Adoption: Minister in race row

Children's Minister Tim Loughton has sent adoption care workers into a spin with his statement broadly suggesting that there should be no barrier to white parents adopting black children.

The minister's statement has raised alarms bells within the BME (Black and minority ethnic) care sector that the government may be seeking to ‘test the water’ as a forerunner to implementing changes to current guidelines and practices within the adoption and foster care sector.

Sector practitioners are also claiming that BME applicants applying to adopt children in care are being shunned by local authorities in favour of white adopters because assessors feel more able to engage with white families.

A fostering and adoption worker told OBV that she was suspicious that the minister was testing the water, she said: “Local authorities are finding spurious ways to halt or hold back BME adopters and fosterers in favour of white.”

A senior social worker added that prospective candidates mostly want to adopt babies or very young children, and because of a distinct lack of “normal” white infants up for adoption without problem backgrounds, white adopters decide to apply to adopt children from ethnic minorities as an alternative option.

An insider source, said: “Most of the children in care come from very troubled backgrounds but there are a large number of Black and minority ethnic young children and babies awaiting adoption. Working from their lists of candidates who are available, assessed and approved, white assessors feel more able to engage with white families. There are loads of BME applicants that want to adopt and can’t.”

These problems the insider said are compounded by children's minister Tim Loughton’s statement that “there was no reason at all" why white couples should not adopt non-white children, following statistics that ethnic minority children usually wait three times longer than white children to be adopted. BME fostering and adoption practitioners say they are enraged at comments made by Mr Loughton, which threaten an undoing of the adoption rules that campaigners have wrestled with for years.

The government revealed it was updating guidance on adoptions in England to place a greater emphasis on the existing provision which states that while race should be taken into consideration when placing a child for adoption, it should not be a barrier to inter-racial placements.

Action for Children is a registered adoption agency, which runs specialist services right across the UK and also provides fostering schemes. Their Black Families project recruits black and minority ethnic parents to adopt children in care with similar backgrounds.

Director of children’s services, Hugh Thornberry told OBV that they were against any relaxation of regulations to make trans-racial adoption easier. He said: “I am often told by BME candidates that they are put off going through the application process by other adoption agencies, including local authorities who have told them they do not have any children to ‘suit them’.”

“It can be difficult to place children who are from dual heritage backgrounds.” Mr Thornberry continued. “It is imperative that government acknowledge that there are cultural traditions and sensitivities in these communities; it isn’t possible to always find an exact match, but children experience things like racism in school, even today, so it is important to find adopters that will be able to empathize with that.”

The British Association of Social Workers said that “many trans-racial adoptions have had a profoundly negative impact on children's development and identity formation".

There are approximately 80,000 children in the care of public authorities in the UK; most are not considered for adoption because they are too old or are moving in and out of the system.

Of the 3,200 children adopted up to the end of March, this year - 72 per cent were aged four and under and 520 were of non-white ethnic origin.

Guardian journalist Joseph Harker wrote about his experience as someone of mixed heritage growing up with white parents. He said: “…when race regularly collided with my life I was ill-prepared. I found it difficult to cope with the playground and classroom taunts and, as I grew older, the disconnect with my African heritage became more of an issue. I've spoken to many Black people of similar upbringing and they often talk of the same experiences.”

Chris Atkin, founder of national adoptee network the Transnational and Trans-racial Adoption Group, said: “Attention to the emotional, psychological, ethnic, cultural and religious needs of the child must also be taken into consideration when matching and placing a child with prospective adopters…”

Atkin concluded: “Social workers should and will continue to pay appropriate attention to meeting ALL the needs of a child, and wherever possible the race and ethnicity of the child should and will be reflected by the prospective adopters.”

In recent decades past, black campaigners like Janet Boateng – wife of Labour peer Paul Boateng – helped to change adoption procedures so that the default position was for black children to be adopted by black parents. In 1998, Lord Boateng, then education minister relaxed the rules to make it easier for trans-racial adoptions to take place.

(Picture: Madonna and adopted, Malawi born, son David).

By Davina Kirwan