Adoption

Adoption of a child is a very important legal process: it wipes out all previous family ties and obligations, and creates wholly new relationships with the child's new adoptive family. Although known to Roman Law, the concept of adoption is comparatively new to us, and the present law, passed in 1976, is bound to be overhauled soon.

In fact, for various reasons, the number of children adopted has dropped sharply over the last few years. The Government has indicated they wish to make it more easily available and to speed up the court process. True, there are many unnecessary delays, but the importance of adoption, to both child and both families involved, means that a rigorous investigation process is still needed.

A fraught area of the law is step-parent adoptions. These were supposedly outlawed by the Children Act 1975, but some still crept through. The advantages of by-passing the Child Support Agency has made them immensely popular to many families who would prefer to relieve the natural father of a financial obligation while maintaining contact on their own terms. Although such adoptions are in many ways purely private affairs, the legal significance of adoption requires a full investigation by Social Services : which may or may not actually take place.

For the child, adoption may be the best thing possible to secure a safe and stable permanent home : but adopters are not immune to family breakdown, and so they are put under a rigorous examination which some find unduly intrusive.

Meanwhile there has been a greater recognition of the child's rights to information, too late still for some, but the realisation that children need information about their past life now is reflected by the work put into 'life-story books', letterbox contact and the Adoption Contact Register.

 

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