Background to the Research

• Freeing children for adoption is a procedure whereby the courts can vest all parental rights in an adoption agency, permitting that agency to place the child for adoption. This procedure has become the principal means whereby children who would otherwise spend their childhood in public care are 'freed' for adoption and found permanent families.
• The purpose of this article is to describe aspects of the Freeing Order procedure in Northern Ireland. It considers the backgrounds of the mothers of children who have gone through the process, then the children themselves.

Research Approach

• The sample examined was 50 children from the EHSSB, which has Belfast as its centre. They were all children from that Board who by Spring 1998 had a Freeing Order made in relation to them (43 children) or who have been placed with prospective adopters and the hearing of the Order was pending (7 children). Among the 50 children there were seven sibling groups of 2 and one of 4 reducing the number of single or pairs of parents to 40.
• All the information was gathered from social workers' reports to the Board's adoption panels.

Main Findings

The Parents

• One quarter (26%) of the 40 mothers were married to the children's fathers. A further 18% were in a relationship with them at the time of the social worker's report.
• Almost all (84%) of the children's fathers were known to the agency, however the information in the social workers' reports on fathers tended to be much less detailed than that on mothers. This is a weakness often found in social work practice in childcare.
• More than half (55%) of the mothers had spent some time in public care themselves, almost half (48%) having been in care for at least one period of over 6 months. This does point to experience of long term care as being a major factor in the backgrounds of these mothers who are unable to care for their own children. Clearly women who have been in care are heavily over represented in this group.
• In addition to the mothers who had spent time in public care, the families of a further 10% were known to Social Services.
• The mothers came from very deprived and disadvantaged backgrounds and this was reflected in their lack of educational attainment - 70% had no formal educational qualifications. Only 10% were recorded as being in employment, thus almost all were relying on state social security benefits.
• The older age of the mothers in this study was reflected in the fact that 32 (64%) of the study children were not first born. Twenty-four mothers had other children of school age (53 children in all) not in the study group. Only 6 of these mothers and fathers were caring for another child at the time of the social work report.
• Fifteen mothers (39% of the whole group) had at least one other child adopted. Five of these mothers' other children were in the care of their fathers but not their mothers, and a further 6 were in the care of other relatives; some of these children were subject to court orders. Three children were dead - one as a result of physical abuse by a parent.

Social Workers' Concerns About Parents and Parenting

• In this sample 'neglect' was much more prominent than either physical or sexual abuse as a reason for the procedure being invoked. The reasons for neglect appeared to often reach back into the parents' own childhood experiences.
• In over 80% of these families neglectful parenting was accompanied by mental health problems or learning disabilities. Domestic violence was also prominent and alcohol abuse was also present in most of these situations. In all, alcohol abuse was considered an issue in the families of 70% of the 50 children.
• There were 9 families (23% of the whole group) involving 12 children (24%) where parents had convictions of offences against children. One mother was implicated in the death of her child at the hands of her partner, 8 were the mothers' partners, 5 of these men had previous convictions for sexual abuse and 3 for physical abuse of children.

The Children

• Seventy four per cent of the children were under a year old at their final admission to care - the admission that led to the Freeing Order. Only 4% were over 4 years.
• Half of the children were boys and half were girls. Exactly half of the children were Protestant and half Catholic. One child was of mixed race.
• Many of the children had special needs, half had either a serious health problem (8%), or were thought to be at risk of developing one (28%), or were showing signs of developmental delay (14%).
• Seventy per cent of these 50 children had no previous admissions to care and 66% no placement changes since admission.
• Only 9 (18%) of these children were adopted by their existing foster parents. The remainder were, therefore, due to have at least one more change of placement and one, hopefully final, set of caretakers - their adoptive parents.

The Freeing Process

• Of the 19 children who were placed in less than a year, 10 were either adopted by their foster parents and 6 were placed with prospective adopters in advance of Freeing Order proceedings.
• Only 3 children (6%) went through all the agency and legal processes and were freed for adoption and then placed with their adoptive family in less than a year from their final admission to care. In all, children who had had an older sibling adopted or in long term care made up 70% of this early placed group of 19 children, suggesting that social services and the Courts were taking some account of parents' poor prognosis in progressing placements.
• However, of this group of 25 children, with an older sibling adopted or in care, 10 (40%) still wait 2 years or longer from final admission to care to permanent placement.

Conclusion

• As the study of these 50 cases makes clear, the Freeing Order route to adoption does not provide a ready means of resolving problems, it is cumbersome, slow and expensive. It makes an adoption in Northern Ireland, even for very young children who have had no, or very little care, from their parents, very difficult to achieve, even when the only alternative appears to be a childhood in public care.