This paper aims to review how fostering affects the adjustment of adolescent sons and daughters in families who foster. The research is presented within a developmental psychopathology framework, addressing individual, parent-child and sibling factors that affect adolescents' adjustment. These factors are initially discussed in the context of 'normative' families and stepfamilies, as a prelude for understanding the adjustment of adolescents in reconstituted foster families. Secondly, fifteen studies were reviewed on birth children in families who foster. The literature specifically on adolescents in families who foster is scarce and most of the studies reviewed sampled birth children of all ages. Findings suggest that fostering affects the adjustment of birth children both positively and negatively. Birth children are more caring and mature as a result of fostering, but the relationship with their parents seems to change, resulting in less quality time. Finally, suggestions are made for future research, and clinical implications arising from the literature are discussed.

For several decades, there has been debate over whether white parents can help adopted minority ethnic children to develop a "positive" ethnic identity and cope with racism. Such debates are particularly complex for mixed ethnicity children, as there are particular practical and conceptual difficulties involved in finding them ethnic "matched" adoptive placements. Underpinned by the sociology of childhood and children's rights-based perspectives, this study addressed three research aims: a) how mixed ethnicity adopted children viewed their ethnic identities, particularly in relation to their adoptive identities; b) the children's experiences of discrimination; and c) their adoptive parents' ethnic socialisation approaches. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with adoptive parents (n=18) and children (aged 6-16, n=11). The children's adoptive identity appeared to be a more salient feature of their lives than their ethnicity. Despite most of the children reporting that they had suffered from racism and bullyi ng, the majority of adoptive parents (BME and white) had not prepared their children to cope with discrimination. However, most of the adoptive parents had actively tried to teach their children about their cultural heritage. Adoptive parents had used three different approaches to cope with the ethnic differences in their families: the "colourblind approach", the "finding similarities and acknowledging differences" approach, and the "Iegitimising differences" approach. The findings suggest that adopters need particular pre-adoption training and support to help them to prepare their children for discrimination. However, the salience of adoption in the families' lives suggest that practitioners should not focus on issues relating to children's ethnic identities and side line issues in relation to the children's adoptive identities when selecting, assessing, preparing and supporting adoptive parents.

This is an interpretative phenomenological study that explores what it is like to be an adoptive parent in the context of open adoption. It focuses on the dominant form of adoption in the United Kingdom which is domestic non-kin adoption of children from care. The focus of UK adoption policy is on securing the welfare of Looked After children when their birth family cannot care for them effectively. Adoptive parents are crucial to achieving this aim and this study explores their subjective lived experience with a view to informing adoption policy and practice. The need to understand adoptive parents' perspectives on practices of open adoption was identified as a research priority by the Care Pathways and Outcomes Study, and is the origin of this PhD project. Twenty nine adoptive parents participated in semi-structured interviews. Joint interviews were conducted with thirteen mother/father couples, and individual interviews with three adoptive mothers. This purposively selected sample was identified via the Care Pathways and Outcomes Study and recruited through the five Health and Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland. Ethical approval was granted by ORECNI. Detailed ideographic analysis of interview transcripts was carried out following the principles of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The findings convey the sense of 'being' an adoptive parent, or parental entitlement, derived from 'doing' parenting, and demonstrate the complexities of communicative, structural and public openness as relational experiences. Dominant themes include the constraining cultural importance of blood ties, stigma, family boundary work and the child's life course. At an interpretative level, the sociological concepts of family configuration, family practices and family display are applied to explore how birth relatives are positioned as kin. The thesis concludes with suggestions for research and social work practice.

The aim of this study was to use a qualitative paradigm to explore social workers' attitudes and beliefs towards adoption/fostering for same sex parent families. The study used a grounded theory approach, within a social constructionist framework to elicit the beliefs and attitudes of eight British social work students and one qualified social worker. The participants were aged 23 to 45 and were recruited from The University of East Anglia. The results offer new insights into social workers' attitudes and beliefs towards same sex parent families and adoption. The research highlighted six main areas of beliefs, with the concept of self and 'others' attitudes running throughout these. The six main areas were social workers training, same sex families as being different and deficient, same sex families as similar to other families, same sex families as providing more to a child than other families, 'others' as being prejudiced and self beliefs about same sex families. The main conclusion of the study is that the social workers who participated believed themselves to hold non-prejudiced views and were in favour of adoption by same sex parent families. Participants however reported that 'others' did not share these attitudes and were prejudiced, discriminatory and against prospective lesbian and gay adopters. The findings from the research could inform social work practices and training and also the practices and training of other healthcare professionals, including clinical psychologists.

The way in which relationships develop between adopted children and their 'new' grandparents is a matter of great interest to adoptive families and those working with them. However, it has received little attention in the academic or clinical literature. This study seeks to explore this aspect of family life. At the heart of the study is a set of qualitative interviews with six adoptive families. All three generations were involved. The interviews were analysed using two approaches: Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, and an approach viewing the respondent as a 'defended psychosocial subject'. From the findings, which are presented using the case study method, there emerges a picture of grandparents as being of great significance within the adoptive families. Their attitude towards adoption, and towards the adopted children, appears as especially significant. Adoption involves three generations. This study then develops a theoretical understanding of the findings. The grandparent is a "witness" to the adopter as a parent. Developmental processes, such as the child's gradual separation from the mother, are worked out differently within adoptive families, and this takes place within the 'family field'. The study concludes with recommendations for practice and policy. This study will be of relevance, not only to members of adoptive families and those working with them, but also to those involved with other family forms, such as step-families and foster families.

No description available.

The move to open adoption in the late eighties has been a contested and controversial transformation in the field of adoption, proliferating research studies to both support and oppose its implementation. Rather than making a further contribution to such research, this thesis goes in a different direction and sets out to interrogate the field of contestation itself. Drawing on Foucault's genealogical approach, part I of this study identifies how the paradox of original kinship has operated to both secure and destabilise adoption's substitute status. My analysis shows how adoption is constituted through this paralysing paradox, where the involvements of birth family are both invited and contested. This genealogy of adoption makes an original methodological contribution to the field in establishing a new way of theorising adoption history and practices. In part II this study considers whether open adoption installs a different technology of the adopted subject. Foucault's notion of technologies of the self has been central to my analysis of how one local authority adoption team theorise and implement open practices through the nineties. This archive study shows how open adoption as a set of practices potentially reworks the paralysing place that original kinship occupies by extending the traditional parameters of family belonging. The involvements of birth family in contemporary time challenge and remake the usual ties of family, producing a new technology of the adopted subject, an identity position less bound by original kinship and the hermeneutical knowledges that it inscribes.

This thesis consists of a literature review, a research paper and a critical review which report on children who are looked after and adopted. The literature review explores whether understanding attachment theory is improving services for children who are looked after. A narrative review of relevant literature considers the challenges for children in care, and considers how attachment theory provides a model for understanding their needs. The review then reflects on the context of the development of diagnostic criteria for attachment disorder and the impact of the wider dissemination of these ideas, via the internet. It also considers the difference between current research and academic understanding of attachment theory and 'popular' definitions of attachment and what is effective for children with early aversive experiences. Final discussions focus on interventions based in attachment theory, which show promise in improving outcomes for children who are looked after. The research paper is a narrative analysis of stories of adoption. Young people, adopted outside of their birth family, participated in life story interviews. Their stories illustrate the complexity of the adoption experience and highlight the multi-dimensional impact of adoption over the lives of young people. Within their stories, there were a number of shared plots as well as diversities, with five' acts' resembling a series of progressive and regressive phases: "origins: what I am from", "realities of abandonment", "living with a shadow life", "searching for answers" and "re-authoring their experiences". Key metaphors, such as "the alien", "the freak" and "the lucky one", and significant life events, such as searching for and making contact with a birth mother and re-visiting their country of origin, were located within their life stories. The contributions of these narratives to the existing theoretical evidence base, and interpretations, which are germane to clinical practice, are discussed.

Intercountry adoption in the UK has historically been a small-scale practice, 'tolerated' at best, virtually unregulated and arguably privatized in nature. With the primary purpose of enabling the ratification of the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, the Adoption (Intercountry Aspects) Act 1999 also aimed to place ICA on equal footing with domestic adoption by applying to it the adoption procedures and services prescribed by the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and its subsequent regulations. However, in the context of an over-burdened national care system, discriminating policy provisions, struggles between ideological support and opposition and a well- established national ICA support community, it appears that the 'two-tier system' has not yet been eliminated, particularly with regard to post-placement support. While adoption legislation has further embedded the provision of support services into the local authority adoption service, in recognition of the challenges of reparative or therapeutic parenting, it is unclear to what extent New Labour's 'third way' family policy ideals of prevention and early intervention include the outcomes of children adopted from overseas. Thus, this study aimed to determine the status of ICA within this policy framework, with consideration of the appropriateness and availability of services for intercountry adoptive families, factors which impact parents' service use and preferences a.nd perceptions of claims and entitlements to services among both families and service providers. As research into adoption support for intercountry adoptive families in the UK, both in the past and present, is limited, this thesis offers much-needed insight into the implications of adoption policy for ICA.

Adoption policy requires that the child's welfare needs must be considered as the priority, and in light of the surplus of available "white" adopters and shortage of "black" adopters, calls for 'trans-racial' adoption to be seriously considered. However, despite their lack of empirical evidence, it is the essentialised and political arguments of the opposers of 'trans-racial' adoption that dominate adoption practice. This thesis addresses the contradictory and inconclusive research on 'trans-racial' adoption, by providing a firm sociological understanding of racial identity development theory as applied to the 'trans-racial' adoption debate. It shows that the 'trans-racial' adoptees were constantly aware of their racialised differences, and although most perceptions of difference were negative because the adoptees felt alone and saw it as a constant reminder of them not being a 'real' member of that family, some of the adoptees perceived these differences positively. This is significant because it tells us such differences are able to contribute to the adoptee considering themselves to be confident, have high self-esteem and a positive perception of self. Another key finding is that race and the racialised differences brought about by the 'mixed heritage' aspects of the adoption, are significant factors in the adoptees' searches for their birth heritage. Another finding is the adoptees' possession of a 'trans-racial' identity, and how this is a racialised identity that consists of being neither "black" or "white", but "mixed". The thesis argues for the recognition of the valuable insight that the current population of 'trans-racial' adoptees can offer policy debates, and hence calls for their consultation. It also illustrates the value of the life (hi)story approach, in particular the oral life (hi)story interview as a method of data collection when studying the racial identity development of 'trans-racial' adoptees. The thesis concludes that the racial identity development of 'trans-racial' adoptees is far more complex than existing debates acknowledge. It is something that is socially constructed in an ongoing process, where it is open to modification and negotiation. As such, the thesis is contrary to the idea that individuals need to develop a "black" identity in order to have a positive and healthy sense of self.