Introduction
It is well known that adoption rates in Scotland are continuing to decline. Scottish adoption policy has quietly shifted focus from the number of children needing adoptive families to the mismatch between the adopters available and the needs of children awaiting adoption, with older children, sibling groups and children with additional support needs waiting longest for a home
A continued decline
The headline trend is that adoption in Scotland is decline. Adoption numbers in Scotland have fallen substantially over recent years, a pattern the Scottish Government's 2024 vision statement candidly acknowledges, noting that while adoption numbers have decreased, it continues to have a place in our society as the right and best form of permanent care for some children. The statement is explicit that the professional adoption workforce itself is under pressure, observing that current workforce pressures, capacity and resource across all the sectors involved in the adoption process can make it difficult to retain and develop the expertise needed to progress adoption in the timescales that are right for the child. That resourcing problem compounds the recruitment problem. Fewer staff capable of preparing, assessing and supporting adopters slows the pipeline through which new adoptive families are found and matched.
What may be driving adopters away?
No single explanation accounts for the shortfall in adopters. It is considered that there may be several compounding pressures which may weigh upon those considering adoption.
The first may be the perceived practical burden of post-adoption contact. Courts are increasingly considering whether children should maintain relationships with birth parents, siblings and others. For prospective adopters, this may appear to be a markedly more demanding undertaking than the closed adoption model many still associate with the past.
The second may be the perceived inadequacy, of post-adoption support. Unlike England and Wales, Scotland lacks a dedicated, ring-fenced national fund for long-term post-adoption therapeutic and mental health support. Further, the Government's own statement acknowledges that current budgetary and workforce pressures can impact on the statutory duty to assess and meet adoption support needs, resulting in inconsistent support, particularly post-adoption and at transition points such as adolescence, and warns that unrecognised needs can increase the risk of adoption breakdown. Recent media coverage has shone a light on the struggles of some families who have chosen to adopt, and their concerns about support available to them. A reputation for breakdown of placements and unsupported families, even if unrepresentative, could be corrosive to recruitment.
The third factor may be the growing visibility of complexity in children's needs, driven significantly by increased awareness and diagnosis of neurodevelopmental conditions. Looked after children have markedly higher rates of ADHD, epilepsy, depression and neurodevelopmental multimorbidity than their peers. Many prospective adopters may feel ill equipped to support those children.
A fourth point, commonly raised by adoption charities, concerns persistent public misconceptions about who is eligible to adopt. Sector commentary reports that false beliefs, for example that single people, unmarried couples, LGBT+ individuals, renters, or older adults cannot adopt, continue to deter otherwise suitable applicants from enquiring at all.
A more speculative but increasingly plausible factor is the long shadow of the historic forced adoption scandal, which has seen increasing scrutiny in recent years. The Government's own account situates the current landscape against mid-twentieth century practices that resulted in newborn babies being unnecessarily taken from unmarried mothers and placed for adoption, practices that prompted a formal national apology from the First Minister in March 2023. As that history receives growing attention through documentary coverage and public testimony, reputational cost to the institution of adoption itself is plausible, even though today's legal and practical realities bear little resemblance to those historic practices. Rebuilding public confidence in adoption as a child-centred process is now, implicitly, part of the recruitment challenge.
The cost of living and associated financial worries are harder to evidence directly, but it sits plausibly alongside these other factors. The practical costs associated with adopting, particularly sibling groups or children with additional needs, are likely a live consideration for prospective adopters when finances are strained.
What is the government trying to do to address this?
The November 2024 vision statement sets out a deliberately practical response, involving re-tendering and funding Scotland's Adoption Register to support family finding, funding National Good Practice in Permanence Guides for practitioners on matching and family time, and a series of conversations with the adoption community on post-adoption support to identify what more is affordable and deliverable. It also commits to continued funding for support services such as the FASD Hub and the Pathways Programme run by Adoption UK (Scotland), aimed at the post-adoption support gap the Government itself has identified as a driver of breakdown and, by extension, of recruitment difficulty.
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