The pros and cons of trans-racial adoption

The Government has removed requirement on adoption agencies to consider a child’s racial, cultural and linguistic background; but for many in the adoption world, a good cultural fit is still important

The Gusrdian reports that – If there is one thing that all with an interest in adoption can agree on, it’s the need to tackle unnecessary delays that keep children in care for longer than they need to be. For ministers, one of the key problems has been “politically correct attitudes” that have seen children from ethnic minority backgrounds disadvantaged because a perfectly matched family for life is difficult to find. To this end, legislation was passed last year that removed the requirement on adoption agencies to consider a child’s racial, cultural and linguistic background when a placement is made. Yet for many in the adoption world, a good cultural fit is still an important way of creating a sense of belonging for an adopted child as they grow up and efforts are continuing to increase the pool of black and minority ethnic (BME) would-be adopters.

According to the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF), it is crucial to tackle delays in the system – but it is also important to consider the identity issues that adoption throws up. “We agree that we shouldn’t be delaying adoptions unnecessarily and we agree that you shouldn’t prioritise ethnicity over the other needs of children, but we didn’t agree that it should be deleted,” says BAAF’s BME policy consultant Savita de Sousa. “Trans-racial adoption can have very good outcomes, but one issue keeps cropping up – and that’s a sense of loneliness and isolation, a sense of not belonging. Adoption is a new identity and when you get the added challenges of people asking ‘Why do you look so different?’ you need to think about whether you are meeting the needs of children.”

So how much longer have BME children been waiting for adoption than white children? De Sousa says it is a complex picture, citing a wait of 919 days for an average white British child from entering care to legal adoption, compared with 996 days for those of mixed parentage. Children of Asian background face an average 835 days, but boys of black African descent face the longest wait – 1,302 days.

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