Historic forced adoption - scoping study: service delivery paper

1. Introduction and context

Historic forced adoption refers to practices across the UK, Ireland, Canada and Australia in the 1950s-1970s “which resulted in newborn babies being unnecessarily taken away from unmarried mothers and placed for adoption, without regard for the mothers' and children's needs or wishes”^[i].

An unknown number of families in Scotland were affected by historic forced adoption. These traumatic experiences had enduring impacts on health and wellbeing. There is a growing movement of advocacy to gain further recognition of, and more support for, the many affected people and a focus by policymakers on how to respond to their needs.

In June 2021, the then First Minister committed to considering the issue of historic forced adoption in Scotland fully. In a significant development, the First Minister formally apologised to people affected by historic forced adoption on behalf of the Scottish Government on 22 March 2023.

The Scottish Government is undertaking a range of thematic work on historic forced adoption, including gathering evidence on experiences of historic forced adoption and a survey of people affected; assessing the services required to meet their needs; and investing in measures to support parents and families affected, such as counselling.

As part of this work, in January 2023, the Scottish Government commissioned The Lines Between (TLB) to conduct a scoping study to explore support services for people affected by historic forced adoption. The study aimed to:

• Identify existing support services in Scotland.
• Understand the guidelines and training materials for GPs and mental health professionals supporting people affected by historic forced adoption practices.
• Engage with people who have lived experience of historic forced adoption in Scotland and gather their views on what new or additional support services are needed.

The research considers the following key questions:

• What services are available for post-adoption support in Scotland, and are these services available and suitable for those who have experienced historic forced adoption?
• What are the relative benefits and weaknesses of these services?
• What are the self-perceived therapeutic needs of those who have experienced historic forced adoption, and how do these needs vary between parents and adoptees?
• What are specific support services required for parents and adoptees?
• What services are available in other countries/regions?

Service delivery paper

The findings of the scoping study are set out in a separate report. This service delivery paper is designed to sit alongside the scoping study report. It identifies critical factors to consider when designing services for people affected by historic forced adoption in Scotland. This is based on the views of people affected by historic forced adoption and stakeholders who took part in our study, their feedback on existing support services, and good practice examples identified through our literature review.

Post-adoption support services

The term ‘post-adoption support services’ is used in this paper to describe organisations that deliver support to people affected by adoption, spanning current or recent adoptions as well as historic cases that form the scope of this study. These organisations include adoption agencies such as Barnardo’s, St Andrew’s, St Margaret’s, and Scottish Adoption & Fostering. We also use this term to describe Adoption UK Scotland and Birthlink, organisations that are not registered adoption agencies but do support people affected by adoption.

Structure

The remainder of the report is structured as follows:

• Chapter 2 summarises the needs and expectations of people affected by historic forced adoption, as detailed in the scoping study report.
• Chapter 3 outlines the overarching considerations for service design.
• Chapter 4 explores support with searching for and reuniting with family members, and accessing records.
• Chapter 5 presents issues to consider when planning emotional and psychological support services.
• Chapter 6 concludes the paper and summarises our suggested next steps for developing support services.