Adoption reform

Adoption legislation must be updated to provide more children with a family. Meanwhile, alternatives are being considered to reduce the number of children in care. Meadhbh Monahan reports.

An Adoption (and Children) Bill is expected to be brought to the Assembly in 2013 aiming to speed up the process of placing children in care with a permanent family. It currently takes approximately three years and six months for a child to be adopted from care in Northern Ireland, while in England children wait an average of two years and seven months.

The Adoption (Northern Ireland) Order was passed in 1987 and is to be updated to recognise that it is no longer illegitimate babies, but often children from difficult or neglected backgrounds who need a home. An attempt to update the legislation failed in the last Assembly term.

agendaNi asked the DHSSPS why the new Bill will not be introduced for another year and it cited the primary legislation process which includes instructing counsel, ministerial clearance and public consultation.

Under direct rule, the 2006 ‘Adopting the Future’ draft strategy made 21 recommendations to improve adoption, including that unmarried and same sex couples be allowed to adopt. Of the 1,066 consultation responses, 1,025 (96 per cent) opposed same sex or unmarried couples adopting. Former Health Minister Michael McGimpsey took a previous Adoption and Children Bill (which didn’t contain that proposal) off the legislative table in October 2010. When asked why that Bill was delayed, considering the last Assembly’s four-year term, the department reiterated that the Bill hadn’t made it through clearance in time.

Unnecessary delays in care planning and court proceedings, a lack of adoptive families and poor post-adoption support have been identified as problems.

Potential adopters are made aware from the outset that there are very few new born babies available for adoption. Only two babies under one were adopted from April 2010 to April 2011. The average age of the children waiting to be placed is four years and eight months. They have generally been in and out of care and have suffered neglect or trauma.

When challenged on the low average adoption rate (2 per cent) a DHSSPS spokeswoman said that adoption is not the only option for children in care. She added that the department is currently considering special guardianship which is used in England and Wales; this gives legal parental responsibility to a guardian until a child is 18 but does not totally remove parental responsibility from the birth parent.

Barriers

Belfast’s Family Care Society Chief Officer Rosemary Hurl says more adopters are needed and that legislation must be “child centred”.

“The current process of freeing children for adoption can be a long and protracted one,” Hurl tells agendaNi. An average wait of 3½ years from entering care to being freed for adoption “is a huge amount of time for a young child” who needs stability.

Placement orders should be included in the Bill, Hurl proposes. This involves the court authorising a trust to place the child for adoption with prospective adopters (with or without consent from the birth parent). They replaced freeing orders in England and Wales in 2002.

Adoption practices across the five trusts must be standardised and adoption agencies need balanced information on the child. In addition, the trusts should have to adhere to a statutory timeframe, she suggested.

Stephen McVey, the Northern Ireland Development Manager of Adoption UK, adds: “While adoption is the last link in a child’s care plan and every effort must be made to try to return them to their birth parent, once a decision has been taken that adoption is in their best interest, then that should be done as quickly as possible.”

Post-adoption support is essential because adoptive children are likely to have behavioural problems stemming from their instable childhood. “A dedicated adoption budget would help because post-adoption services are practically non-existent or are piecemeal and dependant on where you live,” McVey contends.

Same sex and unmarried adoption has been allowed in the rest of the UK since the 2007 Equality Act but the average adoption rates have remained around 13 per cent for England, 3 per cent for Scotland and 4 per cent for Wales. The adoption rate in the Republic is lower, at around 1 per cent, with most families adopting from abroad.

It is unclear whether the new Bill will provide for unmarried and same sex adoption. However, it is unlikely that the DUP would support it (given its opposition in its 2007 Assembly manifesto).

The department will be bound by the outcome of a judicial review brought to the High Court by the Human Rights Commission, which is backed by a lesbian woman who wants her partner to be allowed to adopt her biological son.

DUP Health Spokesman Jim Wells said that it is difficult enough for married couples to adopt without “throwing the net wider” to include unmarried and same sex couples. He said many couples are put off by the “bureaucracy” and cited examples from his church of couples who have adopted Russian and Ecuadorian children.

However, Hurl and McVey point out that inter-country adoption incurs a cost and adopters must adhere to local legislation as well as that country’s relevant law.

Sinn Féin, the SDLP and Alliance support same sex and unmarried adoption. The SDLP wants an Adoption Bill to provide more support for post-adoption contact and look at the financial entitlements for adoptive and birth parents.

The UUP’s Health Spokesman, John McCallister, said the needs of the child must be paramount but regretted that reform will be delayed until the ongoing judicial challenge is resolved.

Placing children is “an onerous task for an adoption agency because it’s a choice for life,” but it does produce positive results, Rosemary Hurl reflects. Stephen McVey agrees: “When you speak to an adoptive family, they will tell you it has enriched their lives.”

Source: DHSSPS Community Information Branch