Failing to settle: a decade of disruptions in a voluntary adoption agency in placements made between 2001 and 2011

Abstract

This article provides a summary of one voluntary adoption agency’s attempt to look at a specific area of its own practice over the decade 2001–2011. In the UK the understanding of adoptive placements that disrupt is hampered by the lack of consistently gathered national statistics. This gap can be addressed only at central government level and it seems remarkable that, given the well-publicised investment of successive administrations in adoption, we are unable to track trends on such a fundamental issue. The voluntary agency, Families for Children, placed over 300 children during that period. Twenty-four placements ended in a disruption – 12 before an adoption order could be made and 12 after an adoption order. We used predictors of disruption from previous research to interrogate the data available in our own files. Our findings may reveal nothing that is radically new but they provide us with a tool by which to measure our performance and focus on the things that we need to do better.