Elsbeth Neil

Contact after Adoption: The Role of Agencies in Making and Supporting Plans

Using questionnaire data about 168 young, recently adopted children and interview data about 36 children having face-to-face contact, Elsbeth Neil explores how agencies formulate and support post-adoption contact plans. It was found that while most children were planned to have some form of contact, adoption agencies differed in the extent to which this was promoted, especially face-to-face. Agencies seemed to play a leading role in determining whether or not face-to-face contact should occur, and what form it should take. However, for contact to be successful it was important that agencies did not just insist on contact, but that they helped adoptive parents to feel positive about it. There was evidence that some agencies that planned face-to-face contact remained ambivalent about its value, indicated by formal, low-frequency contact meetings that were controlled rather than supported. Such arrangements could convey negative messages about the importance of contact and the capacity of adopters and birth relatives to manage arrangements directly. A more successful model of agency involvement empowered adopters and birth relatives to find a plan that suited them, incorporated positive messages about contact and provided support where necessary.

Thinking about and managing contact in permanent placements: the differences and similarities between adoptive parents and foster carers

Children permanently separated from their birth families have to manage life-long issues of attachment, identity and loss. This article focuses on the issue of post- placement contact and discusses the qualities of foster carers and adopters that can best help children negotiate such issues when contact occurs. Two linked research studies provide data on young adopted children, and children in middle childhood placed in long-term foster care. Almost all foster children were found to be having frequent face-to-face contact, compared with only a small minority of adopted children. However, face-to-face contact was found to be more straightforward in the adoptive families, largely because such young children had less complex relationships with their birth relatives and easier relationships with their new parents. Adopters were centrally involved in contact meetings and able to act autonomously, whereas the experience of foster carers was much more varied, with some feeling excluded from decision-making. In both placement types, sensitive and empathic thinking and accepting values of foster carers and adopters were vital in helping children use contact meetings to make sense of their membership of two families. When such parental attributes were present, a wide range of contact arrangements could be successful.

Accepting the Reality of Adoption: Birth Relatives' Experiences of Face-to-Face Contact:

The extent to which birth relatives are able to adjust to the reality of changed roles and relationships following their childs adoption may be crucially linked to the usefulness to the child of ongoing post-adoption contact. In the study described by Elsbeth Neil, 19 birth relatives of 15 young adopted children were interviewed about their experiences of having a child adopted and about having face-to-face contact with this child after adoption. In most cases birth relatives related how face-to-face contact had helped them to accept their childs adoption, largely because contact reassured them of the childs welfare and emphasised the position of the adopters as the psychological parents.

A description and evaluation of a social work training programme in Moldova

This article describes and evaluates one of several international social work initiatives in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. It highlights one British universitys short teaching programme in the former Soviet, but now independent, Republic of Moldova. Participants came from four Moldovan universities, non-governmental organisations and government ministries. They spent 2 weeks, funded by the local UNICEF office, with British and Romanian colleagues exploring the development of social work teaching and practice. The programme focused on child and family social work. Subject areas included theories of child development, research studies of child placement and family support, and relevant social policy determining social work practice in areas such as child protection and adoption. The teaching sessions were delivered via a range of lectures, seminars, discussion groups and practical exercises. The presenters learnt much from the evaluations of the participants about the potential effectiveness of such international teaching programmes. Learning opportunities were maximised by sound preparation and review by the presenters, interim evaluations by the participants and the extensive translations of teaching materials. Successful outcomes were underpinned by ongoing efforts to apply and contextualise the teaching methods and content to the traditions, experiences and needs of the Moldovan participants.