In continuing the Voices Project, we are honored to introduce Dr. Elsbeth Neil, Senior Lecturer at the University of East Anglia, located in Norwich, England. A leader in adoption research, Dr. Neil brings the unique perspective of social work to her work, as she has a Masters degree in social work, and practiced in that field for a number of years before making the jump to adoption research. Her current focus in the study of family relationships, attachment, separation, and loss, and seeks to link; however, she seeks to link the worlds of social work and adoption research as she continues to design and publish her studies.
The organizer and chair of the Second International Conference on Adoption Research, Dr. Neil is a major force in the adoption world, and continues to publish, inspire, and lead others in the field.
I would like to thank Dr. Elsbeth Neil for her participation, and for helping us break down the barriers between research, practice, and the community.
- Quade French
What brought you into the field of adoption research?
My first degree was in psychology and my Masters degree, in social work. Adoption is a topic that brings together various fascinating psychological issues such as loss, identity, attachment but also has practical, ethical and legal consequences. When an opportunity arose to undertake a PhD studentship looking at contact after adoption I therefore grabbed at the chance because this topic draws together so many of my interests from the fields of social work and psychology.
What is the most pressing issue in the field of adoption today?
In the UK context where adoption is primarily used as a permanency option for children in the care system, I think the most pressing issue is getting the balance right between the needs and interests of children, adoptive parents, and birth family members. Overruling birth parents objections to the compulsory adoption of their children is a drastic measure and it is important that this step is only undertaken in the best interests of children, and that the adoption process is conducted in an ethically sound and professionally competent manner.
What do you think adoption will look like 50 years from now?
Adoption is very much shaped by the social context in which it takes place, so in so far as I imagine society might look very different, adoption may also look very different. For example, the rapid development in the use of social networking to establish and maintain social relationships is already impacting on when, how by what means adopted children and their birth relatives can make contact with each other, taking control of this issue away from adoption agencies and putting it in the hands of the people directly concerned.
Where should we be directing our research attention?
There are so many areas that we have only just begun to explore in research and that need to be developed. I think we need more research that hears voice of adopted people themselves. I think we need to understand what adoption means and how it affects birth families in sending countries in inter-country adoptions. I think we need more research to understand how to best help children who have been harmed by early experiences of neglect or abuse.
What are some pressing issues in the area of adoption out of foster care in the United Kingdom?
There are many pressing issues including how to recruit the right parents for children in the care system and how to best support such placements. The issue of birth family contact is constantly on the agenda, and is constantly controversial.
Can you tell us about one major project or area of focus that you are currently involved with?
I have just completed a major study focused on adoption support. We explored the support given to birth relatives when children are adopted from care, and in another branch of the same study, the support that birth families and adoptive families receive to help them maintain direct contact.
What is one research project or publication that you are most proud of, and why?
I'm proud of our recently completed ‘Helping birth families’ study in which we interviewed 73 birth relatives with recent experience of losing a child to adoption through the care system. The reason why I am proud of this study is because we have been able to facilitate the voices of birth relatives in compulsory adoption to be heard. We worked with a group of birth parents as consultants to the research project, and in my view this was instrumental in enabling us to achieve an excellent recruitment of participants into the study, and retention of these participants over our follow-up period. The birth relatives who we interviewed, and the birth relatives who we worked with as consultants to the research process, were all highly motivated to be involved in the project in order to help other people in the same position. The study has just been published, but we hope that it will inform the development of birth relative support services.
What are your thoughts on the current state of the foster care system, and of adoption out of foster care in the UK?
There is some excellent work being undertaken by social workers, foster carers and adoptive parents that is helping children in the UK, but cases where things work out well sadly never get media attention. But the broader context of children social services is in crisis in many places. The profession of social work is under attack - with social workers being blamed on the one hand for failing to protect children adequately, and on the other hand for being too eager to remove children from their birth families. There is a real problem in recruiting and retaining well-qualified and experienced social workers to undertake child care work, especially child protection work. In some places there are high levels of staff vacancies, a lack of experienced staff, and hence a lack of professional expertise and no continuity of care for children and their families. What particularly concerns me is where children who are being placed for adoption have not had a stable social worker. A social worker has a crucial role in ascertaining and communicating the child's wishes and feelings, and in understanding their family relationships and development. It is hard for courts to make the right decisions for example about birth family contact unless somebody can effectively feed in the child's perspective.
What are some key issues surrounding the treatment of birth parents in the UK?
Adoption legislation says that birth parents should be treated fairly, openly and with respect throughout the adoption process. Our interviews with birth relatives in the ‘Helping birth families’ study suggest that many people did not feel this was the case. Although many birth relatives did identify some examples of good practice, on the whole people found the adoption process to be hostile, alienating, shaming and disempowering. Often negative spirals of interaction seem to develop between social services and parents: the extremely high levels of distress parents experienced upon the removal of their child could lead people to behave in ways that were counter-productive to co-operative working (for example dealing with emotional pain by drinking or taking drugs, getting angry and threatening people, or withdrawing and refusing to speak to people). Such behaviors could lead parents to be seen as uncooperative and unreliable and they would then become excluded from important decision-making forums, this in turn making them more angry and distressed.
Birth parents have the right to be offered an independent support worker who is not the child social worker from the point at which adoption is identified as the plan. This is an excellent legislative move which recognizes the conflict-of-interest that arises between parents and the local authority, when the local authority makes a plan for a child to be adopted. However, our study found that these independent support services are not always made known to birth relatives, or are not taken up because of the distrust that people feel of professional agencies. But people who did use independent support services were almost overwhelmingly positive about their value.
What recommendations would you have to policy makers in regards to the state of adoption from foster care in the UK?
Adoption policy in the UK has recently been overhauled, and is in my view in reasonable shape. It is the implementation and interpretation of the policy that is sometimes at issue, and this comes down to effective professional practice. I therefore think that the government needs to invest more in children's social services and in social work. Unfortunately in this time of economic cuts the opposite is likely to happen.
What is one question about adoption that you are asked most frequently, and how do you respond?
I am most frequently asked questions about whether children should or should not have direct contact with birth relatives after adoption. My answer is always the same – that it depends on the individual circumstances of the case. I think that research has now illuminated many of the circumstances that contribute to contact working or not working, and I try to give people a sense of what factors they need to take into account when making decisions about contact.
What are the most pressing issues facing your country in regards to the future of adoption and adoption research?
Like other countries, we are facing a period of unprecedented economic cuts in the public sector. This is likely to have an impact on both adoption research and adoption practice, but how and to what extent remains to be seen.
From your perspective, what is the prevailing social attitude towards transracial, inter-country adoptions in your country, and why is it that way?
I'm not sure that I know what the attitude of society is, and I'm sure it's very varied. There are few transracial inter-country adoptions in the UK-probably less than 300 year. So it would be fair to say that inter-country adoption is not something that has really ‘caught on’ in the UK. Why this is, is hard to say. Maybe it is because of the emphasis on adoption as a service for British children in need of new families. In contrast, inter-country adoption can be portrayed more as a service for couples wanting to adopt.
And towards domestic adoption?
I'm not sure that the general public really understands what adoption looks like in 2010, and many people still think it's about relinquished babies. Amongst those who are aware that adoption concerns children from the care system, I would imagine that many people would feel sympathetic towards this as a way of ‘rescuing’ children from ‘bad parents’ and giving them a ‘fresh start’ with new parents. As such, I think there is little public understanding of the reasons for post-adoption contact between children and their birth relatives and I think there is very little public sympathy and support for the birth families of children adopted from care.