I’m delighted to be working with the inspirational Francesca Polini for the third year running to promote her national campaign for fairer adoptions during National Adoption Week, 5 – 11 November.
She has rebranded her former campaign group, Adoption with Humanity, which it is now known as Adopt a Better Way to avoid confusing those who thought it was an adoption service.
Francesca and her fellow founders, who all adopted from overseas due to bureaucracy in the UK, seeks to inspire and support an adoption system that prioritises the needs of children.
These harrowing figures explain the reasons why:
Approximately half of one per cent (0.5%) of all children in the UK under sixteen is looked after by local authorities.
Compared with the general population, children in care are:
- 10 times more likely to be excluded from school
- 10 times more likely to attend a special school
- 4 times less likely to go on to further education
- 12 times more likely to leave school with no qualifications
- 4 times more likely to be unemployed between the ages of 16 and 24
- 4 times more likely to be pregnant as adolescents
- 60 times more likely to join the ranks of the young homeless
- 50 times more likely to be sent to prison
- 88 times more likely to suffer from mental health problems
Hi, We were having difficulty conceiving and went through both IVF, adoption and caring for ‘problem children’. The adoption path was one of the hardest and longest trials, but even the minding children program required us to do many courses, get police checked, have home visits to check out our house. IN the end, the stress and disruption it caused us was just not worth it. I fully understand that children need to be given to appropriate people, perhaps its a shame that anyone who can conceive naturally easily, dont have any checks at all???