As ever the topic of interracial adoption is a complex one, one that makes the headlines in the New York Times on the same day – link here.

I think the title of the NY Time summarises the whole thing correctly. Yes race (and indeed religion) do matter. They are part of a child’s identity, and it will stay way into adulthood. In an ideal world therefore we would want to match a child with the same ethnicity and why not religion parents. But guess what? We don’t live in that ideal world. We live in one where that choice isn’t always possible and the alternative to that ‘perfect match’ is a life in care shunted around the foster care system with multiple placements (in the majority of cases with temporary carers of a different ethnicity and religion anyway).

After that? The prospects are bleak. Crime, prostitution and homelessness are too often the only future for young adults leaving care as pointed out in our report from last year. 

To say that I found Nick Ferrari obnoxious in the interview would be an underestimation of my actual feelings towards him. Apparently he is amazed that I trust social services to be the ones to be making the right decision in the interest of the child. Who else would be? The birth family who had a total of three children removed from their custody and given for adoption?

In his biased view it should have been taken into account that four sets relatives of the biological mother came forward to adopt, and on top of that they were Muslim. How perfect blood related and same religion.

Should that have been a decisive factor? Being of a specific religion or even ‘blood related’ does not make anyone suitable to adopt.

Worse so Nick and a lot of the press around this specific case were clearly making a point that ‘on top of that’ the white women were lesbians too. So let’s throw everything in the pot why not?

This is going to get really boringly cliché now. What children need is the permanent love of doting parents. When that is provided by biological same ethnicity and religion parents that is great. When that is not possible then the next best available match has to be found to ensure the best interest of the child in paramount. In that case, dare I say like mine with two Mexican children, cultural needs of children can be met by different-race parents who are committed to the best interests of their child.

So that children are not made to pay for having been born in a family which for whatever reason couldn’t provide for them (in this case mental illness) and then for being of the wrong skin colour and or religion.

Being left behind languishing in a care system waiting endlessly not just for ‘a’ muslim family but ‘the right’ muslim family will never be the right alternative to a permanent loving family. Now.

It was horrible. It made you feel small. And useless. That’s nothing compared to how it feels to not be adopted. As I write adoption in the UK is in a sadly dysfunctional state. The system is broken and it means that there are thousands of children awaiting adoption- 4000 approximately at present. In the past year, there were less than 300 adoptions.

It’s not for lack of potential parents either. Each year there are hundreds of couples who apply and go through one of the most searching processes just to be allowed to adopt. And often they give up.

Why? Because local authorities and councils are applying rules of their own making, something is wrong. The authority vacuum and the lack of any leadership on the part of the government means that it takes at least 2 years and 7 months for a child to be adopted. But first they have to be removed from the family that can’t or won’t look after them. And that isn’t happening because the system thinks that keeping a child in a family that can’t or won’t love them is better than finding them someone who will.

By the time a child is adopted they may be around four years old.

By the time a child reaches five, it is put into the too hard basket and is less likely to be adopted.

And if you’re a black or mixed race child, forget it. It probably won’t happen.

These children will have suffered first at the hands of a family that neglected them and secondly at the hands of social workers and local authorities who simply have no motivation to place children with new families. Instead they try to keep them in the place that has made their childhood a memorable one for the wrong reasons.

You can make a difference. Please, please respond to this by clicking here and signing our petition and urging your friends and colleagues to do the same.

For their sake.

However, it is a day tinged with sadness following the death of one of the greatest men, Steve Jobs, a perfect example of how adoption can work beautifully. Please read about it here.

Yet we are still agonising over whether adoption should or not be first choice for children languishing in care.

This morning I was on the Vanessa Feltz show on BBC radio discussing the merits of mixed race families with her. This afternoon on ITN London Tonight. I was yet again calling on David Cameron to step up to the challenge facing thousands of children in care today. During his Conservative Party conference speech this week, he said “this might not be the biggest issue facing this country but it is the biggest issue facing these children”.

I am asking the father in him to make this his biggest issue to solve. Now. For their sake.

You can help too by signing our e-petition which urges the government to take action.

For Francesca Polini and her husband, Rick, the process was heartbreaking. They deliberately chose not to have children of their own, but instead to offer a home to a couple of children in care waiting to be adopted.
Mrs Polini was taken aback when social workers at Ealing council in West London, where she lives, told her that their services were not required.

“I was told over the phone, without even an interview or face-to-face meeting, that all the children in Ealing needing to be adopted were black or mixed-race and there was a cap on the number of white couples they wanted to approve, and that number had been reached,” she told The Times.

“I was really shocked. It was made clear we could not be considered for anyone other than a white child, and there was no suggestion that neighbouring local authorities may need white couples and I should go there instead. The social worker suggested we try for overseas adoption instead. Apparently it didn’t matter about the child being from a different ethnic group as long as it came from abroad.”

The couple did just that, and after an emotional rollercoaster ride became the first British couple to adopt from Mexico. Mrs Polini, 41, has written a book, Mexican Takeaway, about the experience. They have a daughter, Gaia, 3, and a son Luca, aged six months.

Although they are happy with their family, they still feel they had a lot to offer children in care in this country.

“It didn’t hit me until after we had adopted Gaia how ridiculous it is to tell a couple they cannot adopt because they are white. With local authorities it seems to be colour first, and then what religion your are, rather than whether you are ready and prepared to look after a child.

“The Government has made a start with new guidance but it remains to be seen whether local authorities will follow it. I think there won’t be any significant progress unless they scrap the local authority-based system altogether and have one national agency in charge.”

I would like to say a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to The Times for the tremendous support they are giving to help young children find loving and stable homes.

Author and adoption campaigner Francesca Polini, 41, and her husband, Rick, adopted their children, Gaia, 2, and Luca, 3 months, from Mexico after being turned down by their local authority for being “too white”.

“My husband and I have always had an unconventional relationship, but travelling to Mexico as ‘backpacker adopters’ was by far the craziest thing we’ve ever done.

“We could have had children of our own, but thought, ‘There are so many kids in the UK who need a permanent home. Why bother with the whole biological thing?’ But in 2007 we were rejected for domestic adoption on the grounds that we were ‘too white’. Our local authority had placed a cap on the number of white couples who could adopt black, mixed-race or Asian children – so we weren’t even able to apply. It was disgraceful, but there was nothing we could do.

“That’s how we came to be the first British couple to adopt from Mexico. After months of gruelling interviews, we finally completed our adoption home study in September 2007 and were matched with a baby girl.

“We took leave from work, rented out our apartment and said our goodbyes. But just before we were about to get on the plane, we received an e-mail from the Department of Education saying they had made ‘a mistake’. It turned out we couldn’t use the private US agency they’d originally approved. They said, ‘You’ll have to give up that match.’

“To have a baby suddenly ripped away from us like that was devastating. We’d decorated her nursery, chosen a name – how could we go back to work and explain what had happened? So we thought, ‘Why not fly over there and do it ourselves?’

“When we stepped off the plane in Cancún, all we had were our backpacks and a couple of addresses. We started off in the south, travelling to remote orphanages in broken-down buses with chickens on our laps. But it was one disappointment after another. Some orphanages couldn’t facilitate international adoptions; others said we hadn’t been married long enough. We felt like the more we travelled, the further away we got from having a family.

“In utter desperation, we agreed to meet a Mexican lawyer who assured us he could get us a baby, ‘No problem.’ He said, ‘The women I work with are very reliable; they never change their minds.’ The alarm bells started ringing when he added, ‘In a few years, you can come back and I’ll make sure they sleep with the same man, so your children look alike.’ This wasn’t adoption; it was glorified child trafficking. We politely declined a ‘baby to order’, and went on our way.

“Another lawyer introduced us to a woman who, he claimed, was suicidal and wanted to give us her baby. She turned up at our hotel demanding a new car and a flat by the sea in exchange for her daughter. It was like being sucked into a real-life soap opera. At the very last minute we found out she was planning to take our money and do a runner with the child. At this point, we didn’t know who to believe any more.

“But as luck would have it, the day before I’d had a call from a Roman Catholic institute for unmarried mothers, offering us a newborn baby girl. We’d said no at first, because we felt we were under a moral obligation to the other woman, but as soon as I found out we’d been hoaxed, I rang back and said, ‘Is she still available?’ The institute director said, ‘Yes, but hurry. Meet me at my house, 10pm tomorrow.’

“We turned up on her doorstep the next day with backpacks and a wilted bunch of flowers. We were so broke and disillusioned, we didn’t even believe there was going to be a baby. Minutes later this woman opens the door holding a baby girl and says, ‘So what do you think?’ It was Gaia. I watched my husband – a typical Mancunian tough guy – fall in love with her at first sight.

“It was the quickest prep for having a baby you could imagine. The next morning we rented an apartment, turned up at Wal-Mart with two trolleys, and went through the aisles, picking up armfuls of nappies and clothes, Supermarket Sweep-style. At 1pm we were asked to attend a ceremony for her at the local Catholic church, and within a couple of hours, she was ours.

“Becoming instant parents was a steep learning curve. The next morning I woke up, still a bit delirious, and said, ‘Rick, what’s that noise?’ He replied, ‘It’s the baby.’ I was still confused. ‘What baby?’ I’d wiped everything out. ‘It’s your bloody baby,’ he said. Poor Rick had been up all night feeding her every three hours.

“We spent the next couple of months in Mexico getting the adoption finalised. After much discussion, the British Embassy advised us to bring Gaia into the UK on a Mexican passport and get her British visa once we arrived. We had the relevant paperwork and notified the British authorities; what could go wrong?

“Tired and jet-lagged, we arrived at the immigration desk at Heathrow to be greeted by a stony-faced official asking, ‘Where’s her visa? You’re bringing this child into the country illegally and we’re going to have to detain her.’ We were left alone in a room for three hours, with a two-month-old baby and no water, like child traffickers. Gaia was classed as an illegal immigrant and our passports were confiscated. It was unbelievable.

“After we were finally allowed home, we lived with the constant threat that Gaia could be sent back to Mexico at any moment. We had to hire an immigration lawyer, appeared in court twice, and spent thousands in legal fees. In the end, I contacted David Miliband and, thanks to him, Gaia got her passport back, exactly a year after she entered the country.

“Despite everything – and having spent almost £50,000 – it didn’t put us off from filling in an application for a second child. We went through the same Catholic institute and soon received a phone call saying, ‘A baby boy has been relinquished. How quickly can you get here?’ Within five days we were on a plane to meet Luca.

“Gaia and Luca have transformed our lives. Every day I look at them and wonder where they might have ended up – on the streets begging, abusing drugs, starving to death? Adoption is even more amazing than giving birth because it’s like discovering your soul mate; it feels as though it was always meant to be. We didn’t find them; they found us.”