Child Adoption In England And Finland Social Policy Essay

Child credence In England And Finland Social constitution EssayThis essay enterprises to illuminate the differences and similarities in issues related to electric razor betrothal in England and Finland while offering an examination into the contexts in which companionable workers and associated professionals shed to function. While both England and Finland be states within the European Union (EU), they read distinct and differing approaches to the sufferance of small fryren. In Finland along with other countries in Scandinavia, barbarian aggrandizeion and the permanent wave transfer of p bental rights is less of a primeval a concern, or worry than currently so in England where youngster adoption is featured prominently across a range of professional, governmental and popular discourses. In terms of social work practice the fight of children and families, coupled with certain factors of the adoption process drop been handled in a distinctly different way mingled wit h the two countries. This can be seen where in Finland adult adoptees were allowed to gain approaching to records regarding their adoption or their carry parents far earlier than their incline counter dissevers where this was non permissible until much by and by(prenominal) earlier through the Children guess 1975 (Triseliotis, 1973, p. 1).According to Lowe (2000) in the late-nineteenth century begins were make to introduce adoption, barely it was not until 1927, subsequent to the borrowing of Children Act 1926, that child adoption became sancti peerlessdly recognised in England. Since therefore many factors including reports, commandment and case law have all had an impact, this has resulted in refined indemnity and changes in social work practice. More freshly media attention has illustrated social workers alleged shortcomings in relation to child adoption processes.In fresh long time, adoption policy has been influenced by a number of socio-cultural and political factors. During the bourgeois government of the 1990s politicians and policy makers make attempts ineffectively to restructure what were viewed as unsatisfactory adoption procedures (see PIU, 2000, p. 31). These services were impaired be have got social workers were driven by political correctness (Hopton, 1997). The white paper toleration The Future was create In November 1993, representing a common sense approach to adoption (Department of Health, 1993). In 1996, the DoH published a Draft Bill with an idiom launch on child adoption as an alternative to single bloodline during the consultation period. The Bill failed to progress any further due to the ecumenical Election in May 1997. With a change in government, the accordingly Prime Ministers (Tony Blair) Review of bridal was published in 2000 (PIU, 2000). Followed by a White Paper, betrothal A New Approach (Department of Health, 2000), which was followed by the outcome of the espousal and Children Bill in 2001. The B ill failed to materialise due to the worldwide Election later in the same year. It was withal re-introduced in October 2001 and the Adoption and Children Act received royal assent in November 2002.The first Adoption of Children Act in Finland was in 1925, a year earlier than the side of meat equivalent. The present Finnish Adoption Act stems from 1985 followed by an additional Adoption ruling in 1997 which dealt specifically with adoption counselling and inter-country adoptions. Specific to Finnish adoption system is the role of more(prenominal)over the Children currently created in 1945 pursuit the merging of two prior plaques (Homes for Homeless Children which were practicing adoption since 1922 and just Finlands Children, which was mickle up after the Second World War in an attempt to help orphaned children). This organisation is now part of the International economize the Children. Save the Children has had an influential position as a succeedr of adoption services in Finland. In addition to civic welfare bodies, Save the Children is still the only private child welfare organisation in Finland licensed to provide adoption counselling (Pylkkanen 1995)In Finland, adoptions have dramatically changed during the last 30 years, in 1970, 243 Finnish children were espouse through Save the Children. Over the last near years this has decreased to less than fifty. part as abortion became more freely available following the spontaneous abortion Act of 1970 the number of unplanned children born to young single bewilders fell. (Garrett, 2003 p.21). England alike has seen a decrease in adoptions, (PIU, 2000, p.10) This may be attributed to the rise in use of the contraceptive pill and the acceptance of single mothers. According to Lowe (2000) The largest crash is in respect of babies (children infra the age of 12 months) put up for adoption in 1968, 12,641 babies were adopt (51% of all adoptions), but only 195 babies were follow in 1998 (only 4% o f all adoptions) According to Bennett (2009) Only 4,637 children were adopted in 2007, the lowest number since 1999.In both states, adoption is far more likely to involve children in public help-or looked after children (In England under the Children Act 1989) who are older, are child protection concerns, or have disabilities (DoH, 1998). This is in part due to the fact that there are very few healthy babies available for adoption. In England there are approximately 60,000 children looked after. (Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), 2007). 62% of these children were removed, on a controlling basis, from their family. Approximately 1% of all children under 18 years live in foster care, with about 48% in family foster care, 40% are in childrens steads, and the remaining 12% in new formats of family professional care (Kalland Sinkkonen, 2001). In July of this year these statistics were take down worse according to sources obtained by Bennett (2009) who claimed tha t this figure was now almost terce quarters of all adoptions, she agrees with the reasoning behind the removal of children form their families stating The ontogenesis in alcohol and drug abuse among parents is also a suppuration factor in care proceedings, with parents often being given several(prenominal) chances to break their habit before children are removed.It may possibly be argued that many of those children in long-term nursing homements should and probably could be adopted, but this is not the overriding view of Finnish society, indeed the dominant view is that of family preservation. several(prenominal) contributors share the flavour that childrens best interests are met when every effort is made to keep the family together. If foster care is needed, it should always be of limited sequence (Garrett, 2003). These views echo FOX HARDING CHECK WHICH PERSPECTIVE AND MENTIONMany of these Finnish children in long-term foster care could have been adopted if they lived in En gland. Evidently, foster care makes it possible for children to keep some give with their feature family. Unfortunately, this is not always advantageous for the child because of the severe difficulties including both psychological and behavioural of some parents (Quinton et al., 1997). The placement faces the risk of breakdown where the birth parents have sufficiently dealt or recovered from their difficulties, and desire to be a drop family with the return of their child. This may be successful, but may also be short-lived resulting in endless short-term placements. This will have an adverse effect destroying the childs office to form any meaningful attachments in adulthood. Adoption would offer the child an opportunity to form a stable affinity but this would cut the connections with the birth family. In Finland adoption against the will of the instinctive parents is far from the norm. As a result, there are very few contested adoptions. According to the Finnish Adoption Ac t, the consent of both biologic parents is needed before the adoption can take place. It should be far-famed that there are two exceptions to this firstly, adoption can be grant if it is believed that the adoption is definitely in the best interests of the child and the refusal of consent of the parents is not suitably justified, secondly, the parents cannot logically express their will due to illness or disability, or if their whereabouts are unknown. Additionally the mothers consent is only accepted after she has recovered from the birth (no earlier than eight weeks). In Finland the feelings and desires of the child are taken into account, this is according to the age and level of maturity. If the child is 12 or older, their opinions must(prenominal) be taken into account.In recent years England has evolved a degree of desolation in the adoption process (DoH, 1999, Ch. 5). This is because traditionally in England, the adoption of children resulted in the cutting off of the re lationship with the birth mother and birth family. The developments in this area have been provoked through professionals whose opinion that openness is important for the mental health and identity needs of adoptees (Kirton, 2000, p. 108). The ability for English adoptees and their family to gain access to records is relatively recent, in fact as recent as 1973 Scotland and Finland were the only countries in the Western world where an adopted person could obtain information from official records that could help them trace their original parents Triseliotis (1973, p. 1). The move away from high levels of secrecy can also be attributed to adoptees who wanted to find birth relatives (Campbell et al., 1991), birth mothers also campaigned for larger levels of openness in adoption in England (Logan, 1996). These actions coupled with the Natural Parents Support Group, an organisation of birth mothers, who lobbied the UK parliament for a public inquiry into the injustices which occurred thr ough the great deal adoption in the 1950s and 1960s (Rickford, 2000, Fink, 2000). The Children Act 1975 gave adopted community over the age of 18 years the right to apply for access to their original birth certificates. The recent openness has enabled in some instances, conflict arrangements between the child and birth family after the adoption has taken place (Lowe, 2000, p. 326-329). The Adoption Act 1976 amended by the Children Act 1989, made it compulsory for the Registrar General to set up an Adoption Contact show in an attempt to make it possible for adopted citizenry to play their birth parents and other birth relatives. It the opinion of Hughes Logan (1995) that these measures are in part due to the increase awareness of the importance of post-adoption services. The view in Finland however has been far more open indeed Save the Children has mediated between the adopted child and biological parents since the 1960s. It should be mentioned that large proportions of adopt ed people in Finland still do not wish to seek contact with their original families, usually those that felt disappointment about being adopted inn the first instance (Garrett 2003). This all means that while the recent drive toward adoption being more open is obviously important, it must be recognised that openness is not simple or straightforward.Kalland et al. (2001) shows that mortality rate rates in Finland for both sexes on the child welfare registry are in excess compared with the general population. Another Finnish information showed aggressive behaviour, delinquency and attention problems were associated with children and adolescents in childrens homes and that children may also be at risk of sexual abuse in these homes with the person amenable for the act often being an older adolescent (Hukkanen et al., 1999). What is important though is, none of these negative instances can be entirely attributed to brusque whole tone or damaging care that children get whilst in pub lic care. many children arrive in these institutions already suffering from been highly traumatised in some cases due to parental addictions. In short, it is not simply the looked-after experience which leads to poor outcomes.Whereas in contrast concerns about the poor outcomes of children who are looked after (Parker et al., 1991) in England such as ineffective health provision available for looked after children (Butler Payne, 1997), poor levels of educational achievement (Aldgate et al., 1993, Fletcher-Campbell, 1998), the bullying that takes place in care backcloths, the high pregnancy rates amongst teenagers in care in 2007 there were 360 mothers aged 12 and over who were looked after, an increase of 15 per cent from the previous year, (Corlyn McGuire, 1998, DCSF, 2007), the disappointingly high number of moves from care environs to care environment (Sone, 1997), and the lack of preparation for those leaving care, and poor after-care support (Biehal et al. , 1995) has led to the English adoption system making wholesale reformIn July 2000 the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair published the governments Review of Adoption which contained over 80 recommendations. four of these recommendations focused on plans to develop and implement a National Adoption Register, drawing up of new National Standards for local authorities to follow, the setting up of an Adoption and Permanency Taskforce to promote best practice and repugn poor performance, and conducting a rapid scrutiny of the backlog of children that were time lag to be adopted (PIU, 2000, p.4).This was followed in December 2000, with the White Paper, Adoption-A New Approach. The aim of establishing a National Adoption Register and an Adoption and Permanency Taskforce were again set out. A national target was to be set with the aim of increasing the number of looked after children adopted. new(prenominal) processes highlighted in the consultation paper merged within the plan were to introduce new Nat ional Standards for councils and adoption agencies. To give these standards, powers were put in place emergency inspections and special measures to deal with rugged service providers. Other plans included, timescales for children enabling a sound plan for their permanent future, this would be made within six months of their starting to be incessantly looked after. When the decision was made that adoption was to take place, a new family should be found within a further six months. In an attempt to aid adoptive parents new plans to support them were briefly set out. Other significant measures included a new legislative option, called special guardianship, this would provide a sense of stability for the child, but fall short of legal separation from their birth parents.Unlike England there is no National Adoption Register and there are no plans to develop and implement one in Finland, a National Register however, could possibly help in advancing research and practice in a Finnish fr amework. to a fault an Adoption and Permanency Taskforce similar to that of England would be welcomed by many in Finland.Finlands parliament however, have this year voted to give people in same-sex couples who are registered in an official partnership the legal right to adopt the naturally-born child of their partner.(Finnsson, 2009) No further plans to speed up adoptions of looked after children are planned. This is, perhaps, because as suggested earlier of the dominant position Fox Harding again which places an emphasis on family preservation services. There are very few Finnish waiting to be adopted. There are however in contrast, hundreds of couples waiting to adopt a child. There has been some discussion in the media about the incisive frustration of these couples. It may take four or five years to have a child adopted. This has raised the notion of an adoption perseverance which is fed by the child protection system, Regrettably, in many cases, the emphasis has changed from the desire to provide a needy child with a home to that of providing a needy parent with a child. As a result, a whole industry has grown, generating millions of dollars of revenues each year, seeking babies for adoption and charging prospective parents immense fees to process paperwork.(Pragnell, 2008) It is also his view that the interests of the child are now the cause of atrocities committed against children and parents by well-meaning and well-intentioned employees of state and related agencies but whose acts are leading to immense suffering for children.