GoldsteinJ EFreudASolnitA, Beyond the best interests of the child, MacMillan Publishing Co Inc, New York, 1973.
2.
TizardB, Adoption: a second chance, chapter 15, Open Books, London, 1977.
3.
Children Act 1975 Sections 3, 59, 29, 57.
4.
Studies planned by ABAFA and others are monitoring the effects of the new legislation.
5.
RaynorLois, ‘Twenty one plus and adopted’, Adoption and Fostering87, Number 1 of 1977.
6.
These include A A McWhinnie, Adopted children: how they grow up, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967, and B Jaffee and D Fanshel, How they fared in adoption, Columbia University Press, New York, 1973; also J Triseliotis, In search of origins, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973.
7.
WeinsteinE A, The self image of the foster child, Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 1960.
8.
ThorpeR, ‘Mum and Mrs So and So’, Social Work Today, Vol 4No 22. In addition to the social workers' assessment Thorpe also used the Rutter Behaviour Questionnaire both A (parents' report) and B (teachers' report) scales. This is a standardised and more objective measure. The A scale is being used in the present study.