13/12/2025
Hundreds tell BBC of adopted children's struggles amid calls for lifelong support - BBC News https://share.google/lTremdrPRRHwQwZA7
Thank you BBC News for bringing the scandal of Adopter Blame into the open.
I am a therapist for 35 years and also an adoptive mother who has experienced persecution, blame and then 9 years of being disregarded and ignored as my adopted son and I tried to complain about the devastating impact this blame has had on our lives.
In the very same week that this story broke I had a complaint made about me to one of my professional bodies Craniosacral Therapy Association UK - CSTA by a professional who was involved in our case 13 years ago when care proceedings had been instigated by City of York Council with false allegations about me. This persecution started during my craniosacral therapy training at Craniosacral Therapy Educational Trust when I asked for respite that had been recommended by my son's therapy provider. Instead of help, the council used North Yorkshire Police to get an emergency protection order against me and get the case into court where they made further false allegations -none of which had ever been tested. The persecution did not let up and my poor child ended up back in the care system for 3.5 years - until I managed to get the case re-assessed by jointly instructed court appointed experts, who recommended immediate reunification and awards for bravery for us surviving retraumatising experiences as a family. But instead of accepting that mistakes were made, we were reunified under a supervision order, which was discharged by the court when pathway planning hadn't been done for my child. We have been left having to absorb injustice ever since.
The professional, who had changed their name, came to see me as a client and didn't realise they had worked on our case. At first I didn't recognise them either. I asked if they had changed their name at the second appointment. When I discovered their identity -having reviewed their involvement with us as a family -which was during the initial harrowing court proceedings (there were four altogether)- I explained that I could not treat them and why. They told me I was behaving unprofessionally. This was a complex dual relationship where our lives had been ruined -and the consequences were devastating for my child. The professional was not acting alone however and there had been a closing of professional ranks from top to bottom with a system goal to replace me with foster care/residential care very much against my child's wishes and mine. By the time the case was referred to Social Work England in 2019 by the General Medical Council there had been so many professionals involved I had lost count. So I complained about the two senior managers who had given me no alternative but court to have dialogue about my son coming home. They were not members of a professional organisation so the case wasn't investigated by Social Work England. The LGO wouldn't investigate either because the matter had been to court and too much time had elapsed. We had never even received an apology when an earlier complaint was partially upheld by the LGO. The DCS therefore agreed to a Learning Review as she was concerned my son was not able to have his voice heard. This hard won Learning Review was cancelled by the next/present DCS. So we are left with injustice.
A major issue is that adoptive families cannot speak openly. The children need, and have a right to, privacy about their history. This is, I believe, one reason it has taken so long for the scandal of Adopter Blame to come out. Another, is the government does not want to deter prospective adopters
Anyway, the complaint against me is not because I wouldn't treat the client -as it would have been inappropriate. It is because I became increasingly upset - and I broke down when I was repeatedly called unprofessional - when giving reasons why I was unable to work with the client. The complainant even said they were considering going to the police about me in their complaint. I am not a criminal. I was a mother seeking help and a therapist - who was trying to explain the distress caused to us as a family.
Sadly, I have written many times to the Chief Constable about our case to no avail after a horrible experience trying to make a complaint about the police. The police complaints process is ethically dubious in my experience -because I found complaints are investigated with no agreed remit and without the complainant's knowledge -so evidence cannot be provided. There is also no proper police investigation when a local authority plays the blame game in adoption. The police just seem to go along with it accepting everything they are told by professionals at face value. It is so hurtful and harmful to be disbelieved and vilified when you are trying to protect your child and access support for them - and then when there was harm done, justice for them.
I wrote to the Director of Children's Services and asked for the Learning Review to be done -explaining that I had received a complaint about me - and since the review had not been done there was still poor understanding about the case. He refused to communicate with me - and said I had broken patient confidentiality -but I had not identified the client and I said it was not their fault. They were one of many. I reminded him that his duty of care was to my son.
I have written to our MP Rachael Maskell about this. I have met Rachael five times -once with my son - and met her predecessor Hugh Bayley twice. I have written to the councillor responsible for children's safeguarding and the head of the council and to the CEO Ian Floyd many times. I am not sure what more Rachael Maskell can do having already written to a previous Home Secretary about the case Priti Patel -and been told to tell us to do what we had already done.
Adopter Blame is not something that started recently. It has been going on for years and years. I tried to draw attention to it through Adoption UK -but found myself excluded from Adopters Voice. So I set up a new group where I was voted as Chair -and we met with the great and the good, sharing our lived experience research. We brought Special Guardians together with Adopters because they were also getting a very raw deal. They are described as the Cinderella's of the care system. I stopped chairing Special Guardians and Adopters Together - Open Page in 2022 to try and have a break from campaigning and to try to make progress with our own family situation and the injustice we are left with. But I have not been able to make any progress. Every avenue is exhausted. I am exhausted. It has been thirteen years of being treated as if I am the problem and then being disregarded as my son's advocate. No complaint made by my son was ever investigated. But now my professional conduct is called into question when I explain how he was harmed. I hope the matter can be swiftly resolved. It is making me acutely aware of double standards and how hard it is for children's voices to be heard
I am a member of two other professional bodies as well as the CSTA. I am a CSTA member because I want to support the professional body which is run by hardworking volunteers. I have been working as a therapist for 35 years and never had a complaint made. I was even responsible for ethics and professional conduct in one of the professional bodies I used to belong to -the Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine.
Adopter Blame is a terrible thing to deal with. It ruins young lives and causes so much distress to the family. It serves no one. The mother in this BBC story talks so movingly about not having a voice and not being heard after her son took his own life.
This shouldn't be happening. What will it take to make it stop?
A charity says the system is “under severe strain” as parents recount addiction and mental health battles.
