‘But what does that mean for me?’: A project to improve the information given to prospective adopters about a child or young person’s health background and future implications of this

Abstract

The process of adopting a child or young person in the UK often happens through an agency. This can be either a local authority agency (in England, Scotland or Wales), a health and social care trust (in Northern Ireland) or a voluntary adoption agency. As part of this process, every child to be matched with prospective adopters goes through a series of discussions with an adoption panel consisting of independent experts, including social workers and a medical advisor (MA), and decisions are made by an agency decision maker. One of the responsibilities of the MA is to provide a summary (referred to hereafter as the ‘adoption report’) of ‘the state of the child’s health, their health history and any need for