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Response of the Baptist Union of Scotland to:
“Adoption Policy Review Group Phase Two Report and Recommendations
The following response is submitted by the Baptist Union of Scotland on behalf of its 176 member churches throughout Scotland.
(a) GENERAL OVERVIEW
The review report and the Executive's positive response to it are generally welcomed for its wide ranging review of all services that aim to achieve family placement for all children separated from their parents. The review's attention to detail is impressive and means that hindrances identified in the current system for substitute family placements should be removed.
(b) Response to individual recommendations
1. We agree with the Executive and the Review group that adoption should remain as a legal option.
2.We welcome the recognition of a need to allow for contact between the child and the birth family and anticipate a further growth in open adoptions as this becomes more acceptable to birth parents, adopted persons and agency staff. We note that adopted children, particularly those adopted 'young', say under 8 years old, have issues about knowing and understanding their birth families that contact can help to resolve.
3 and 4.The need for amendment of the grounds for dispensing with parental consent to adoption are welcomed.
5.We agree with this proposal.
6.We reject the recommendation that joint adoption should be extended to all unmarried couples, same and opposite sex. The faith based arguments against homosexual and lesbian couples adopting are rehearsed in the Christian Institute booklet, “Adoption Law, sidelining stability and security”. We wish to raise here other practice based concerns.
Firstly we hold that this new proposal will not in fact achieve the stated aim of increasing the pool of couples available to adopt children who would otherwise remain in residential care or temporary foster care.
There are sufficient families available for children under five for whom adoption is generally the best plan and who can legally be adopted. The need for further adopted families is for 'older children' and for those who are traditionally known as 'hard to place', that is, children with disabilities and special needs. It is generally agreed that a child being brought up by a gay couple needs assistance to understand why his or her family is different. Whether this is regarded as dealing with prejudice or not, it is still the case that this is a difficulty for the child to deal with.
Secondly, it is generally accepted that a child brought up by a gay couple, or indeed by a single parent, needs a positive role model of the 'missing' gender. Thus placement with a gay couple creates extra difficulties for the child.
Thirdly it is very unlikely that a child awaiting a family would choose to be placed with a gay couple.
Fourthly birth parents are likely to be opposed to such a placement. Losing the long term care of a child is a very painful experience but many birth parents are able to acknowledge at some level that they have failed their child or that the child's new parents have a lot to offer. They are unlikely to be able to come to terms with their child being placed with a gay couple. It is therefore suggested to us that, in fact, the extension of the law to allow gay couples to adopt would not assist in finding families for children who linger in care awaiting permanence. We recommend therefore that this controversial proposal be dropped as it will not assist in finding permanent families for children in care.
We do not oppose the proposal to allow unmarried heterosexual couples to adopt. This usually arises when the child is already living with the family, usually as a foster child. The assessment and court processes will include determining that the couples relationship is stable and likely to be long term. We do regret however that such couples do not see the value of the commitment made in marriage. We hope that the extension of adoption to unmarried heterosexual couples is not intended to allow such couples to adopt children under five where there is no need to widen the pool of possible adopters. We suggest that the normal assessment process is adequate to examine the stability of a couple's relationship. The often used criteria of being two years in the relationship seems useful but should not be rigidly applied, particularly where a child is in foster care with a single carer who then moves into a new relationship.
We also wish to note that, for some children, the relationship with one adult is most important, and indeed perhaps all that a child can manage. There are often situations where one person, usually a now single woman has the care of an older or more challenging foster or adopted child with extended family support. We regret that the review did not suggest some alternative to joint fostering in these situations where extended family member are committed to the long term care of the child, if necessary, but, in the case of long term fostering, have no legal status (and may not currently live in the same household as the child).
It is our understanding that households of same sex adults, who are not gay but related either by kinship, friendship, or a previous fostering relationship, have often provided very good foster care. We would accept a proposal that more than one adult in such a household could jointly foster and note this would clarify situations that ready exist, such as where a mother and adult son or daughter care for a foster child or children.
The Executive asks whether the child's views should be considered in deciding whether an unmarried couple should adopt a child. We welcome the proposal to include this in legislation or guidance, though it should be good practice anyway.
We expect that faith based agencies of various religious persuasions, including Christian, Muslim and Jewish will find it difficult to operate under the new proposals to allow same sex couples to adopt and foster and therefore there should be special rules for such agencies.
The concerns already raised about gay couples adopting also apply to gay couples applying to foster. However where a child is already in a long term placement and a carer then identifies him or herself as gay we would not propose the removal of the child without an assessment that balances any difficulties against the child's stability in the placement.
8.We agree that step parent adoption should remain as many children and adults in such families see this as what they wish.
9.It is suggested to us on the basis of wide experience that a step parent agreement would not meet the wishes of the child and step parent to be regarded as a 'proper' family unit and we therefore agree with the Executive rather than the Review group on this issue.
10.We also agree that only the step parents should be shown as an adopter on the birth certificate. The present system is anomalous.
We wonder why a unmarried step parent would wish to formalise an adoption of a step child but not marry the child's mother. Nevertheless we accept that this proposal may give a child additional security, if the family unit is assessed as being stable. It seems likely that this will, like many step parent adoption applications, be made at the time the new couple are expecting a child of the relationship and wish to ensure that the first child has the same status within the family as this latter child.
11.We welcome the proposal that parental views should be sought on a wide range of matters. This should not be a matter of parental preference as in the past where 'a middle class couple' might or might not be the parents wish. Rather it should be matters to do with the welfare of the child and could include discussion of familial traits that might be hereditary or of particular interest to the child. Issues about religion, language and culture should also be discussed.
12.We accept this with reluctance and suggest that local authorities must ensure that a worker from a suitable agency must see the child in the home and report back in writing.
13.We accept interim adoption orders should be abolished.
14.We accept the need for cross border recognition.
15. We accept this; contact should be for the benefit of this child and this should be clearly explained to those who feel they have 'a right' to contact. Nevertheless where contact is not damaging to the child but simply not welcome it may do the child no harm to have what feels like occasional 'duty visits' particularly perhaps to birth grandparents, aunts and uncles. It is suggested that historically restrictions on contact with birth families have been overprotective of the child.
16. We support the recommendation that children and young people be enabled to keep in contact with members of the wider birth families. There is much experience to suggest that for many children in local authority care the most important persons in their life is their siblings. We accept that improved guidance and training will be necessary here and such training should include both agency staff and carers.
17. We accept hat contact should be allowed for particularly under s11 of th Children Scotland Act 1995. We note that the experience from divorce situations indicates that contact requirements are notoriously difficult to implement if the child's carer does not wish to do so.
18. We agree with the Executive that the amendment of S11 of the Children Scotland Act is no more urgent than the rest of this review Groups proposals.
PERMANENCE ORDERS
We welcome and accept recommendation 19 to 25.
We note however that the basic rights to determine a child's care remain with the Local Authority.
26 and 27 we accept these recommendations.
28 and 29 We support the Executives view on these points and consider that there is value in one Court having control over decisions about the child rather than allow possible conflict between the Court and the children's Hearing system and considerable anxiety, therefore, for the child and carers.
30,31,32 We agree.
SUPPORT SERVICES
33 to 40 We concur with the proposals on support services for those involved in adoption and agree that voluntary specialist support agencies would be valuable.
41 We comment of the time scale for post placement support. Practitioners find there are particular times when support may be most needed. These include during the first 8 months of placement and also after around two years. It is felt this may be that two years into a placement both child and adopters have expectations that things should be 'settled' and therefore normal difficulties are regarded as problematic and parties to the adoption, including the local authority may begin to loose confidence. We therefore agree with the proposal that the placing authority should be responsible for support services for there years after the adoption order is made.
We would also suggest that the carers and child should be consulted on who delivers this service; Depending on the history of the placement some may prefer a local service, others to remain with the placing authority.
42,43,44 we accept these recommendations.
IMPROVING COURT PROCEDURES
We commend all these recommendations and note that the current delays in the adoption procedure are painful for all parties, including birth parents.
CURATORS, REPORTING OFFICERS AND SAFEGUARDER
We accept the points made except for recommendations 61.
It is reported to us that there has been widespread concern about the lack of training for safeguarder, curators and reporting officers and that a centralised national system would be of real value in dealing with these concerns. This would allow standardised training and would also allow for the approval or otherwise of those undertaking this work.
We therefore agree with the Review group and not the Executive on this matter.
ROLE OF THE CHILDREN'S HEARING
No comment.
FOSTERING ISSUES
We note that many foster parents with the long term care of a child would wish an order that is not adoption, but which gives them more security in knowing that the child cannot be removed and that they have more freedom to plan for the child and the family's future.
We see no reason to oppose a national scale of fostering allowances.
We wish only to comment on private fostering.
85. We regret that private fostering remains essentially unsupported and unchecked despite current legislation. We suggest that this matter needs urgent consideration.
We do not comment on local authority procedures except to note that there will be cost implications for the Executive to consider for many of the proposals in the review Group report.
Yours sincerely
Rev Bill Slack
General Director
Baptist Union of Scotland
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