4.3.10 Criteria for Assessing Adoptive Parents and Foster Carers

Adults who can make and sustain close relationships and have made sense of past relationships (e.g. with their own parents)

Evidence:

Relationships:

• Current close relationships;
• Confiding relationships;
• Capacity to sustain close relationships.

Emotional openness:

• Capacity to be in touch with a range of feelings;
• Capacity to deal with conflict;
• Empathy - the capacity to see things from other people's point of view.

Reflectiveness:

• Capacity to reflect on own childhood and see it in some context, without bitterness or idealisation;
• Capacity to give relevant examples to illustrate generalisations;
• Capacity to make connections between their own experience and what children placed may feel.

Attachment research shows that the sense applicants have made of their experiences and their parents' care of them in their childhood, neither being bitter, nor idealising their childhood - giving a realistic account that includes negatives as well as positives and illustrated with relevant examples, is significant in assessing secure attachment.

For applicants who are married or in a partnership, the strength of their relationship is a key issue, including the relationship's stability, the couple's capacity to communicate openly, to negotiate, deal with conflict, to support each other and also evidence that they are both committed to working together to provide the best outcome for a child placed with them

Evidence:

• The quality of the couple's communication in interviews;
• Their capacity to cope with times of difficulty and stress;
• Their capacity to cope with conflict and how it is managed - e.g. with money / domestic issues;
• Their capacity to support each other and meet each other's needs (e.g. how they have supported each other through infertility (where applicable).

Attachment research indicates that serious losses and other traumas need to be "resolved" in the sense that the applicant has processed them and they are neither an on-going preoccupation nor should they be denied / glossed over

Evidence:

Support Networks

Different people and different communities have different expectations of support networks. In some communities extended families provide almost all the social supports. In other communities, or for other individuals, all their support may come from friends or from church / faith based networks. The important thing is to establish that the applicant does have confiding relationships which have stood the test of time. Adults who do not have satisfying adult relationships are more likely to turn to children to satisfy their needs. This puts unhelpful pressure on children and reverses the roles.

NB: Applicants who are childless may not yet have a network of childcare support, but will need to have the potential to develop one.

Evidence:

Tolerant Social Attitudes / Inclusiveness / Valuing Difference

• Adopters and foster carers need to be tolerant and not possessive. They need to be able to incorporate their child's history and to share it with the child in a generous spirit;
• They also need to have or be able to develop a level of understanding of disadvantaged groups and of difference. Their children are likely to come from families who have experienced extremes of disadvantage. Some capacity to think about their circumstances with understanding is essential;
• Adopters and foster carers need to value Britain as a multi-cultural society and respect different cultures and religions.

Evidence:

• Ability to see other people's point of view;
• Empathy for people from disadvantaged groups;
• Empathy for the position of birth parents (not the same as condoning damaging behaviour);
• Positive valuing of the contribution of different groups to British Society.

Applicants will come from a range of backgrounds and some will have a wider or lesser experience of and contact with people from different backgrounds, cultures, religions etc.