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‘By Listening Hard’: Developing a Service-User Feedback System for Adopted and Fostered Children in Receipt of Mental Health Services
2009 · United Kingdom
Researchers developed ways for junior-school-aged adopted and fostered children receiving psychological therapy to give feedback about the service. Age-specific approaches enabled children to discuss their experiences reflectively. The paper describes methods for obtaining children’s perspectives and their implications for therapeutic practice.
‘I started to feel not ashamed of who I was’: transracially adopted adults and adoption support
2014 · England
Researchers interviewed transracially adopted adults and held a lesbian, gay and bisexual focus group within an adoption-support evaluation. Accounts from 12 adults described what support meant to them and gaps in provision. The paper examines support needs linked to transracial adoption using participants’ own accounts.
‘In Time and in Tune’ — The Fostering Attachments Group: Capturing Sustained Change in Both Caregiver and Child
2010 · United Kingdom research context (sample geography not specified in abstract)
An evaluation of the Fostering Attachments Group assessed foster carers and adopters before, after and three months after participation. Carers reported sustained improvement in understanding children and some perceived behavioural difficulties, including hyperactivity. The study also examined carers’ thinking about children’s mental states.
‘It’s about Gut Instinct’ & ‘Roller Coasters’: Reflexive Thematic Analysis of the Assessing Social Worker’s role in Adoption Matching beyond ‘box-ticking’
2023 · United Kingdom (regional recruitment not established)
Four assessing social workers in one UK local authority were interviewed about adoption matching. Reflexive thematic analysis identified themes concerning use of self beyond written information, emotional tasks, and communication and joint thinking. The analysis describes how professionals understood their role and pressures.
‘People like me don’t have much of a chance in life’: comparing the locus of control of young people in foster care with that of adoptees, children from disadvantaged backgrounds and children in the general population
2017 · England
Secondary analysis of the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England compared adolescents in foster care, adoptees, disadvantaged young people and the general population. Researchers examined questionnaire items measuring perceived control over life. Fostered young people had higher external-control scores than adoptees and the general population, and similar scores to the disadvantaged group.
‘We lacked crucial information about the child’s ethnicity and cultural background…’: Challenging post-racial phantasmagoria and promoting race intentionality in transracial adoption
2026 · England
Co-creation focus groups with 55 participants, including adoptees, social workers and adoptive parents, explored how adoption practice addresses racial and cultural identity. Analysis identified gaps in cultural information and preparation, and the need to consider identity before placement and work with birth families. The authors interpret these findings through a framework examining assumptions that race no longer matters.
‘We need to understand what’s going on because it’s our life’: Using sandboxing to understand children and young people’s everyday conversations about care
2021 · United Kingdom (regional coverage not specified in abstract)
Researchers used a creative method in which care-experienced children and young people made sand scenes to express hopes and fears about conversations concerning their lives. The analysis described children’s wish for warm, open and responsive discussions about difficult aspects of their histories. The paper addresses adoption and care experiences.
‘What happened next’: a study of outcomes for maltreated children following care proceedings
2014 · United Kingdom
Researchers followed children assessed by a multidisciplinary expert service during care proceedings, initially covering 114 children from 49 families. Assessment reports were coded and later compared with carer interviews across birth, adoptive, foster and kinship placements. Average adjustment improved at follow-up, but the initially most concerning group showed little improvement. Many recommended supports were not received.
“Shifting between the internal and external”: Psychoanalytic ways of working with children in local authority care
2021 · United Kingdom
A survey of 215 UK child psychotherapists, interviews with nine consultant psychotherapists and an ethnographic service case study examined work with adopted and looked-after children. The analysis described attention to professional and caregiving networks and tensions between network-focused work and requests for individual child therapy.
“This is a new start for you”: exploring adopted young people’s educational experience and what works well to support their transition to secondary school
2020 · United Kingdom (regional recruitment not established)
This doctorate combines a qualitative literature synthesis with interviews involving three adopted young people and seven adoptive parents. Grounded-theory analysis examined transition to secondary school. The young-person material included the possibility of a fresh start and changes in how adoption was understood alongside relationships and school support.
(De)racializing “common sense”: media perspectives on adoption reform in England
2020 · England
The researcher analysed coverage of adoption reform in five national newspapers and their Sunday counterparts. The study examined how reporting addressed race, ethnicity, identities and family relationships. It found coverage that played down the significance of race while presenting ethnic matching as a threat, and interpreted this pattern through the concept of moral panic.
21st Century Adoptive Families: A Longitudinal Study of Children Raised in Gay Father, Lesbian Mother and Heterosexual Parent Families
2019 · United Kingdom
A UK longitudinal study followed children in gay-father, lesbian-mother and heterosexual-parent adoptive families from ages 3–9 to 10–14. Interviews, observations and questionnaires involved children, parents and teachers. Child adjustment difficulties increased across family types, while children also reported happiness and connectedness. Few differences between family types were found.
5HTT genotype moderates the influence of early institutional deprivation on emotional problems in adolescence: evidence from the English and Romanian Adoptee (ERA) study
2010 · England / Romania (adopted into UK families)
Researchers used ERA data from 125 participants exposed to early institutional deprivation to examine whether variation in the serotonin transporter gene and later stressful events were associated with adolescent emotional problems. Emotional problems were assessed by questionnaire at age 11 and diagnostic interview at age 15. Associations between severe deprivation and emotional problems differed by genotype. Among participants with one genotype, more stressful events were associated with larger increases in emotional problems.
A comparative study of mental health and wellbeing in adopted children, children in foster and kinship care, and the general population
2026 · United Kingdom
Researchers compared young people’s own questionnaire responses in a 2023 survey of Welsh mainstream secondary schools. Analyses included 335 young people in adoptive families, foster and kinship groups and a general-population comparison. The adopted group reported higher emotional and behavioural difficulties and depressive symptoms, and lower wellbeing, than the other groups.
A comparison between a Neuro-Physiological Psychotherapy (NPP) treatment group and a control group for children adopted from care: Support for a neurodevelopmentally informed approach to therapeutic intervention with maltreated children
2019 · England
The study compared adopted children receiving Neuro-Physiological Psychotherapy with children assessed by the service whose families did not take up the recommended treatment. Analyses adjusting for group differences found better reported outcomes in the treatment group in regulation, executive functioning and some mental-health and behavioural measures.
A comparison of parenting stress and children’s internalising, externalising and attachment-related behaviour difficulties in UK adoptive and non-adoptive families
2016 · United Kingdom research context (sample geography not specified in abstract)
An online questionnaire study compared 86 adoptive parents and 167 biological parents of children aged 3–11. Adoptive parents reported more stress and more child difficulties. Reported child difficulties were associated with parenting stress in both groups; many parents reporting substantial difficulties were not receiving services.
A Comparison of the effects of preterm birth and institutional deprivation on child temperament
2020 · United Kingdom; Romania (origin); Germany (comparison cohort)
Researchers compared parent-rated temperament at age six in the ERA study and a German preterm-birth cohort, each with comparison groups. Children exposed to institutional deprivation and those born very preterm both had lower effortful control. Higher activity was observed in the deprivation group, while lower shyness was observed in the preterm group.
A meta-analytic review of parenting interventions in foster care and adoption
2020 · United Kingdom; international
Eight meta-analyses examined parenting interventions and family outcomes, including children’s attachment security, behaviour, cortisol patterns and placement disruption. The review included UK adoption evaluations. Combined findings showed fewer child behaviour problems, but did not establish improvements in attachment security, cortisol patterns or placement stability.
A new look at the supposed risks of early institutional rearing
2018 · International / United Kingdom
This research review compares longitudinal findings from Romania, Greece and Hong Kong/China to examine why outcomes after institutional rearing differ. It considers whether pervasive deprivation, rather than institutional residence alone, explains contrasting findings, and discusses methodological approaches to causal interpretation and changing institutional practices.
A Prospective Study of the Impact of Severe Childhood Deprivation on Brain White Matter in Adult Adoptees: Widespread Localized Reductions in Volume But Unaffected Microstructural Organization
2022 · United Kingdom (regional breakdown not specified)
Researchers used brain imaging to compare 59 young adults adopted into UK families after Romanian institutional care with 20 non-deprived UK controls. They examined the size and internal organisation of brain white-matter pathways. Deprivation was associated with smaller volumes in several local areas, beyond differences in overall brain size. The imaging measures did not show altered microscopic organisation of the pathways studied.