CHAPTER 42
Fostering and Adoption
When parents cannot look after their children, then it may be necessary for
them to be fostered or adopted by another family. Evidence suggests that
this is a more desirable option than placement in a residential children’s
home. Even where physical care is good and there is a suitable amount of
stimulation, the number of staff and their rate of turnover in residential
homes make it harder for children to make secure attachments to one
or two people with whom they have an especially intimate relationship.
This has led to a renewed emphasis on fostering and adoption, although
it may not always be possible for particularly disruptive teenagers. The
case for residential homes has not been helped by instances where the
young people were found to have been abused by the very staff who were
supposed to help them.
Fostering
In the UK, about 64,000 children are looked after by local authorities at
any one time, most of whom are fostered (a few are in residential homes).
That is around 1 in 1,000 citizens, or around 1 in 250 children under the
age of 18. Thus, in a typical borough of 250,000 people, there might be 300
children who are fostered or looked after by the local authority. This figure
is often doubled in more disadvantaged boroughs. The legal framework
for children coming into the care of the local authority in England is
determined by the Children Act (1989). The term ‘looked after’ by the local
authority means it has gained parental authority, whereas if the parent
voluntarily gives up care of their child, the term used is ‘accommodated’.
When a local authority gains parental responsibility, while this gives the
authority controlling power, the birth parents are also still deemed to have
some responsibility for the child – a complex situation.
More than half of foster care arrangements last less than six months,
with the children then going back to their parents, for example, because
parents were lone parents who had a serious physical or mental illness
which has since got better. In addition to official arrangements made
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Third Edition. Robert Goodman and Stephen Scott.
©c2012 Robert Goodman and Stephen Scott. Published 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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