The children were there for numerous complicated reasons including poverty, distress and desertion. In 1722 Thomas Coram, a successful shipwright walking into London for business, was distressed to see dead and dying children along the way. Many children will spend their childhoods in residential homes. UK fostering agencies are desperate for people willing to look after teenagers and sibling groups. A “hard to place” child is: over the age of three, differently abled, with special needs, a sibling or from a black and minority-ethnic background. But things aren’t always simple for children. But what, then, of the children with no relations who can safely care for them? Link Maker is an online service matching potential parents with those released for adoption. Where there is an extended family able to provide stability for a child, this has to be a good thing. In the last two years the number of SGOs has risen, overtaking the number of children leaving care through adoption. The rise in adoptions to 2015, and the subsequent fall thereafter, can perhaps be attributed to these various changes and rulings. These give approved carers a greater share of parental responsibility (but not complete transfer, as with adoption) and can be delegated to family members other than parents. Social workers, while eager to place children at risk, felt constrained and cautious.Īt this time, special guardianship orders (SGOs) also came into play. Also that year, a survey of case law concluded that “the severance of family ties inherent in an adoption without parental consent is an extremely draconian step and one that requires the highest level of evidence”. In one case from 2013 the judges declared that adoption was only appropriate “ where nothing else will do”. As Gove put it at the time: “We can’t afford to ration love.”īut then came some important legal rulings. The plan was to make faster decisions on release for adoption, to speed up court procedure, to find more prospective adoptive parents, and to relax strictures on matching and the search for “perfect” homes. The latter two had a personal investment: Timpson, the son of John (of the shoe repair chain), grew up with children fostered by his parents Gove and his sister were adopted as babies. In 2011, a significant adoption reform programme followed on from a report by Martin Narey, a government adviser on children’s social care, initiated by Tim Loughton, then parliamentary undersecretary for children and families, and Edward Timpson, who took over that post in 2012 – and supported by Michael Gove, then education secretary. In 2005, a review of the adoption system introduced amendments, including support for adopters and – reflecting changing attitudes – broadening the field of prospective adopters to include single parents and the LGBTQ+ community.
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