“Adopted children in the United Kingdom”

Abstract

Adoption is a process of providing the deserved rights and basic needs of life to an abandoned child. Adoption is carried out all around the world for the stability of the society and also for providing the social and moral status to the children who are left homeless due to the demise of their birth parents or to the children who cannot live with their birth parents due to abuse or financial problems and many other such reasons. Every community has made child acts and laws for the rights of children depending upon their respective cultures and social factors. The child act for the abandoned children of the United Kingdom is very flexible and realistic and compels the adoptive parents to be careful in providing the adopted children with their basic rights and proper foster care and love. Despite of this fact, many problems have been noticed in the recent past, as discussed in this paper. The act of 2005 provided new provisions, which altered the old act and brought a huge betterment in the child adoption process in the United Kingdom. The different aspects of child adoption in the United Kingdom, the basic issues regarding child adoption, the developments for the betterment of the process and steps taken to rectify the problems associated with adoption are discussed in this paper.

Tale of contents

Abstract1

Thesis statement4

Review of Literature4

History of Adoption4

Middle ages to modern period6

Causes of Adoption8

Who adopts children?9

Child Adoption Laws in the United Kingdom and changes in the laws until 200510

Changes in the child act 198913

Secure attachment and stability14

Protection from harm15

Life changes of children in need15

Court activity15

Concurrent Planning16

Problems Associated With Adoptions17

British citizenship by adoption19

Specific requirements for the parents19

Causes of abandonment of children20

Role of institutional structure22

Legal steps to be followed for adoption23

Facts and figures of adoption in U.K.23

England23

Wales24

Scotland24

Northern Ireland25

Methodology25

Conclusion26

References28

Introduction

Adoption is a process of taking all the social, religious and ethical responsibilities of a child by a couple who are not actually the parents of that child. In adoption, all the rights and responsibilities are permanently transferred to the stepparents from the original parents of the child. Adoption is a system in which the child whose biological parents are not able to take care of, due to financial issues and other, is handed over to a willing family, where the child is taken care of and is provided with all the basic needs. Dissimilar from the other childcare systems, adoption is meant to bring a permanent change in the status of the adopted children legally and religiously and sets up a major responsibility for the stepparents to fulfill all the basic needs and necessities of the adopted child in the light of the social laws. The adopted child is given recognition in the society by the parents and this is considered the basic social need of a child, which has been left of disowned by the original parents. Different communities have different laws regarding the process and responsibilities related to adoption of children. However, many communities have the trend to ...