Recently added articles from Adoption & Fostering:

Progress at last?(Guest editorial)

Mar 22, 2007; Jackson, Sonia ... I have just moved house and am writing this editorial surrounded by piles of paper, file boxes and tottering heaps of books. Miraculously, from this chaos there emerged an issue of Adoption & Fostering in which appeared my first ever article on the education of children in care (Jackson, ...

Foster care and higher education: Sonia Jackson and Sarah Ajayi report findings from the first UK study of young people in care who go to university. They suggest that foster care could play a major role in enabling more looked after children to access higher education and complete their courses successfully.

Mar 22, 2007; Jackson, Sonia ... It is still an exceptional achievement for a young person in care to go to university. There are no reliable figures but the most optimistic official estimate is that six per cent of care leavers now continue into higher education. This represents an improvement on the one per cent ...

Foster care: a role for social pedagogy?

Mar 22, 2007; Petrie, Pat ... Social pedagogy, still an unfamiliar concept in Britain, is concerned with education in its widest sense, encompassing but going much beyond formal school-based learning. Pat Petrie reports on studies of social pedagogy in four countries conducted at the Thomas Coram Research Unit and ...

Can Scotland achieve more for looked after children?

Mar 22, 2007; Connelly, Graham ... The Learning with Care report (HMI and SWSI, 2001) made seven criticisms in relation to the provision of education for looked after children in Scotland. The most recent report, Looked After Children and Young People: We can and must do better (Scottish Executive, 2007), contains 19 ...

Spare time activities for young people in care: what can they contribute to educational progress?

Mar 22, 2007; Gilligan, Robbie ... Earlier articles by Robbie Gilligan have argued the case for the value of participation in spare time activities for young people in care, in terms of its potential to enhance their resilience (Gilligan, 1999, 2000). Here he focuses specifically on how such participation in spare time ...

Boarding school care.

Mar 22, 2007; Morgan, Roger ... The UK Government is currently piloting and evaluating the possible development and expansion of placement of children in council care in 'mainstream' (other than special) boarding schools, and the establishment of boarding school as one of the range of possible placements to be considered ...

Returning to education after care: protective factors in the development of resilience.

Mar 22, 2007; Mallon, James ... Research to date on the academic performance of looked after children has tended to concentrate on their consistent and significant underachievement compared to the general population of schoolchildren during the school years. However, some people who have been looked after in local ...

Special guardianship: guidance on principles to be applied in deciding between special guardianship and adoption.(England and Wales)

Mar 22, 2007; Cullen, Deborah ... (Note: Judgment in the three cases below was handed down by the Court of Appeal on the same day. Although the court was differently constituted in each case, all the members involved in the cases had contributed to and agreed with the commentary on the statutory provisions and general ...

Special guardianship, local authority report to court under section 14A(8) Children Act 1989: person requiring leave to apply for special guardianship must obtain leave before giving notice to local authority under section 14A(7).(England and Wales)

Mar 22, 2007; Cullen, Deborah ... Re R (a child) Court of Appeal (Thorpe, Tuckey and Wall LJJ) 20 December 2006 [2006] EWCA Civ 1748 R was a child of 15 months who was the subject of care proceedings. It was accepted that the section 31 grounds for a care order were made out, and that the parents were not in a ...

Confidentiality in adoption: local authority's negligence in disclosing name and whereabouts of adopters to birth family.(England and Wales)

Mar 22, 2007; Cullen, Deborah ... B & B v A County Council Court of Appeal (Buxton and Sedley LJJ and Bodey J) 21 November 2006 [2006] EWCA Civ 1388 M was placed for adoption with Mr and Mrs B and their older adopted child at the age of three-and-a-half. She had been removed from her birth parents following ...

Special guardianship report under section 14A(8) need not duplicate material already before the court.(Brief article)

Mar 22, 2007; Cullen, Deborah ... As a follow up to Re S (above) on 14 February 2007, the Court of Appeal held (Re S (No 2) [2007] EWCA Civ 90) that: (a) Where the court was minded to make a special guardianship order of its own motion under section 14A(6)(b) of the Children Act 1989, it could not do so without ...

Availability of competent social worker assessment an essential part of exercise of judicial discretion in care proceedings.(Scotland)(Brief article)

Mar 22, 2007; Cullen, Deborah ... In Re M-H [2006] EWCA 1864 the Court of Appeal allowed an appeal against the making of a final care order and a placement order, and adjourned the case to enable an independent viability assessment of the capacity of an extended family member to be undertaken. The adult concerned, Mr F, ...

Scotland.

Mar 22, 2007; Plumtree, Alexandra ... 1. Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007 As indicated briefly in the last notes, the Bill was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 7 December 2006. Thereafter, the Bill got the Royal Assent on 15 January 2007. The full debate on 7 December is available on the Scottish ...

Article 18 of the adoption (Northern Ireland) Order 1987: the appointment of expert witnesses; and the Children Order Advisory Committee Best Practice Guidance.(Northern Ireland)

Mar 22, 2007; O'Halloran, Kerry ... In the Matter of L (Delay: letter of instruction to expert) The High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland Gillen J Delivered 27 October 2006 This case concerned an application by a Health and Social Services Trust for a freeing order under Article 18 of the Adoption (Northern ...

Infants exposed to fetal teratogens: long-term outcome of infants exposed to neuroactive compounds in utero.(Health notes)

Mar 22, 2007; Preece, P.M. ... Predicting the long-term outcome for infants who have suffered significant harm in early infancy is fraught with pitfalls but we have a responsibility to prospective carers to give them a realistic picture. Infants may suffer a range of insults in the prenatal period and the commonest type ...

News from BAAF.(Newspoints)

Mar 22, 2007; Holmes, David ... David Holmes writes: I am delighted that BAAF is publishing this special edition of Adoption & Fostering focusing on education. It is particularly timely as the education of children in care has increasingly become the subject of interest and attention across the UK. For ...

TES time to care campaign.(Newspoints)(times educational supplement)

Mar 22, 2007 ... In January 2006, the Times Educational Supplement (TES) launched its Time to Care campaign for a better deal for 65,000 children in care. The campaign was a response to shocking figures showing that just one in 16 looked after children left school with five good GCSEs. In the course of the ...

The Frank Buttle Trust Quality Mark.(Newspoints)(Brief article)

Mar 22, 2007 ... The award of the Frank Buttle Trust Quality Mark demonstrates a commitment by higher education institutions to supporting care leavers, by working collaboratively with local authorities to raise aspirations and achievement, to facilitate care leavers through the admissions process, and ...

Measuring Progress: resources from The Who Cares? Trust.(Newspoints)(Brief article)

Mar 22, 2007 ... The Measuring Progress practice materials were developed by The Who Cares? Trust in 2004. The Trust worked with social care and education professionals from local authorities, the independent and the voluntary sector to help local authorities to identify the actual and potential ...

Boosting the achievement of fostered children in Northern Ireland.(Newspoints)(Brief article)

Mar 22, 2007 ... There are 2,500 children and young people in the care system on any given day in Northern Ireland, of whom 1,400 are living with foster families. In a bid to support foster carers to help fostered children achieve their potential, the scheme Fostering Achievement: Supporting foster carers ...