Adopters’ evaluation of social work support for post-adoption contact: suggestions for trauma-informed, family-focused interventions

This paper will report on adoptive parents evaluations’ of social work support for birth family contact following adoption from foster care in Northern Ireland (NI). This evaluation formed part of a study into adoptive parents’ experiences and support needs in relation to birth family contact. This paper focuses on one of the key aims of the study which was to ascertain the types of support for contact that the adoptive parents used and how helpful they found these.

Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom but has separate adoption legislation. As is the case across the UK, most adoptions in Northern Ireland are initiated by statutory child welfare agencies to secure permanent families for children in state care who cannot return to their birth kin. The paper will chart how social work support for contact has developed across the region in response to increasingly open adoption practices, and will identify priorities for expanding and refining this intervention based on adoptive parents’ experiences and suggestions.
Adoptive parent evaluations of support provision were elicited through 4 focus group interviews involving a total of 26 adoptive parents, and through a Computer Assisted Self-Interview questionnaire completed online by 93 adoptive parents. All participants were members of Adoption UK in Northern Ireland and all had experience of post-adoption birth family contact. The online questionnaire comprised a range of quantitative, evaluative and open-ended qualitative questions which addressed topics derived from existing research and themes emergent from the group interviews.
The findings supported anecdotal practitioner evidence of strong expectations of birth family contact during adoption proceedings in Northern Ireland. Social work agencies in the region had developed innovative service responses to increased rates of face-to-face contact and the challenges this brings for adoptive and birth families.
Three quarters of questionnaire respondents (n=70) told us that they received some formal social work support in relation to contact. This was mostly provided by the adoption agency that placed their child. Face-to-face meetings with birth relatives was the predominant form of contact, reported by the majority of respondents (81%; n=73). Almost all families who had face-to-face contact had some social work support for this, which was rated as helpful. This support mainly took the form of: assistance with practical arrangements; reviewing contact plans; and a worker in attendance during visits.
Adoptive parent evaluations, however, revealed a need for more sophisticated support, in particular: scaffolding of complex relationships across the adoptive kinship network; and services informed by understanding of the impact of early childhood trauma. The paper will conclude with suggestions for achieving trauma-informed, family-focused support for contact.