A report examined the Independent Review Mechanism (IRM) for England, and the Adoption Register for England and Wales. The general view of stakeholders was that the IRM did meet its aim of being an alternative route for prospective adopters when challenging their agency's qualifying determination, and did support the efforts to build confidence in the adopter-assessment process and to encourage more people to come forward to adopt.
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Review of the IRM and the Adoption Register, Research Report RW44, Department for Children, Schools and Families (0845 602 2260)
Links: Report
Date: 2008-Jun
An article examined the ambivalent commitments to parenting and family life of the New Labour government, by reference to the example of adoption support. Impatience with the attitudes and behaviour of parents had led to a 'progressive universalism' in which enhanced parenting services and expectations for all were combined with increasingly insistent and targeted interventions for the particularly needy, reluctant, or recalcitrant few. At the same time demands for greater service modernization and professional effectiveness had led government to position parents as (potential) consumers too.
Source: Barry Luckock, 'Adoption support and the negotiation of ambivalence in family policy and children's services', Journal of Law and Society, Volume 35 Number 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2008-Mar
An article examined the extent to which the state's duties and responsibilities in the context of adoption were framed and reinforced by a rights-based discourse. The human rights paradigm played an invaluable role in the pre-adoption process by identifying and imposing ever more exacting obligations on the state – obligations which were not being fully met by the Adoption and Children Act 2002. But a human rights analysis provided no secure basis for challenging the Act's rather limited provisions on post-adoption support.
Source: Sonia Harris-Short, 'Making and breaking family life: adoption, the state, and human rights', Journal of Law and Society, Volume 35 Number 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2008-Mar