The government has today announced some changes to the prospective adopter assessment process. Adoption With Humanity applauds this as a long overdue procedure they have been requesting for quite some time, and we are sure that this will have a positive impact on the problems in the adoption system.

However, the group feels the need to raise a note of caution. Simply reforming the forms and some of the structure of the home study is not enough. With the new forms will come a significant need for training current workers and those still in education. Moreover, there will need to be put in place some authoritative person or organisation to ensure the quality of that work and the subsequent usage of the forms, so that individual preferences and views are not allowed to override the government’s policy.

“You can’t just rejig the paperwork or the Home Study and say you’ve made changes,” said Francesca Polini. “I am pleased that the government is trying to do something about the dire state of the adoption process but really it’s just not enough.”

She reiterates her call for a National Adoption Authority to oversee the work currently done by social workers and local councils.

“There is no point saying things have to change but not putting the necessary mechanism in place. If we had a National Adoption Authority then those responsible for carrying out the work would be answerable to that authority and would be required to justify their working practices. Only then would the government’s changes actually mean anything and not be overridden by individual preferences.”

She points out that the government’s recent change in its stated policy regarding trans-racial adoption is not reflected in the current paperwork. Neither, she says, has the National Adoption Register. “Even if social workers wanted to, they would not be able to find prospective trans-racial adopters.” as the necessary data simply is not recorded.

Francesca believes that unless there is a statutory authority to reinforce the government’s wishes and to monitor the work done by those involved in adoption, then nothing will really change. This type of blocking of the government’s policies, deliberate or inadvertent, cannot be allowed to continue. Every effort must now be made to ensure that the new reforms are properly instituted and then monitored by some form of statutory regulation with the power to ensure that efficacy and quality is maintained … a National Adoption Authority perhaps?

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.

This was reported in The Times yesterday by Social Affairs Correspondent Rosemary Bennett who used my experiences as a case study saying:

“Ofsted’s new inspection regime may in future allow couples like Francesca and Rick Polini to adopt children from care.

“Turned down by Ealing council, West London, where they live, because so few white children in care were seeking adoptive families and they were considered unsuitable to adopt an ethnic minority child, they went on to adopt two children from Mexico. Mrs Polini, 41, wrote Mexican Takeaway about their experiences.

“‘The Government has made a start … it remains to be seen if local authorities will follow it,’” she said.

Thank you again to The Times for being so proactive in promoting the desperate need for a fairer adoption system in the UK which I totally support, and thank you for giving my book a great plug!

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.

This is so complicated it is hard to know where to begin, except to feel dreadfully sorry for the couple. Turning to the general question of surrogacy, I will lay my cards on the table now and say that personally, I do have a problem with the concept. For me it is another example of a consumer world where anything is available at a price. For me surrogacy does not seem to be about wanting to be a family but rather about ‘wanting a baby.’

While I understand there are many ways to become a parent including adoption, IVF or remarrying someone who already has children I do struggle with the moral issues around surrogacy. Is it morally right to pay someone to be pregnant for you? I know I’m not the first to ask that question and there are better minds on the job, but nonetheless it is a tough call.

For me it isn’t, just as it wasn’t right for the corrupt Mexican lawyer we met during our travels to adopt our daughter, to organise payment for poor women to have children by the same father so that couples could adopt children who were already a ‘family’ and looked alike. This is explained in my book Mexican Takeaway.  Both situations are troubling because they are all about the needs of the parents and have nothing to do with caring for children. For the lawyer it was supply meeting demand.

It’s not just surrogacy that is the problem. It’s the fact that because it’s possible to buy something on the open market, then it is automatically assumed that it is okay to do so. You’re seventy, have money and want a baby? Sure, there’s an IVF doctor somewhere who will do it for you. Never mind about the child and their future past teenager hood with no living parent. Are you a wealthy single woman who has no need for a father but just wants someone with perfect genes? Get down to the clinic and for a tidy sum you too can have that perfect child injected into you.

What is right and what is wrong?  Have we crossed a line so far we can’t see that we’ve commoditised babies into a business?

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.”