Can Adoption Ever Be Easy?

Christine Campbell always had a vision of a house full of children. So, when she and her husband David found they could not have their own, even after fertility treatment, they decided to adopt not just one but a sibling group of three. “Part of the motivation was that during their teenage years, when they say, ‘You’re not my real mummy and daddy,’ we can say, ‘No, we’re not, but these are your real sisters and brother.’ We were thinking ahead to an extent,” says Christine, who lives in Glasgow.

The children, Sianna, 10, Robbie, eight and Ellie, six – who were adopted aged five, three and two – had had a difficult start in life, Robbie in particular. Sianna was used to “being the wee mum” and it took her some time to “get used to being a little girl again”.

Christine and David’s role has been to build a bond of love and trust with them, and a sense of security and belonging. “We’ve had really tough times,” says Christine, but the children are the couple’s pride and joy. “They have been phenomenal,” she says.

Christine and David adopted with the help of St Margaret’s Children and Family Care Society in Glasgow. Yet it is overseas celebrity adoptions that are currently getting all the coverage.

Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie have been granted temporary custody of a Malawian boy called David Banda, whom they met while visiting the country last week, even though Malawian law states adoptive parents must live there for a year to be assessed. A group of children’s charities have asked a judge to review the adoption amid claims it has been fast-tracked because of the singer’s celebrity.

Barbara Hudson, the director of the British Association of Adoption and Fostering (Scotland), says that at any one time there are 400 children in Scotland awaiting adoption – and coverage of Madonna’s attempt to adopt David doesn’t help. “That gives a distorted view of the process and detracts attention from children in Scotland,” she says. “It is too important to be trivialised, as some of the coverage has done. Adoption is about giving children a future. We want to make people realise that although adoption has changed and it’s about older children often, and children who have links with their family, the process is there to protect some of our most vulnerable children.”

There were 393 adoptions in Scotland in 2004, 239 of them by non-relatives. Efforts have been made to try and widen the pool of potential adopters, with a bill currently going through the Scottish Parliament which would make it possible for unmarried couples, including gay couples, to adopt (currently, only married or single people can do so, and while gay and unmarried couples can raise a child jointly, only one of them is regarded as the legal parent).

As the range of adopters has changed, so has the profile of adopted children, with fewer babies among them. “Lots of children are available, but mainly in the two to seven-year-old age group, and there are a lot of sibling groups too,” says Anne Runciman, principal officer at St Margaret’s. Some of these children have experienced trauma, creating particular challenges for parents. But what many people do not realise is how much support is available to help potential parents make a choice that is right for the child and for them.

Anne McAfee is Practice Manager (Family Placement) at the Scottish Adoption Association, which places children of six and under in families within a 60-mile radius of Edinburgh. “It’s very important that we give accurate information about a child’s needs,” she says.

After an initial meeting, if the adopter wants to proceed, they are invited to fill in a form. Next come the preparatory groups – six sessions over consecutive weeks. They consider the kind of issues children might bring, such as attachment problems, having experienced physical, sexual or emotional abuse or having had parents with drug or alcohol problems. The next stage is “home study”, which is also required by those considering intercountry adoptions. {mospagebreak}

There is no particular expectation of income, but one parent is encouraged to be at home for the first year, to help build up the bond with the child. A report is prepared about the potential parents, who must then go through an approval panel. After that, they can be sent the details of children. Having found a potential match, no meeting takes place until it has been officially approved at a matching panel, involving senior social workers for both child and adults. Then a series of meetings take place, starting in the foster carers’ home. Neither side is committed, even at this stage, but if all goes well, the adoption can quickly proceed.

Dave and Julie adopted their first child, James, in 2002 and baby Helen in 2004, after realising they could not have children of their own. The couple chose the Scottish Adoption Association. They filled in the application form at the beginning of 2001 and preparation classes began in June. They began their home study in September and the approval panel took place in March 2002. By that stage, they had decided on an age range (birth to three years).

“There are a lot of children with different needs and you have to be honest about what needs you feel you can deal with,” says Dave.

Three months after being formally approved, they heard about James, then 22 months. They were given details about him, with no pictures. “Very, very quickly we felt it was right,” says Julie. “We were excited,” says Dave. “There was a real hunger just to speed up time.”

The matching panel went well, clearing the way for the first meeting, which took place at the foster home. “I was excited, nervous, everything,” says Dave. “It felt so right.”

The couple had been told it would take 10 to 14 days with a child of James’s age for him to get used to them, and they were “spot on”, says Julie. Ten days later, after a series of visits, latterly taking place in Dave and Julie’s house, they brought James home. He was just two weeks shy of his second birthday. “That first night was, wow,” says Dave. “We were expecting the new-baby scenario, but he slept for 12 hours.”

The couple ensured James had familiar things around him, such as clothes, toys and bedding, to help him feel secure. Julie slept in his room at first, but he settled in very well. Three years later, they adopted baby Helen, then just four and a half months. The process was quicker and this time all three of them were involved – Dave, Julie and James. Since then they haven’t looked back. Helen is now “a wee chatterbox” while James, in primary two, is doing very well and has lots of friends.
“At first it was ‘Dave and Julie’ James called us, then it was ‘Daddy Dave and Mummy Julie’, and now it’s mummy and daddy,” says Dave. “That’s just the best thing.”

Julie wants to help raise awareness of the possibility of domestic adoption. “I don’t think people are really aware of the numbers of children waiting,” she says.

The process of adopting a child, then, is a carefully managed one, couched all around with safeguards for the protection of the child, and cannot be done in haste. The process of assessment and being approved should take between six and eight months, but it can last longer.

The same is true for overseas adoptions, in spite of what impression might be given by cases involving celebrities. Those planning to adopt overseas must be assessed in the same way as domestic adopters, with home study and approval by a senior social-work panel. Depending on which country they opt for, an adoption agency may be involved at the home study stage.

Margie and David Miles, from Burnside in Glasgow, adopted Poppy from Thailand. “I always thought that, when we were finished having our own children and we were settled in a house, we would adopt,” Margie says. They brought home Poppy a year ago. She had been abandoned by her birth mother. “Since she’s been here she’s gone through a terrific growth spurt and is doing well,” adds Margie.

Christine Lawson is similarly delighted by the experience of being an adoptive mother. “I can’t adequately express the difference sharing our lives with the children has made, even when times are tough,” she says. “We feel extraordinarily blessed by their presence.