But it has been far from quiet for myself and my team of dedicated supporters and volunteers who worked tirelessly – many of them for free – to launch ABW and our first report, Adopt a Better Way: Not Just for the Children’s Sake.

I have been stunned by people’s generosity, the time and skills they offered, from PR, designers and rebranding professionals, to the stunning posters which were donated and placed around 20 key locations in London.

And a special thanks goes to our lovely Baroness King of Bow, Oona King, patron for ABW who has also adopted three children, and left her busy work and family life to pose with me for a photo shoot at one of the poster sites. We are hoping this will be followed up with some coverage in a national publication.

Although this was a quiet week for media coverage, my concern is that complacency could set in when we desperately need urgent adoption reforms, that everyone will sit back and do nothing because they believe that the government is doing a great job, yet there is still so much that needs to be done.

Here are some of its findings from our study that government needs to be aware of, and this is what continues to drive us on:

Adoption rates are their lowest in ten years
The number of children waiting to be adopted has increased by 15%
A child over the age of 8 has only a 1% chance of being adopted
It takes an average of 2.7 years for a child to be placed with a family after they have been accepted
Compared with 10% of the general population, 45% of children in care are assessed as having a mental health disorder
Twenty seven per cent of children in care have special educational needs compared with 3% of the general child population
Compared to 86% of all 19 year olds, fewer than 40% of children in care in London are in education or employment at 19

We must keep adoption as a high profile topic to remind everyone of the urgent reforms that need to be made, and how we must place the needs of these young children above the bureaucratic system that currently exists.

The media has already called it a non-event. Adoption week. One week where we try to focus attention on the kids who don’t get a fair shot at life. The kids who languish in care. The kids who could have a family if the authorities and government could look beyond their own inhuman and inefficient processes.

Since last year we’ve heard Cameron and co talk the talk. They made some announcements and some that even made the headlines. And then, nothing.

But some people are interested. We have been utterly amazed by the generosity of agencies and individuals who have worked flat out over the past few weeks to pull together our campaign for Adopt a Better Way.Most of them have worked totally unpaid. They have done it not because they want to adopt or were rejected for adoption. These are people who simply care what happens to thousands of children in the UK every year. Children who are already damaged and then have to endure further damage by the system.

They work in media, marketing, design, writing, film and research. They are natural parents not adoptive ones. They are people like you who understand that if you fix the children you fix society.These people have freely helped us produce our new brand, our new launch, the posters you will see at over 20 sites in London. These people haven’t asked for acknowledgement. All they want is that you spend a few minutes thinking about the kids that society is failing. (A list of poster sites is at the at bottom of this post)

We’ve commissioned a report that shows just how broken the care system is. The findings indicate just how the care system impacts on a child’s ability to settle into an adopted family and shows us that with some commonsense thinking, we can improve their lives. And our society.

We need your help. They need your help. If you’d like to help a child get a real shot at life please visit our website and make a donation. Yes it’s for the children. But actually it’s for society as a whole. If we make just a few small changes to the system we can prevent kids ending up homeless, as prostitutes or addicted to drugs after being in care. And we can give more of them a permanent loving home. That is why we’re here. And we hope you are too.

You probably know what’s coming next: what they uncover is heartbreaking and frustrating as they experience what many adoptive and would be adoptive parents have found – a system that works against the interests of the children. Apparently Sir Elton John and David have provided a great deal of input into the feature, so my delight at being contacted was pretty much off the scale. They sent a film crew from the States to record my experiences of adopting from Mexico. I had to keep pinching myself to believe  it was true!

It’s gratifying that my campaign group, Adoption With Humanity, has been recognised amongst global adoption campaigning groups  for its emphasis on the plight of the thousands of children in the UK forgotten in care. Though I’m no less frustrated at the situation we’re in with adoption, it’s very encouraging to know that many of you share our views and understand the need to make the adoption process leaner and more child-centric.

Launched in the US this coming September, the film will be shown here in the UK just before National Adoption Week. I have huge hopes about its potential as a catalyst for change. Filming with Olga and dealing with her and her colleague Mike Dudko was an amazing experience and their commitment to giving children a voice is real and will hopefully go a long way. I felt like I had known them both for ages. We share the same views and dreams. Dreams it is worth waking up to every day for.

I feel great because of the recent national media interest in my adoption campaign as the momentum builds up for National Adoption Week which starts tomorrow when I will be delivering our Adoption with Humanity petition to 10 Downing Street with my daughter Gaia, fellow founders Alex Bemrose and Stevan Whitehead, and Alex’s young son Jose. I hope this petition helps to make a difference and provide love and security for children who have been left to languish in care. Do look out for us this week on Sky News, ITV and Channel 4, as well as in the press.

This article appeared in today’s Sunday Times and also included the story of how Rick and I adopted two babies from Mexico, as well as a picture of us spanning six columns at the top of the page. It’s case studies like this which reinforces to the public and politicians the need for change, and we believe that setting up a National Adoption Authority would be the best solution.

Here is the Sunday Times article, with Gaia looking cute in her Halloween dress!

David Cameron’s adviser on adoption is to crack down on councils that ban white people from giving homes to black children, or bar smokers and the obese from adopting

Martin Narey, former chief executive of Barnardo’s, the children’s charity, warned that local authorities could face a legal ban on preventing couples from adopting children of another race if they do not voluntarily change their practice.
He blames the barriers put up by many councils for the sharp fall in adoptions and the delays of more than three years endured by large numbers of children before they are given a stable home. The insistence by many social workers that black children should only be adopted by black parents is, said Narey, “preposterous”.
Narey, appointed adoption tsar by the prime minister earlier this year, said in an interview with The Sunday Times he was “appalled” by councils that refused to consider smokers as adoptive parents.
He said removing unnecessary barriers could cut the amount of time it takes to assess people for suitability as adopters from more than a year to four months, as already happens in some areas such as Harrow, northwest London.
He said enough suitable couples initially came forward to adopt, but there was a shortage because so many were put off after being “ground down” by a process that can involve a dozen visits from social workers and filling in health and safety forms that went into “ludicrous” detail.
Recent figures showed the number of adoptions had fallen 8% since 2007 and that just 60 babies a year were being placed permanently with families, compared with 4,000 in 1974.
Narey, speaking ahead of announcements by Cameron on adoption this week, warned that black children were three times less likely than white ones to be adopted from care homes, partly because of a shortage of black couples willing to adopt and because so many white ones were being turned down.
He said guidance from the Labour government in 2000 had not been followed, adding: “Michael Gove [the education secretary] has issued fresh guidance to say that seeking an ethnic match should not delay adoption.
“We need to see whether that guidance is listened to … By the end of the year, I think I will have a pretty good picture. If it hasn’t, then my advice to ministers … will be that they will have to go beyond guidance … possibly to legislation.”
He added: “In some US states it is illegal to take account of ethnicity in adoption. It can’t even be mentioned and trans-racial adoptions are hugely successful there.
“Race does matter, but there aren’t enough black adopters. I believe that to suggest a white couple can’t raise a black child and be supported to help with the racism that child might encounter is just preposterous.”
He said he had been “told by the British Association of Social Workers that the reason they don’t support trans-racial adoptions is that they break down in large numbers. It is simply untrue, there is no evidence”.
Martin Narey wants councils to take quicker action on children living in squalor (Matt Lloyd) Narey, who is also a former chief executive of the National Offender Management Service, was brought up in Middlesbrough as the eighth of nine children with “25 or 26” nephews and nieces, including five who had been adopted.
“It was irrelevant that they were adopted,” said Narey, who recently wrote a report on the adoption system as part of a campaign by The Times. “They were just my nephews and nieces.”
He said he believed it was vital to expand adoption, and for councils to become more willing to remove children from neglectful parents and put them in care homes before adoption.
“I am talking about children living in squalor, not being fed properly, not being loved, not being nurtured, being brought up without any aspirations, seeing violence, being the subject of violence,” said Narey.
Ministers taking a strong interest in adoption include Gove who was adopted as a baby after just four months in care.
Narey also backed a call by Tim Loughton, the children’s minister, who while speaking about adoption earlier this month at the Tory conference in Manchester said: “If you smoke, come forward.”
Some councils bar or heavily restrict smokers from adopting and fostering, even if they are otherwise well qualified.
Wiltshire council, for example, will not allow smokers to be given children under the age of five, or older boys and girls with respiratory problems.
Last month it emerged that Clare and Paul Baker had been told by Essex council that they were not fit to be foster parents after Paul admitted to smoking two cigars in 18 months.
Narey added: “That is not to say you shouldn’t be saying to a parent, ‘Look, you should be thinking about your smoking’ … but it is like saying we are not going to allow parents to conceive if they are smoking. It is a nonsense.”
He also said obesity should not be a bar to becoming adoptive parents. Two years ago a couple from Leeds were turned down for adoption because the husband, Damien Hall, was classified as morbidly obese.
Narey said it was “entirely typical” for some councils to take a year or more to approve carers. He singled out safety forms drawn up by the British Association for Adoption and Fostering and used by most local authorities.
“I want a rigorous system, I don’t want an adoptive child to go to carers who haven’t been properly vetted,” said Narey. “But we can do it much more quickly and we have to accept we can’t head off every possibility. Checking there are locks on the cutlery drawer is not a very valid part of a family’s ability to adopt children.
“The social worker has to complete a health and safety check that runs to five or six pages, checking such banalities as, for example, if there is a trampoline in the garden, does it have a safety net?”

Picture courtesy of Paul Vicente, Sunday Times

ADOPTION REFORMS PETITION TO BE PRESENTED AT 10 DOWNING STREET

Media invited to attend petition presentation: 13.00 on 31 October, 2011

A petition urging the government to form a National Adoption Authority and put the needs of children at the forefront of adoption reforms in the UK is to be presented at 10 Downing Street.

More than 1,200 supporters have signed a petition launched by Adoption with Humanity and firmly believe their proposals will overcome the present failing bureaucratic system which in the last year has seen only 60 babies under the age of one be adopted. It will be delivered to Downing Street on 31 October, the first day of National Adoption Week.

Francesca Polini, who adopted two children from Mexico after being turned down by her local authority in Ealing, London, and whose three-year-old daughter Gaia will present the petition, said: “It is important we take our message straight to the heart of government and we are doing this during National Adoption Week in the hope that our message is heard and listened to.

“We want to see changes implemented as soon as possible which will make a difference to the lives of countless young people who are left to languish in care homes.”

Adoption with Humanity was founded by Francesca, along with Stevan Whitehead and Alex Bemrose, who also both adopted children from overseas after being turned down in the UK for their skin colour and class.

It is proposed that the NAA have control over local authorities and courts and is governed by those involved in the adoption process, including social workers, psychologists, doctors, adoptive parents, birth mothers and adoptees.

One of the NAA key proposals is that a personal budget should be allocated to the child (similar to a statement of special educational needs) and the creation of a separate national budget for the assessment and preparation of potential adopters. Funding for this would come from the reallocation of budgets from the Department of Education and Ofsted.

Francesca says: “These proposals would result in significant improvements, resulting in less time being spent in care and a reduction of wasted time and resources as a result of proper co-ordination between agencies and the courts. Most importantly, more children would be placed in loving and secure homes earlier in their lives.”

Support for the campaign has been given by its patron Baroness King of Bow, Oona King, and courtier dress designer Bruce Oldfield, a former Barnardo’s boy.

Baroness King says: “Like Francesca I am an adoptive parent of two lovely children. And like her, I have experienced the utter frustration, despair and anger at the way the current system operates. This is not apolitical issue: successive governments have failed to solve the problem. So what’s the problem? Simply that a failing system discourages adoptive parents from adopting, and penalises children born into dysfunctional families.  These are children whose birth parents have usually been abused or neglected.

“Often, the best way out for these most vulnerable children is adoption. But adoption just isn’t accepted by the system. That’s why only a few dozen babies were adopted last year. The courts and local authorities need to be held to account, and the government of the day must get a grip.  Our government has a moral duty to get the system working, introduce national procedures, and rid the system of unnecessary obstacles. And there isn’t a moment to waste. I look forward to helping Francesca in her quest to change things for the better.”

Bruce Oldfield says: “Adoption today in the UK is itself dysfunctional. I find it particularly absurd that that colour and culture are preventing children being adopted by families because social workers and local authorities think it won’t work. I myself was raised by a single white woman, an extraordinary lady who looked after six of us in all. None of us were white. Her love, encouragement and the stable home she gave all of us was far more important than the colour we were born with.

“She is the reason I am who I am today and also the reason I am a couturier. As a dressmaker herself she was my role model. Without her there would be no Bruce Oldfield.  When Francesca told me what she was doing with Adoption With Humanity, I was immediately behind her.

“We need to get back to basics and to what adoption is all about and that is children who need parents and would be parents who have the love to give those children.”

Please contact our Press Officer Ellee Seymour on 07939 811961 if you wish to attend.

Having the power to change laws so that more children can be placed in loving homes is surely the most wonderful achievement. It’s one I am hoping our government will act on very soon and I eagerly await an announcement from David Cameron during National Adoption Week which starts on 31 October.

One of the greatest media advocates for adoption reform has been The Times, and particularly its Social Affairs correspondent Rosemary Bennett. The paper’s headline yesterday could have been spoken by me, “‘Set up a national agency’ to run adoption services”. These are words I have actively been promiting for our Adoption with Humanity campaign as we believe a National Adoption Agency is desperately needed to provide an efficient adoption service in the UK.

However, this time, the words were said by Dr Chris Hanvey, head of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, who is appalled by the “disgraceful” small number of children adopted each year in the UK.

He accuses adoption services of succumbing to prejudice, and ignoring the fact that the younger a child is adopted, the more successful it is likely to be.

Writing in The Times Thunderer column, he says: ” It is time to set up a national adoption agency, answerable annually to Parliament for its performance and committed, through a regional network to develop standardised measures aimed at boosting the number of number of children adopted each year.

“A national service would have a number of advantages. It would allow a greater flow of information on adopters, and children waiting to be matched, preventing local authorities for hanging on to ‘their’ adopters. If organised on a  regional basis it could abolish local authority adoption panels, which are subject to the vagaries of individual members.”

Thank you for speaking out Dr Hanvey. I hope those who can bring about adoption reforms will take note of your wise words which we believe in too.

It is, in fact, both great news to have such support and sad at the same time that it has come to this.

It is also sad that I believe we are unfortunately not getting the support we were hoping for from the government. So far what we have heard from them is mostly talk. And wishy washy attempts to change the mentality of the social workers.

Meantime, we wait to see if another attempt to change attitudes which we will never be able to measure is successful and young lives, thousands of them will hang in the balance.

Hopefully in a few weeks, during National Adoption Week, we will be able to make our voice heard loud and clear. For the children’s sake.