Understanding the ‘blind spot’ when children move from foster care into adoption^‡

^‡A full account of this research was published in the Adoption & Fostering, April 2014, entitled ‘ “The children were fine”: acknowledging complex feelings in the move from foster care into adoption’ (Boswell and Cudmore, 2014). This paper will also be appearing as a chapter in What Social Workers Need to Know, (2017 in press), Bower, M. and Solomon, R. (eds), London: Routledge.

Abstract

Current social work practice in the UK dictates that when children move from foster care into adoption, the transition takes place within 7 and 14 days, and usually there is no contact between the child and their former carer for several months after the move, if at all. Very little attention or research has been aimed at understanding the rationale for these procedures, or their impact on the children. Joining forces with social work colleagues in a Looked After Children’s team, two child psychotherapists carried out a piece of qualitative research to look at these moves in more detail, and try to tease out how and why these key decisions are made. Analysing data from interviews with foster carers, adopters and social workers, the researchers found that the emotional experience of the child, particularly their experience of losing their foster carer, loses centre stage in people’s minds during this transition, leading to what is described as a ‘blind spot’ across the network. A significant reason for this emerged, in that the children tended to be very compliant both during and after the move and lacking in any obvious distress at losing their former carers, despite having previously been described as passionately attached to them. The research showed that adults across the network, all struggling with intense anxieties of their own, tended to interpret this as evidence that the children were ‘fine’ rather than questioning what might be going on at a deeper level. These research findings are explored in the light of a knowledge base accumulated from a working understanding of attachment and loss in early childhood, and of the psychoanalytical phenomena of individual and organisational defences against loss. Implications for future practice are suggested.

Keywords:

• adoption
• transition
• foster carer
• attachment
• loss
• organisational defence

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the social workers who were part of our original research team: Meena Kumari, Amanda Slattery and Ruth Wienburg; also Nicholas Midgley, Beverley Tydeman and Giles Dhabalia who all offered invaluable advice and support along the way. We are indebted to Westminster Children’s Services for supporting this project over several years; and finally, our sincere thanks go out to all of the foster carers, adopters and social workers who so generously took part.

Notes

^‡ A full account of this research was published in the Adoption & Fostering, April 2014, entitled ‘ “The children were fine”: acknowledging complex feelings in the move from foster care into adoption’ (Boswell and Cudmore, 2014). This paper will also be appearing as a chapter in What Social Workers Need to Know, (2017 in press), Bower, M. and Solomon, R. (eds), London: Routledge.