Adoption: Support for Birth Families

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Claire Coutinho

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank the hon. Lady for that important intervention. Yes, I recognise there is retention and churn in the social care worker system. I am looking at that very closely and am happy to talk to her about it further. Consistency means the ability to build a proper relationship. That means so much in terms of trust, but also in terms of access to the services that we all know are important, because it increases the likelihood of someone actually taking them up.

Part of our adoption strategy includes driving improvement for contact services, which was mentioned. Where ongoing contact with an adopted child is agreed, support for birth parents or family members can help to ensure that the contact is a positive experience for the adopted child. We know that having contact with birth parents is really important for a child’s sense of their past and identity. I spoke this week to birth parents and care-experienced people who talked about the trauma for children of not really understanding where they come from. We are working very hard with regional adoption agency leaders to ensure that contact services provide better support and are a positive experience for all those who are involved, including birth parents.

On top of that, regional adoption agency leaders have established a birth parent reference group. That is really important, because the group will help to shape plans for developing better information for birth parents and family members. It will create resources for other birth parents around letterbox contact, ensuring it is easier to navigate and ensuring that birth parents are involved during the further development of any adoption services who have some of that co-design.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister for the comments she is making and for setting out some of the issues in the adoption process for birth parents. Will she focus on peer-to-peer support, too? The support she references is provided by agencies. As the charity and the parents who contacted me said, peer-to-peer support is particularly important, especially where there is a sense of guilt, trauma or shame associated with engaging with, say, an adoption agency.

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank the hon. Lady; that is an excellent point. I have seen, in my work in social justice areas over the years, how much of a difference peer-to-peer support makes, particularly in encouraging people to take up services that they sometimes see as the enemy. Having a trusted person saying, “Actually, this is quite good” makes all the difference. I will take that away, but I absolutely agree with her about that.

I will just briefly touch on the independent review of children’s social care, which hon. Members will know well. The review sets out recommendations for the care system and, in terms of the topics they have raised, sets a really positive direction. The review staff spoke with a great number of birth parents to understand their needs and their experience of the care system. It includes lots of recommendations to strengthen family help systems, getting them that early help that was spoken about. It also talked about family help and support being available to birth parents when adoption is being considered for a child, after a decision has been made to place a child for adoption and after a child has been adopted as well. The review also made proposals to improve the contact between birth parents and the adopted child. It is important that we get this right for children and families, and we are rapidly working up an ambitious and detailed implementation strategy in response to the review.

I will touch on court proceedings, because I know that birth parents have described those as being particularly adversarial and traumatic. They have described a lack of compassion and kindness, as well as a lack of communication and updates on what is happening. The care review flagged the importance of making the court process more accessible for parents during family law proceedings. I am pleased to say that I have met some of the team on the cross-sector public law working group, who are looking at how they can improve the process. They are building the evidence base and starting to roll that out to make sure the courts are less adversarial, based on some of the problem-solving approaches in the family drug and alcohol courts, about which I am also very passionate.

In conclusion, I thank the hon. Member—

[Chi Onwurah]

Will the Minister give way?

[Claire Coutinho]

I will.

[Chi Onwurah]

I am keen to keep the Minister on her feet. I thank her for her response. However, on the role of the charity in my constituency and peer-to-peer care, I urge her to agree to a meeting with me or with the charity so that we can take that issue forward.

[Claire Coutinho]

I would be delighted to, so let me take that away and see what we can do.