moreover, the thresholds for dispensing with consent, the weight given to parental views and involvement in decision-making, and the extent to which alternatives to adoption are preferred, differ between jurisdictions, with the result that a much higher proportion of children are adopted from care in some countries, particularly the UK and the USA, than in others.

It should be noted that adoption is only thought to be an appropriate option for children in out-of-home care for whom a decision has already been made to seek a permanent home away from birth parents or other members of their birth family. These are the children who cannot safely return home and who have no grandparents or other relatives who are able to look after them. They are likely to be few in number; in England, where policies to increase the numbers of adoptions from care have been pursued since the beginning of this century (Department of Health (UK), 2000), and courts exercise their power to dispense with parental consent to a greater extent than most other countries (Fenton-Glynn, 2015), they comprise 13% of all exits from care (Department for Education (UK), 2019). Children placed for adoption from care are also likely to have been seriously abused and/or neglected and their birth parents are unlikely to have been able to protect them from harm, or to change the circumstances which placed them at risk of further abuse within an appropriate timeframe; these are the most common reasons why they cannot go home (Brown et al., 2016; Selwyn, 2017; Ward et al., 2012). They are likely to be older than the infants who were previously relinquished for adoption and they are much more likely to be struggling with the consequences of early experiences of abuse and neglect. The change in the profile of children requiring adoption has significant implications for the recruitment, preparation and trainingand ongoing support of adoptive parents.

Characteristics and Vulnerabilities of Children Adopted from Care

The characteristics and needs of the population of children placed for adoption, their experiences while living with their birth parents and during the often lengthy period they spend in out-of-home care while decisions are made about their future, are likely to impact on the long-term outcomes of adoption.

Long-Term Consequencesof Abuse and Neglect

Research from England shows that, before entry to care, about 71% of adopted children have been abused and/or neglected, about 35% have been actively rejected or abandoned, and about 20% have been sexually abused (Selwyn, 2017); an unknown number of adopted children in the UK have experienced significant neglect in utero, and 25% have foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (Adoption UK, 2020). There is a wealth of evidence indicating that abuse and neglect in early childhood can have long-term adverse consequences across all dimensions of children’s development.

Early childhood development can be seen as a process of adapting to an environment in which, for a very young child, the important element is the primary caregiver (usually the birth mother). Abuse and neglect will affect the way in which the child attaches to their primary caregiver as they adapt to a hostile environment. This attachment relationship has an impact on the child’s neurobiological, intellectual, emotional and social development in the key areas that form the building blocks for subsequent growth. Abuse and neglect can thus have an adverse impact throughout the life cycle, although not all children are equally affected (see Brown & Ward, 2012; Cicchetti, 2013; McCrory et al., 2010, 2011, 2012).

Adverse Childhood Experiences

Research on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), which include all forms of abuse and neglect, and their consequences, has found a ‘strong dose relationship between the breadth of exposure to abuse or household dysfunction during childhood and multiple risk factors for several of the leading causes of death in adulthood’ (Felitti et al., 1998, p. 251). Studies have also shown specific relationships between adverse childhood experiences and illicit drug use (Dube et al., 2003); smoking in adolescence (Anda et al., 1999); suicide (Dube et al., 2001); and premature mortality (Brown et al., 2009). The initial study in this body of research (Felitti et al., 1998) explored the relationship between a range of health risk factors for disease conditions in adulthood and the following seven categories of adverse experiences in childhood:

  • physical abuse

  • sexual abuse

  • psychological (emotional) abuse

  • witnessing violence against their mother or stepmother

  • exposure to substance misuse

  • parental mental illness

  • criminal behaviour in the household

When compared with adults who had been exposed to none of these adverse childhood experiences, those who had been exposed to four or more had 4–12 fold increased health risks for alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, and suicide attempt; a 2–4 fold increase in smoking, poor self-rated health, 50 or more sexual partners and sexually transmitted disease; and a 1.4–1.6 fold increase in physical inactivity and severe obesity. (Felitti et al., 1998, p. 245)

The number of categories also showed a graded relationship to several of the leading causes of death in adulthood, such as coronary heart disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, skeletal fractures and liver disease (ibid.). Early ACE studies used a seven-point scale. Later studies include three additional variables—emotional neglect, physical neglect and parental separation—resulting in a ten-point ACEs scale, now commonly used by a wide variety of agencies (see Harvard Center on the Developing Child, 2015).

Children in foster care, or adopted from care, have disproportionately higherACE scores. In the USA, Turney and Wildeman (2017) found that these children are more likely than other disadvantaged children to have experienced ‘parental divorce or separation, parental death, parental incarceration, parental abuse, violence exposure, household member mental illness, and household member substanceabuse’.

Children who go on to be adopted are more likely to have been abused and neglected before they are separated from their birth parents than those who remain in care (Selwyn et al., 2014). Some will also have had poor experiences in out-of-home care (Selwyn et al., 2006). They are thus exceptionally vulnerable to adverse outcomes, including poor mental and physical health in adulthood. However, there is considerable evidence that adoption can act as a strong protective factor that strengthens the resilience of previously maltreated children and enables them to follow more normative developmental pathways (Rutter et al., 2007).

Parents’ Problems

Adverse childhood experiences that are associated with poor health and wellbeing throughout the life cycle include a number of problems which impair parents’ capacity to meet their children’s needs and increase the likelihood of maltreatment. Parental alcohol or drug misuse, learning disability, mental ill health and intimate partner violence have been identified as factors likely to increase the risk of maltreatment, particularly when they occur in combination (see Cleaver et al., 2011, for further details). Parents with learning disabilities are able to provide nurturing homes for their children, given appropriate long-term support; however, their capacity to parent can be significantly impaired if there are co-existing problems such as intimate partner violence or substance misuse (Cleaver & Nicholson, 2007). Parents who are struggling with these problems will not necessarily maltreat their children; however, if there are no protective factors, such as a non-abusive partner or a supportive extended family, then abuse and neglect are more likely.

Some abusive or neglectful parents are able to overcome adversities sufficiently to provide adequately nurturing homes within an appropriate timescale; however, others are not (Brown et al., 2016; Hansen, 2012; Ward et al., 2014; Ward, Brown, et al., 2019). In families where children are being harmed, where there are multiple problems that increase the likelihood of continuing abuse, no mitigating protective factors and no evidence of parental capacity to change, there is a strong possibility that children’s life chances will be seriously compromised unless they are placed away from home (Brown et al., 2016; Ward et al., 2012). The dilemma then facing the courts and child welfare professionals is at what point they need to seek permanence for a child outside the immediate birth family and how this can be achieved. The preferred option will be to place children with members of their extended family, but where this is not possible then long-term foster care or adoption are the alternatives.

Outcomes of Out-of-Home Care

There are long-standing and justifiable concerns about the outcomes of out-of-home care in many countries (see Fernandez et al., 2016; House of Commons Children Schools and Families Committee, 2009; Stein & Munro, 2008). Evidence of abuse and neglect of children in institutions and in foster care has been an endemic problem in most Western countries and the extent of past maltreatment has only relatively recently come to light (Fernandez et al., 2016; Utting, 1997). Nevertheless, research on the outcomes of care in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century in France (Dumaret & Coppel-Batsch, 1998), Norway (Moe & Slinning, 2001) and the UK (Forrester et al., 2009; Zhang & Selwyn, 2020) and some, though not all, studies from the USA (Horwitz et al., 2001; Taussig et al., 2001; but see also Lawrence et al., 2006, and Lloyd & Barth, 2011) show that placing children in care can have a positive impact on their welfare. Bromfield et al.’s (2005) review of 17 research studies on outcomes for children and young people in care in Australia found that although all the studies showed that their outcomes were less satisfactory than those of their peers:

several studies however noted that not all children in care fare badly and that, for the majority, foster care appears to be a positive experience with large proportions of the children displaying improved psychological adjustment while in care. (Bromfield et al., 2005, p.42)

However, there are continuing systemic problems. These include a lack of stability exemplified by frequent changes of placement and school; low aspirations associated with insufficient attention to education and the acquisition of skills; lack of therapeutic support to overcome the consequences of past adversities; and insufficient integration into a substitute family, leading to a lack of emotional security (Rahilly & Hendry, 2014).

Of particular concern is the lack of support given to care leavers as they make what are often ‘compressed and accelerated transitions’ from care to independence in early adulthood, frequently at a much younger age than their peers in the community (Cashmore & Paxman, 1996, 2007; Stein, 2004; Stein & Munro, 2008). A very high proportion of children and young people in out-of-home care have complex needs (Tarren-Sweeney & Hazell, 2006; Ward & Holmes, 2008). These are the young people who are the least equipped to cope with premature independence and the least likely to receive adequate support either to address their needs in care or to help them make a successful transition to adulthood on leaving (Munro et al., 2012). Their experiences are likely to underlie the poor developmental outcomes of care that show too many care leavers struggling with insufficient qualifications, unemployment, mental health problems and social exclusion: these remain a continuing cause of concern (Rahilly & Hendry, 2014; Stein & Munro, 2008).

Outcomes of Adoption from Care Versus Long-Term Foster Care

Stability

Research on children in out-of-home care in several Western societies shows that placement instability is a common issue (Rock et al., 2015). A study of the placements of 242 long-stay children in the English care system found that many children move placements frequently throughout their care careers:

More than half (52%) of the placements made in the first twelve months of the children’s care episodes lasted for six months or less, with a median of four months. In the second year, however, a similar pattern emerged, with 56% of new placements lasting for six months or less, and a median of three months. It was not until the third year after entry to care that there was some evidence of increased permanence, but even then 42% of placements made during this period lasted for six months or less, and the median had only increased to seven months. (Ward, 2009, p. 1115)

Some Australian studies have found that most children in care find stable and secure placements within 12 months of entry (Barber & Delfabbro, 2003; Tarren-Sweeney & Hazell, 2006), while others experience ongoing and severe placement disruptions. Osborn and Delfabbro’s (2006) study of children with high support needs in the Australian care system (about 15–20% of the care population) found that, on average, they had experienced 10.53 placements (sd = 7.80) during their time in care and 4.95 disruptions, and that there was a strong relationship between early trauma and abuse and subsequent placement instability.

As we have seen, children adopted from care are the group most likely to have experienced early trauma and abuse, and their care experiences are likely to have been comparable to those in the Osborn and Delfabbro (2006) study discussed above. There are no Australian studies of long-term disruption rates or premature homelessness post-adoption. However, Selwyn et al.’s (2014) seminal study of adoption disruptions in England found that, over a 12-year period, administrative data indicated that 3.2% placements disrupted (i.e. a legally adopted child left the home before their 18th birthday). Responses to a survey produced a higher figure, although this could have been biased towards completion by those who had had less positive experiences; in the authors’ view: ‘it is probably safe to conclude that the proportions of adoptions that disrupt post-order lies between 2% – 9%’ (ibid., p. 275). This is markedly lower than the rate of foster home breakdowns found by Osborn and Delfabbro (2006) in Australia and also by Ward (2009) who found that in England and Wales, 21% of foster placements end at the request of the carer and a further 8% at the request of the child. However, it should be noted that age at placement is closely related to disruption and this may account for some of the difference, as adopted children tend to be placed in ‘permanent’ homes at a younger age than those in foster care (Biehal et al., 2010). Moreover, self-reports from adoptees suggest that disruption statistics mask an underlying unhappiness for some children in placements that do persist (Thoburn, 2002), and about one in four adoptive parents describe major challenges and inadequate support in caring for a child with multiple and overlapping difficulties (Selwyn et al., 2014).

‘Belonging’ and the Transition to Adulthood

Some children in care are placed with long-term foster carers who are highly responsive to their needs and regard them as permanent members of their families; however, such placements are relatively rare, at least in the UK and Australia (Cashmore & Paxman, 1996, 2006; Skuse & Ward, 2003). For instance, Cashmore and Paxman’s (2007) longitudinal study of Australian care leavers found that four to five years after formally leaving care at age 18, less than a third (29%) of their sample had regular and frequent contact with former foster carers, and only three were still living with them. Less than one in three (29%) had a positive sense of ‘felt security’, a ‘sense of being loved and belonging and having their needs met while they were in care’ (Cashmore & Paxman, 2006, p. 235).

Adoption from care has been found to provide greater stability, better integration into a substitute family and therefore greater ‘felt security’ than long-term foster care (Biehal et al., 2010; Thomas, 2013). In the UK, Triseliotis (2002) found that adoption gave children higher levels of emotional security, sense of belonging and wellbeing than those growing up in long-term foster care. A more recent research study of Australian adoptees found that:

…while it is clear that early adoption engenders a deep sense of belonging and acceptance, which contributes profoundly to healthy identity formation, it is not clear that long-term fostering reliably engenders these same feelings. (de Rosnay et al., 2015, p.2)

Adoption involves the ‘permanent transfer of parental legal rights and responsibilities from the child’s birth parent(s) to adoptive parent(s)’, and most adoptive parents regard their children as not only legally but also psychologically theirs. This changed relationship means that most adoptive parents, like most birth parents, assume that they will continue to support their child until they are fully independent and, indeed, throughout their lives. There is little research on this issue. However, Selwyn et al. (2014) found that even when the placement had disrupted, the majority of adoptive parents continued to have a relationship with their child, and only 6 (17%) of 35 were estranged. It is this life-long commitment that distinguishes adoption from foster care, for in these circumstances, children are more likely to feel an enhanced sense of belonging.

Developmental Outcomes

It is difficult to compare the adult outcomes of children who have grown up in long-term foster care with those who have been adopted from care, because there are different thresholds for decisions concerning adoption, because adoptees are likely to have had different early life experiences from those who remain in care, and because much of the research focuses on adults who were placed as intercountry adoptees after spending time in institutional care as infants and toddlers. Nevertheless, there are indications from research undertaken in the USA and Sweden that children adopted from care do better academically than those who remain in foster homes (Barth & Lloyd, 2010; Vinnerljung & Hjern, 2011) and that they are also better able to support themselves as young adults (Vinnerljung & Hjern, 2011).

There is, however, evidence that children adopted from care show similar levels of emotional and behavioural difficulties to those experienced by children in foster care (Biehal et al., 2010). Although adopted children appear to access more support than other children (Keyes et al., 2008), there is, nevertheless, evidence that significant difficulties, including child to parent violence, may emerge during adolescence (Selwyn et al., 2014). Research on adoption disruptions in the UK (Selwyn et al., 2014) found that many families struggle when the adoptee reaches adolescence or at key transitions (e.g. changing school), indicating a need for long-term post-adoption support.

Transparency

While, on a number of criteria, children placed for adoption tend to experience better outcomes than those who remain in foster care, over the last 30 years or so it has become increasingly apparent that the secrecy that traditionally accompanied adoption was detrimental to children’s welfare. Even where there has been little evidence of ‘forced’ adoptions and systematic malpractice, birth parents have to contend with enduring feelings of grief and loss (Ryburn, 1998); it is also now evident that adopted children have a deep psychological need to feel some connection with their birth families and to understand why they cannot live with them and that policies designed to withhold this information, or to hide unpalatable truths, have been extremely damaging to their construction of a robust sense of self (Triseliotis, 1973). More recent research indicates that although structural openness (mutual sharing of identifying information, plus some degree of contact between the parties) is important, communication openness (open, direct and non-defensive communication about adoption between adoptive parents and children) may be of greater significance to healthy development (Brodzinsky, 2006; de Rosnay et al., 2015). Greater understanding of the information and communication needs of adopted children has led to changes in policy so that adoption is becoming more open in many jurisdictions, including the USA, the UK and Australia.

While adoptees may find it easier to access information about their birth families and legislation may allow for some form of contact, regular face-to-face post-adoption contact between adoptees and birth family members is still relatively rare and remains a contentious issue. While many adoptees may benefit from continuing face-to-face contact, there are concerns that it may re-traumatise children who were previously maltreated, that it will destabilise the placement, or that it will discourage potential adoptive parents from coming forward (Dodgson, 2014; Ryburn, 1998). Research on post-adoption contact in England (Neil et al., 2015), Northern Ireland (MacDonald & McLoughlin, 2016), the USA (Grotevant et al., 2019) and Australia (de Rosnay et al., 2015) suggests that many of these fears are unfounded and that face-to-face contact can benefit all parties. De Rosnay et al.’s (2015) small study of mandatory face-to-face contact in Australia concluded that post-adoption contact is critical for identity formation; that adoptive parents play a key role in promoting and facilitating it; and that post-adoption contact stimulates communicative openness. However, it should not threaten children’s sense of safety and security within their adoptive family. On the other hand, Neil et al. (2015) found that direct contact can also be disappointing and that it is not necessarily more advantageous than indirect ‘letterbox’ contact. However, they also found that indirect ‘letterbox’ contact can be marred by misunderstandings and poor communication, especially where adults have inadequate literacy skills. They concluded that all types of contact should be considered on a case-by-case basis and that support should be available to make sure that it is a positive experience for adopted children (Neil et al., 2015). In England and Wales, adoption legislation introduced in 2014 now specifically makes provision for relatives to apply to the courts for post-adoption contact. However, at the time of writing, only 33% of adoptees have at least one direct contact agreement in place (Adoption, 2020), and indirect letterbox contact more frequently remains the option preferred by both practitioners and the courts.

Adoption in Australia

In Australia, domestic adoption has been a particularly contentious issue for about 40 years. A number of blatantly unjust past policies have had an enduring impact on the nature of the debate: these include the reception of approximately 7000 British and Maltese ‘orphans’ sent as child migrants to Australia between 1912 and 1968, many of them under the pretext of adoption; the forced removal of at least 1 in 10 (and possibly as many as 1 in 3) indigenous children from their birth families and communities between 1910 and 1970; and the ‘forced adoptions’ of up to 250,000 babies relinquished by single mothers who were often coerced or deceived into doing so between 1950 and 1980. A series of parliamentary inquiries were conducted into these policies in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries (Australian Senate Community Affairs Reference Committee, 1999; Australian Senate Community Affairs Reference Committee, 2012; Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission, 1997) and resulted in formal national apologies in 2008, 2009 and 2013.

The backlash against these injustices has had two enduring consequences. First, the well-publicised evidence of past wrongs, including the maltreatment of thousands of children, has had a major impact on public perceptions of adoption in Australia, leading to a strong bias against domestic adoptions. Second, the backlash produced a strong adoption reform movement, in which many of those who suffered previous injustices have been heavily involved. Reformers agitated successfully for increased openness in adoption policy and practice. Between 1984 and 1994, changes to adoption legislation:

removed provisions for secret and sealed adoptions, put in place avenues for adoptees and birth parents to access previously sealed birth and adoption records, and with some variation, moved to make future adoptions more “open” in terms of both information and contact. (Cuthbert et al., 2010, p. 431)

More recent changes have meant that parts of Australia (New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory) are now unique in requiring regular face-to-face post-adoption contact between children and birth parents, mandated by legislation. However, little is known about the consequences of this policy.

Between 1994 and 2004, the number of domestic adoptions in Australia declined by 79% (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018). Cuthbert et al. (2010) argue that this was only partly due to negative perceptions of domestic adoption held by both the general public and child welfare professionals. In their view, another factor was adoptive parents’ reluctance to embrace open adoption, which entails a continuing relationship between the child and birth family members. Intercountry adoption, which was far more likely to entail a clean break with the past, therefore became the preferred option for those seeking to become adoptive parents; in 2004–2005, 74% of all adoptions in Australia concerned children from other countries (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2005).

However, more recently there has been a drive to increase openness in intercountry adoption, accompanied by significant changes in the profile of children for whom it is considered appropriate and reductions in the numbers available (Cuthbert et al., 2010; Selman, 2009); at the same time, arguments in favour of domestic adoption as one element in a spectrum of child protection services have gained greater traction (Cuthbert et al., 2010; Palacios et al., 2019). In Australia, while domestic adoption remains controversial, there appears to be more acknowledgement of its potential to provide greater stability and permanence for abused and neglected children in out-of-home care who cannot safely return to birth parents, and whose other relatives are not in a position to look after them as kinship carers. In New South Wales, the Child Protection Amendment Act 2014 prioritises adoption over long-term foster care for children who have been placed under the parental responsibility of the Minister, specifying:

For children who cannot be returned home safely to their parent/s, the first option to be considered is a long-term guardianship arrangement with other family members or suitable persons in kinship or relative care. The next option to be considered is adoption by non-relatives and other carers, with parental responsibility to the Minister until a child turns 18 (generally meaning foster care with unknown persons) as the ‘last resort’. (Ross & Cashmore, 2016, p. 54, our emphasis)

The Act also introduced provisions designed to speed up the adoption process and to facilitate adoptions by long-term carers (Ross & Cashmore, 2016). As a result, greater use has been made of adoption as a means of offering permanence for Australian children in out-of-home care, particularly in New South Wales. In 2018–2019, 310 children were adopted in Australia, 253 of whom were domestic adoptions. The largest group of domestic adoptions (211) were ‘known’ adoptions of children by a relative, step-parent or carer. The majority (67%) of ‘known’ adoptions were of children in out-of-home care who were adopted by their foster carers; almost all of them were from New South Wales (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2019, p.29).

Barnardos Find-a-Family Programme

One of the most vigorous proponents of domestic adoption for children in out-of-home care in Australia has been the child protection charity, Barnardos Australia. Between 1986 and 2020, it has arranged adoptions through its Find-a-Family programme for 440 children in out-of-home care who could not return home, about a quarter of all domestic ‘known child’ adoptions conducted in New South Wales over the period. In line with Australian policy and specific legislation in New South Wales, all adoptions in the Barnardos programme have been ‘open adoptions’, with an expectation of face-to-face contact between birth parents and children. The programme has had an influential role in the debate on domestic adoption in Australia over the last 35 years (Australian House of Representatives, 2018). Full information concerning the programme and how it developed can be found in Ward, Moggach, et al., 2019, Chap. 2.

Key Features of the Find-a-Family Programme

Find-a-Family has specialised in the placement of very young and older age children who have been described as ‘hard to place’ due to their age, challenging behaviours and the size of their sibling group. All children referred have experienced significant abuse and neglect (or have been deemed at high risk of significant harm due to parental factors or in utero damage) and have been made the subjects of final orders from the Children’s Court, placing them in out-of-home care until the age of 18 years. Many have experienced multiple placements in out-of-home care and have challenging behavioural and/or emotional disturbances. While the programme has not specialised in finding placements for children with disabilities, many of those who enter it have had significant health conditions.

Over the 30 odd years that the programme has been in operation there have, inevitably, been a number of changes. The first 16 children were placed in traditional foster homes at a very young age before Barnardos became an adoption agency in 1985. They were later adopted by their foster carers. Their profile is somewhat different from that of the children who were placed from September 1985 as part of an adoption programme that focused, at least initially, on older ‘hard to place’ children. In 1991, the programme was expanded in order to provide legal, residential and psychological permanence (Brodzinsky & Livingston Smith, 2019) for a wider age range (children aged from 2 to 12 years), and in 2007, it was extended further to include infants as well. With the increasing focus on younger children from 1991 onwards, the project gradually withdrew its emphasis on primary-school-aged children with emotional or behavioural difficulties.

Open adoption is supported both by New South Wales legislation and by Barnardos’ adoption policy, which has included transparency and regular post-adoption contact as core principles since its inception. The expectation is that all children placed for adoption will have regular ongoing face-to-face contact with their birth family members after an adoption order is made, with the frequency ranging from 2 to 12 times per year to include all family members. The purpose of contact is to support the child’s overall development, by providing an opportunity for maintaining relationships between the parties involved and by facilitating children’s knowledge of their birth family in order to strengthen their sense of identity. The adoptive family receive training and support to assist them in facilitating this contact.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children

Barnardos does not accept or promote the referral of indigenous children for adoption. The history of Aboriginal children being removed from family, country and culture in Australia has far-reaching consequences for indigenous families and communities today, and the historical legacy and impact of child welfare is such that the lessons learned about culture, identity and belonging are now enshrined in legislation via the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle. The Aboriginal community does not consider adoption as an appropriate plan for their children, and Barnardos’ practice and underpinning philosophy has been to refer these children to indigenous foster care agencies so that their cultural identity can be preserved. However, on very rare occasions a child has been identified, after placement, as Aboriginal.

Post-adoption Support

Post-adoption financial support has varied to reflect changes in State Government policy with regard to a post-adoption allowance. Throughout the years that Find-a-Family has been in operation, New South Wales has made some provision for adoptive parents to apply for a post-adoption allowance. The basis for eligibility was substantially increased in 2008, with the result that almost all children with NSW Children’s Court orders who have been adopted since then have been eligible for a post-adoption allowance; the financial support available currently stands at a one-off transitional payment of A$3000 plus an annual payment of A$1500 until the child reaches 18 years. Barnardos has not been able to offer separate financial support to adoptive families, but has always offered emotional support, advocacy and referral assistance.

Open Adoption from Care Research Project

With the aim of introducing empirical evidence into the highly emotive debate on adoption, in 2014–2016, Barnardos attempted to trace all 210 children who had entered the Find-a-Family programme and had been made the subject of an adoption order by the Supreme Court between 1 July 1987 and 30 June 2013. These children and their adoptive parents formed the focus of a formal research programme; it was not possible to trace and follow up birth parents within the budget and timeframe. The research project had three objectives: to assess the long-term outcomes of adoption from care and explore what contributed to positive and negative life trajectories; to discover how open adoption had been experienced by both adoptive parents and adoptees; and to find out what the adoptees thought of their experiences. Full information concerning the design of the study and the methodology, the composition of the subsamples, ethical considerations and consents given and the analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data are given in Appendix 1. The following paragraphs are intended to provide the reader with sufficient information to understand how the study was conducted, and the nature of the data we were able to collect concerning the adoptees, their adoptive parents and their birth parents; these data form the basis for our exploration of the relationship between the needs, experiences and outcomes of the Barnardos adoptees discussed in the subsequent chapters.

Methodology

The study was undertaken in three stages:

  • Baseline data on full cohort: administrative data concerning all 210 adoptees, their birth parents and their adoptive parents were collected from case files and other records presented to the courts at the time the adoption order was made; these baseline data covered demographics, children’s early life experiences and their pathways through care.

  • Follow-up survey: in 2016, attempts were made to trace all of these adoptees and their adoptive parents to invite them to complete an online survey. The survey was sent to 168 adoptees and 107 adoptive parents; 5 adoptees had died, 8 were too young (aged under eight) and 29 could not be traced. Core questions covered issues such as contact, life story work and views on adoption; age-specific questions covered educational progress, employment, relationships and accommodation.

    Participants were also asked to complete standardised measures including the Australian Child Wellbeing Project survey instruments (2014), the World Health Organisation Abbreviated Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF) (1996) (adoptees) and the Child Behaviour Checklist (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) (adoptive parents); however, completion rates for these measures were poor, and there was much missing data. Few data items could be included in the quantitative analysis.

    The survey produced responses concerning 93 adoptees: 47 from adoptees and their adoptive parents, 39 from adoptive parents alone and 7 from adoptees alone. These 93 adoptees form the core follow-up sample. It included 46 young women and 47 young men; 33 were aged under 18 at the time the survey was completed and 60 were aged 18 and over. In the course of attempting to recruit non-participants, minimal data were also collected on a further 31 adoptees, with the result that some follow-up information is available on 124 of the original cohort of 210 adoptees.

  • Interviews with adoptees and adoptive parents: 20 adult adoptees and 21 adoptive parents were interviewed up to a year after they had completed the survey. The interviews included 17 dyads (adoptees and their adoptive parents), and three adoptees and four adoptive parents who were not related to each other. All dyads were interviewed separately. Altogether, interviews focused on 24 adoptees, 13 young men and 11 young women, all aged 18 or over: these form the interview sample. Interviews were semi-structured and covered issues such as expectations of adoption; relationships within the adoptive family; experiences of face-to-face contact; relationships with birth family members; transparency and communicative openness within the adoptive family and transitions to adulthood.

Potential Bias of Core Follow-Up Sample

The 93 adoptees in the core follow-up sample were compared on a number of key variables with the 117 adoptees for whom there were no follow-up data, in order to ascertain whether there was any significant sample bias. The two groups showed very similar profiles in terms of age, gender, type of abuse and number of adverse childhood experiences before entry to care, and number of placements in out-of-home care before entering their adoptive homes. The only statistically significant difference we found was that the adoptees in the core follow-up sample were, on average, 9.7 months older at the time maltreatment was first notifiedFootnote 1 than the adoptees who did not participate in the follow-up survey or interviews. Length of exposure to abuse and neglect has been identified as having a significant impact on outcomes for children placed away from home (Rousseau et al., 2015). Detailed findings from this analysis of potential bias are presented in Appendix 2.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Research

This study was commissioned by Barnardos and much of the fieldwork was undertaken by Barnardos personnel or by students placed with them whilst completing their courses. Locating the research within the agency brought the advantage of access to data on the pre-adoption experience, introductions to adoptees and their families and involvement of trusted caseworkers to encourage participation. The close involvement of Barnardos staff is likely to be one reason why the response rate for the core follow-up sample is relatively high by the standards of adoption research, which has frequently encountered difficulties in engaging adoptive families, who may be striving to put the past behind them (Ward et al., 2012). For instance, the response rate from adoptive parents in the current study was 67% compared with 34% for a similar survey undertaken in the UK (Selwyn et al., 2014).

However, involvement of Barnardos staff also raised concerns about a potential conflict of interest and the difficulties the agency would encounter in attempting to avoid subjective interpretations of data. In order to increase objectivity, an academic researcher with no connection to Barnardos was appointed, first to advise the team, and later to lead the project, with support from an expert in the field and guidance from a local independent research advisory group. In addition, survey questionnaires were designed to be completed over time and online, without any face-to-face contact with the agency; these data were anonymised and retrieved directly by the university. All data management and quantitative and qualitative analysis were also undertaken externally, without significant involvement from Barnardos.

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical framework we developed to explore the hypothesis that open adoption would offer abused and neglected children in care a better chance of positive outcomes is drawn from a wide body of research on children’s developmental trajectories and the factors which facilitate or impede optimal progress. It is based on a simple model of resilience that focuses on ‘healthy versus maladaptive pathways of development in lives through time’ (Masten, 2001) and identifies the risk factors that increase the likelihood of maladaptive development and the protective factors (or assets) that strengthen children’s adaptive systems and shield them from the potential consequences of early adversity as they grow towards adulthood. The basic model is specifically informed by Masten’s (2001, 2014) work on resilience, by Rutter et al.’s (2007, 2009) and Sonuga-Barke et al.’s (2017) studies of recovery-to-normal trajectories of development in children who face extensive early adversity and by Felitti et al.’s (1998), Anda et al.’s (1999) and Brown et al.’s (2009) work on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and their consequences. Most of the children had spent many years in out-of-home care before being placed for adoption, and the model also encompasses evidence from the Australian and international literature on the extent to which care promotes or inhibits children’s healthy developmental pathways.

This basic theoretical framework was extended to reflect research on issues that are specific to the circumstances of children who are adopted from out-of-home care. One of these is the relationship between the child and the adoptive parents. The presence of competent and caring adults features strongly as a positive factor in the literature on resilience, and the growing relationship with the adoptive parents may act as a turning point in the developmental trajectories of many adoptive children. However, open adoption requires children (and adoptive parents) to maintain a relationship with birth parents and other relations as well as developing new relationships within the adoptive family. The literature on attachment has informed the authors’ understanding of children’s relationships with both birth parents and adoptive parents and the study identifies a need for more research on how adoptive parents become closely attached to their children.

Finally, because of the evidence discussed earlier in this chapter concerning the adverse impact of secrecy on children’s wellbeing, and particularly their sense of self, the theoretical framework is also informed by the literature on identity formation. Some elements are drawn from the findings of studies of adopted children, such as Brodzinsky’s (2006) work on structural and communicative openness and de Rosnay et al.’s (2015) study of identity formation in Australian adoptees. However, the theoretical framework also draws on research on identity formation in the wider population, such as Chandler et al.’s (2003) and Lalonde’s (2006) studies on the significance of a sense of belonging and connectedness to the past in enabling young people to make the transition from adolescence to adulthood.

Conclusion

The remainder of this book makes use of this theoretical framework to explore the antecedents, experiences and life trajectories of the Barnardos adoptees. The data we collected also shed some light on the characteristics and experiences of the children’s adoptive parents and birth parents and enabled us to identify factors which contributed to adoptees’ positive and negative life trajectories within the context of their position at entry to their adoptive homes. The chapters in Part I focus on the characteristics and experiences of the adoptees, their birth parents and their adoptive parents at the time the children entered their adoptive homes; the chapters in Part II focus on the outcomes of the open adoption programme. The findings bring into sharp focus the extensive vulnerability of abused and neglected children in out-of-home care who cannot safely return to their birth families and for whom adoption offers a route to permanence. Within this context they help us to better understand the advantages and disadvantages of mandatory face-to-face post-adoption contact with birth family members, practised uniquely in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory and an evolving element of adoption policy in many other countries. Finally, the findings have numerous implications for the development of adoption policy and practice and for the recruitment and preparation of adoptive parents and the provision of post-adoption support for adoptees and their families.

Key Points

  • The permanent transfer of parental rights and responsibilities for a child from birth parents to adoptive parents is a contentious issue, and public perceptions of adoption have been coloured by the discovery of systematic injustices in the past. The purpose of this book is to introduce more empirical evidence on adoption from care into an emotive debate.

  • The book argues that there is a place for domestic adoption, practised within an appropriate rights and ethics framework, as an integral part of a child protection system, offering the possibility of permanence to abused and neglected children in out-of-home care who cannot safely return home.

  • Children adopted from care are typically older than children adopted through other routes. They are also likely to have suffered significant levels of abuse and neglect and other adverse childhood experiences while living with birth parents and may well have experienced further adversities while in care. The changed profile of the population of adoptees has implications for the recruitment of adoptive parents.

  • There is some evidence to indicate that adoption can offer greater stability and a greater sense of commitment and belonging than long-term foster care.

  • Adoption also offers better support through the transition from adolescence to adulthood than long-term foster care; as a result, adoptees may be at less risk than care leavers of negative adult outcomes such as unemployment and homelessness.

  • Openness in adoption, through communication and contact, can assist with healthy emotional development of children.

  • Adoption in Australia has been contentious because of its past history concerning child migrants, forced removal of Aboriginal children and ‘forced adoptions’ of infants whose mothers were coerced into relinquishing them.

  • As a result, there has been a reluctance to place children for adoption, but on the other hand, there has been a strong movement for adoption reform, leading to more openness in adoption policy and practice.

  • Since 1985, Barnardos Australia has been finding adoptive homes for children in out-of-home care who cannot return to their birth families. The initial focus was on primary-school-aged children who were considered ‘hard to place’; the programme later expanded to include vulnerable younger children. It is not considered appropriate for Aboriginal children, who are referred on to indigenous foster care agencies. All adoption placements have included face-to-face contact between the child and their birth family.

  • In 2014–2016, Barnardos attempted to trace all 210 children who had entered the Find-a-Family programme and had been made the subject of an adoption order between 1 July 1987 and 30 June 2013. These children and their adoptive parents formed the focus of a research project.

  • The study was undertaken in three stages: an analysis of file data and records presented to the courts of all 210 adoptees, their birth parents and adoptive parents at the time of the adoption order; an online survey sent to those adoptees (168) and adoptive parents (107) who could be traced; interviews with 20 adult adoptees and 21 adoptive parents.

  • The following chapters explore the antecedents, experiences and trajectories of the Barnardos adoptees and examine the implications for the development of adoption policy and practice, especially with regard to ongoing face-to-face contact post-adoption.