Adoption Support and the Negotiation of Ambivalence in Family Policy and Children's Services

Abstract

In this paper ambivalent commitments to parenting and family life by the New Labour government are explored by reference to the example of adoption support. Developments in adoption illuminate contrasting expectations in family policy and children's services more generally. Traditional normative concerns to support family status and parental autonomy are unsettled by contemporary anxieties about child outcomes and social mobility. Impatience with the attitudes and behaviour of parents has led to a ‘progressive universalism’ in which enhanced parenting services and expectations for all are combined with increasingly insistent and targeted interventions for the particularly needy, reluctant or recalcitrant few. At the same time demands for greater service modernization and professional effectiveness have led government to position parents as (potential) consumers too. The paper discusses these policy and practice tensions and concludes that new spaces are being opened up for the negotiation between parents and professionals about rights and responsibilities in family life and its support.

Partnership and the limits of procedure: prospects for relationships between parents and professionals under the new Public Law Outline

“…Commentators have also argued that the Every Child Matters (ECM) agenda (Department for Education and Skills 2004) has served to further marginalize the needs of parents (Grover 2008; Luckock 2008; Broadhurst 2009), given the ‘child‐centric’ focus of the priority outcomes (Hall et al. in press).…”

“…Under ECM, a strange polarity appears to have emerged – children's interests can be placed in contradistinction to those of their parents. As Luckock (2008, p. 3) writes:…”

“…Forrester et al 2008) for a recent analysis of practitioner attitudes to parents). The introduction of 'twintracking' 3 has been much discussed with respect to the impact on parents rights (Parkinson 2003;Luckock 2008) -in giving further priority to permanency planning for children, it has been described as significantly at odds with the family support ethos of the Children Act 1989.Whilst families facing enduring deprivations do not easily fit the new regime, an impatient and time-limited ethos is reinforced through statistics for re-referrals and numbers of children subject to repeat child protection plans reinforced through sanctions for local authorities, where statistics fall outside Ofsted parameters. Of course, skilled workers will try to work around this new 'structured' approach to welfare, but partnerships are not easy to achieve where the balance of power between parents and professionals appears to have shifted further in favour of the latter.…”

“…Commentators have also argued that the Every Child Matters (ECM) agenda (Department for Education and Skills 2004) has served to further marginalize the needs of parents (Grover 2008;Luckock 2008;Broadhurst 2009), given the 'child-centric' focus of the priority outcomes (Hall et al in press). ECM, reflecting New Labour's preoccupation with investing in children, has reconfigured practice around the 'atomised' child (Hall et al in press).…”

“…3 3 In situations where adoption is deemed a suitable option for a child (primarily in the case of young children where there are concerns or evidence of significant harm) children may be subject to a plan that has two pathways, one would be a reunification with his/her parents/family, the other to place the child for adoption – see B. Luckock (2008) for a further discussion.miscellaneoustext …”