Adoption body criticises register

Plans
for a UK-wide adoption register could make it even more difficult to find
families for hard to place children, a conference workshop heard.

Barbara Hudson, director of the Scottish
Adoption Association, said if families could adopt from outside their area,
they were less likely to accept a difficult youngster locally.

She added that there was a big debate over
the conflict between finding a family for a child as rapidly as possible and
placing them locally so they could maintain established links with their birth
family and the various professionals they had dealt with over the years.

As a member of a team which has produced an
adoption policy review under consideration by the Scottish executive, Hudson
warned against "delay and drift" by policy makers.

"Our review went to government before
Christmas but the reason it has not been made public is because its
recommendations have implications for resources and organisational structures.

"This has led to a degree of frustration
and disappointment among the review team who have put a lot of work into it."