362 Chapter 42
through the local authority, some people may make private arrangements
for others to bring up their children, and this is a more usual arrangement
in some cultures, for example, in West African countries. In recent years,
due to the lack of a dependable supply of suitable foster carers, there
has been an increasing emphasis on holding extended family conferences,
where a wide number of extended family members are brought together to
see whether they might be able to look after a child where the birth parents
cannot, a so-called ‘kinship’ fostering. This arrangement can have the ad-
vantage of preserving the child’s identity within the family, and can have a
more personal commitment from the relative looking after the child. How-
ever, it can be disadvantageous if the relative is unable to prevent access
from an abusive or mentally disturbed birth parent who is, for example,
his or her own brother or sister. Also, kinship carers often feel, and are, less
supported by social services’ departments than regular fosterers in the task
of looking after children who are usually decidedly challenging, and may,
for example, require the new carer to give up their job, or their bedroom.
Adoption
Until 50 years ago, the majority of children adopted in the UK and the
USA were white, born to healthy single mothers, and were developing
without developmental delays or major mental health problems. There
were enough babies or infants to meet the demand for them. Most were
placed in the first two years of life with married, white adoptive parents
who were told very little about the birth families and had no contact with
them. Now, in contrast, there are not enough infants to meet demand.
The children come from ethnically diverse backgrounds, are older, and
many have significant psychiatric problems or developmental delays. Most
have experienced seriously inadequate parenting or frank abuse and often
have complex needs. However, unlike fostered children, once the adoption
process is complete, the local authority has no parental responsibility
towards the child, who now is entirely the responsibility of his or her new
parents. Sometimes this can lead to a withdrawal of support and services
once legalities are completed, although in England now there is a legal
duty on the local authority that arranged it to provide support for the first
three years after adoption.
Nowadays the adopting parent will typically come from as close an
ethnic match as possible, may or may not have a partner, and may
be a same sex couple. Because of the shortage of typically developing
younger children, there have been a number of inter-country adoptions
from developing countries to developed countries. In particular, due to
the very poor state of Romanian orphanages, a number of these children
were adopted in the UK and the USA, which has provided the oppor-
tunity to examine the impact of providing good enough environment
after initial severe deprivation – the English Romanian Adoptees study
has been extremely informative. It found that intellectual catch-up was