Pressure leads to ‘ill- judged’ placements

A leading child care lawyer has raised fears that the government’s
drive to promote adoption is resulting in some looked-after
children being placed with families inappropriately.

Allan Levy QC told Community Care that the government’s
“enthusiasm” for adoption had encouraged adoption agencies and
social workers to “push certain children who are not adoption
material” into placements – particularly those who are
traditionally harder to place.

Levy believes the consequences of this could be a rise in the
number of adoptions that break down – currently, one in five
placements of older children fail.

His comments follow last month’s High Court ruling which deemed
Essex Council negligent in not disclosing information about a
five-year-old boy who suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder and who subjected his adoptive parents to violence and
abuse.