How can research on adoption help lawyers?

This article is based on a  presentation given at the FLBA Annual Conference on 21 November 2015 about the  Wales Adoption Cohort Study.

Previous research

Despite the high level of legal and policy interest in adoption in England and Wales there is little recent empirical research to provide an evidence base for decisions on adoption planning for children.

In-depth studies on adoption disruption in both England and in Wales have been undertaken by Julie Selwyn and colleagues at University of Bristol. Their research ‘Beyond the Adoption Order’ was commissioned to address widely varying claims regarding the rate at which adoption placements broke down.

Selwyn et al found that the rate of adoption disruption (post order) was low – only about 3%. However in a survey of families whose child still lived at home the proportion in serious difficulty was much higher at about a quarter who described major challenges with children who had multiple and overlapping difficulties. Many were struggling to get the right support....

Read the full article here.