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The fundamental principles underlying the adoption system should be re-evaluated, conference delegates heard last week.

Professor Andrew Cooper from the Tavistock and Portman NHS trust said the UK's current system had been "largely superseded by social forces and developments" and alternative child welfare approaches should be considered.

"The real question is not one of striking a balance between the rehabilitation of children received into public care, and their permanent placement or adoption outside their birth families," he told a West London Mental Health NHS Trust conference.

There needed to be "significant" reform of the principles informing adoption practice, of the decision-making institutions involved in child care and protection, and of how authority is exercised and received, continued Professor Cooper.

Much could be learned from the system of "negotiated justice" used in France, he said, where permanent orders to separate children from their birth parents are rarely made. Instead, children and their parents or carers can be referred to a children's judge, following either professional concern, a lack of co-operation from the parents, or some other impasse in the system.

In France, children's judges often commission an assessment of the case from the court's own specialised social work service, with less legal involvement than in the UK.

The judge can make a range of orders, but must attempt to seek the parents' agreements to any decisions. The consequences, said Professor Cooper, are that all social work and therapeutic effort becomes directed at rehabilitation of the child.