Asian Families Adopt. A recruitment and training video for social workers to use in preparing Asian families to adopt children

By the adoption team, Leicestershire social services.

Produced by NSPCC Audio Visual Unit (running time 30
minutes)

Available from the adoption team, Leicestershire social services
department, 7 Greyfriars, Leicester LE1 5PH

£69.00

T his is a video designed to inform prospective adoptees from
the Asian community about the adoption process. Asian Families
Adopt explores the minefield of questions, concerns and anxieties
prompted when the decision is made to consider adopting a
child.

The value of the presentation is the wealth of information about
the adoption process given first hand by five Asian families from a
variety of cultures, religions and languages.

The families address in an open and honest manner their
experiences of adoption. The dialogue is down to earth and there is
no attempt to cover up what can be a very stressful situation for
both professionals and adoptees.

The complex area of adopting is tackled with sensitivity and
realism, unveiling the many layers of recruitment, preparation, the
assessment process, introductions, placement, attitudes to birth
parents and contact, family and community attitudes and post
placement support.

This video will be helpful to all prospective adoptees from
within the Asian community in providing them with useful
information about the adoption process. It will also be
instrumental in demonstrating the very real fact that Asian
families adopt and do so successfully.

The message it portrays is the valuable contribution the Asian
community can make in developing fostering and adoption services
which can match children appropriately to their racial, cultural
and linguistic backgrounds.

The video does contain families speaking in their mother tongues
and voice-overs in English are used accordingly.

Although it is produced for Leicestershire social services the
information conveyed by the film is transferable and can be widely
applied.

There is a lot to be learned from this video about the needs of
Asian adoptees and the quality of care and love that they provide
to their adopted children.

Robina Shah is psychologist race equality officer, Manchester
Council for Community Relations.