Family Finding and Matching in Adoption: What Helps to Make a Good Match?
Researchers reviewed files for 149 children recommended for adoption in ten local authorities and followed 67 cases through professional and family interviews until six months after placement. Children considered harder to place were deliberately overrepresented. Poorer-rated matches were associated with poorer early outcomes. Understating children’s difficulties and limiting searches to in-house families were associated with matching problems.
Limitations: Observational study with short follow-up and a selected sample. Family and professional accounts are not direct child testimony. Matching ratings cannot establish causation. Shares the family-finding programme with related publications.
- Research type
- Mixed-methods placement follow-up
- Source reviewed
- Abstract
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Age group
- Children
Study context and review
Age group as recorded: children
Adoption context: Adoption from care / permanent family placement
Programme: Adoption Research Initiative: Family Finding and Matching
Institutional context: No relationship identified in the material checked
No adoption-sector organisational relationship identified from metadata reviewed. Funding and conflicts were not comprehensively audited; this is not confirmation of institutional independence.
Bibliographic screening. Bibliographic relationships are not a bias or safety rating.
Topics: adoption from care, adoption system
Review scope: Source checked: Abstract. This does not imply full-text or independent human verification.
Country as recorded: England
- Funding
- Not yet checked for this entry
- Commissioner
- Not yet checked for this entry
- Funder role
- Not yet checked for this entry
- Declared conflicts
- Not yet checked for this entry
- Recruitment
- Not yet checked for this entry
- Adoptee involvement
- Not yet checked for this entry
Entry: study_f07443a1f297d39e