373 babies in care last year – but only 12 were given to parents desperate to adopt

JUST 12 babies were adopted by new families in Scotland last year, despite hundreds being in care. Child-care experts have blamed the situation on red tape, branding the system “slow and bureaucratic”.

Figures obtained by the Sunday Mail reveal 23 babies were officially adopted in 2010 – but 11 of these cases involved a step-parent taking on a partner’s child.

Over the same period, there were 373 children under the age of one in care.

David Holmes, chief executive of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, said: “The system is working for thousands of children across the UK who are adopted every year.

“But we have a significant problem with delays and some children who need adoption aren’t getting it quickly enough or at all.

“We need the adoption system speeded up, to increase the number of adopters and provide more support for adopters once the child has been placed with them.”

Scottish government figures show there were 466 adoptions last year, meanwhile there were 15,708 under-18s in care.

The number of adoptions have risen slightly over the past five years, from 418 in 2006, but are still down dramatically compared to the 1970s and 80s.

In 1970 there were 2040 adoptions and 1400 in 1980.

Stephanie Stone, assistant director for fostering and adoption at Barnardo’s Scotland, said: “There was a period of time where the number of adoptions dropped considerably.

“Some of that was due to birth parents no longer giving up children for adoption.

“There was also a phase where social workers were working extremely hard to keep children at home with their birth parents.

“But over the last few years that has changed again, and social workers are realising much more that they have to make early plans for children and get them placed with adoptive families.

“Unfortunately, the number of young children in Scotland who need adoptive families has increased dramatically. A lot of that has to do with substance misuse and the backlash from the Baby P case.

“Social workers understand much more that if children can’t be safely rehabilitated at home, they have to be placed for adoption quickly in order to minimise the damage.

“We have a huge increase in the number of children that are available for adoption, but we don’t have the upturn in adoptive families coming forward.

“Part of that is because, until a few years ago, we were telling families, ‘If you are only interested in adopting very young children, they aren’t really available.’

“Some families chose to adopt from abroad or just gave up.

“But now the message is we need these families to come forward because there are a lot of very young children from chaotic backgrounds who need adoptive families.”

Tim Parkinson, of the Scottish Association of Social Workers, said: “When a child is born, you have to go through all the procedures to make sure the baby is medically fit for adoption, such as it not having any congenital conditions.

“Then there is the process of making sure the adoptive parents have been assessed and matched.

“If you speed up the system you might makes mistakes and get things wrong.

“It is a once-and-for-all situation.”

The Scottish Government said: “Safe, stable and secure placements provide children with the best chances in life.

“We will do what we can to increase adoption rates and speed up the adoption process.

“In June, we published plans to make significant improvements in the decision-making process for all children in care which keeps the child at the centre of all decisions.”

We were told we’d never get a baby

HERE, one woman who went through the adoption process reveals her anger at the rules and red tape that blocked her way.

I can still remember a social worker telling us bluntly that we’d never be alllowed to adopt a baby.

Why? Because at 45, my husband was considered too old. I was 33.

We’d been told a few years earlier that having our own baby was never going to happen. Yet what this social worker said made me more angry and more upset than any doctor’s verdict.

She told us adoption law states that there cannot be more than 45 years between the oldest parent and the child. Being fit and healthy, a nice home and great family around us apparently didn’t cut the mustard.

It’s no surprise that so few babies are adopted in Scotland. Like us, hundreds of couples would never meet the criteria.

But the statistics for adopting a baby from abroad are rising. You still have to go through the same vetting procedure and you might have to pay, but you will get a baby.

What’s so wrong with wanting a young child you can love and bond with from the beginning of their life?

Seven years on, I now have a son and a daughter, both IVF babies. Becoming a mum just confirmed what I already knew, that I would have loved an adopted baby as much as I love my own children. I just wasn’t given a chance.