Speeded up adoption in England, any thoughts...?

Good to see you Robin!  As you know, I try to follow UK's adoption system as much as I can and I admit, I have found the latest reports more than a little alarming, for the same reasons you state:

I'm unclear how speeding up the process and making it easier for those who would otherwise be considered unsuitable is really going to help. But I remain open minded. To me a more stable foster care system where children don't get shuffled between up to 40 different home ought to be the priority, with greater use the Special Guardianship Orders introduced by the previous government in its Adoption and Children Act 2002 an idea that does not seem to have been taken up as it should.

I think the 2009 report, Children in care: how Britain is failing its most vulnerable, gives a fair look at the big pro-adoption word "permanency".   Big word, with lots of connotations.  Note how adoption is supposed to solve the problems related to multiple placements.  But as cases like The Spry children, the Newcombe kids, and one of my personal favs, the girls loaned for sex in Manchester prove, nothing is done to ensure the "permanently" placed children are monitored appropriately and SAFE.  What good is reducing moves, if the final home is where the adopted child meets the worst of all fates?

But if you notice, the requests for reform are PAP-centric, as they often are when reforms are made.

Describing the current process as "more like the Spanish Inquisition in some cases", Loughton said reform was needed to make the system as speedy and rigorous as possible.

"Too many people have contacted me to say look, we wanted to adopt, the process went on for far, far too long and in the end we decided that we'd blow that for a game of soldiers and we gave up. That's crazy when we need more adopters," he said in a BBC interview. 

 [From:  Adoption system changes planned to speed up process, December 22, 2011 ]

I think most PAPs forget there are pedophiles and those with dangerous fanatical religious beliefs approved to foster and adopt.  Children need to be protected from such unsafe freaks.  But who is going to watch out and monitor these children?  Social workers familiar with the foster-adoption system?  And how often are these children and homes going to be checked, if all mandatory SW visits end once the adoption becomes final?

A plaguing problem in both the US and the UK is inappropriate and ineffective social worker intervention and involvement, but try telling this to those both desperate and anxious to adopt.... who also want to be free from unwanted scrutiny and SW supervised visits.

The response from APs often contains the same words and tune --  the adoption process is already too long and too invasive.  Boo hoo.

Add imposed adoption targets and a policy adviser like Mr Let's Put More Children In-Care Narey, (who seems to prefer infants/babies for the adoption-block) we have a system that is doomed to fail more children than it will protect and spare...um,  save(?).... from institutions, like mental health facilities and prisons.  Ironic, given Narey's previous professional position.

Bottom line, I still don't see how adoption itself is going to cure a faulty foster care system, where abuse and neglect is still rampant, and I sure as hell don't see how a more speedy adoption process will fix serious problems that have been allowed to continue.

In the article, Adoption red tape to be removed, posted today (September 18, 2012), children's minister Edward Timpson wants to point to "pointless paperwork that leaves foster carers and adopters "exasperated" ' and states such delays in the adoption process need to be put to an end.

He claims he wants the process related to the permanant (unsupervised) placement to be as hassle-free as possible.

Good news for the likes of adopters who can't wait to be left alone to do as they wish to and with their fostered/adopted children.

See BAAF's most over-looked poster-board examples of quality care <cough, choke, sputter> found in SW approved foster/adoptive home settings found for foundlings in the UK: 

...just to name a few featured on PPL.  [Surely there are more cases that have not reached the media, or this side of the pond.]