Oxford University research reveals 17,000 out-of-area placements in England can be attributed to the corporate takeover of care

The corporate takeover of children’s care has led to more children moving between short-term, unstable placements far away from their families, according to research.

The Oxford University study – which drew on more than 600,000 care records – revealed 17,000 out-of-area placements in England can be attributed to the outsourcing of care to for-profit providers between 2011 and 2022.

The research, to be published on Monday, also shows growing private involvement in care provision has disrupted the lives of vulnerable children, with higher rates of outsourcing linked to higher rates of placements breaking down within two years, which is regarded as a benchmark of stability by the government.

“Our analysis shows that for-profit outsourcing is consistently associated with more children being placed out of area and placement instability,” said the study’s co-author Dr Anders Bach-Mortensen from Oxford’s Department for Social Policy and Intervention and Roskilde University. “Over the last decade, we see that these outcomes have deteriorated or stagnated while for-profit outsourcing have increased.”

Andrea Eaton officially adopted Maya from orphanage in August 2022; now living in Ghana awaiting citizenship

Nine months after receiving her daughter's official adoption papers from Lagos State in Nigeria, Andrea Eaton of Tillsonburg, Ont., is still waiting to bring her daughter, Maya, home.

It's not an unfamiliar story — Canada has a track record of delaying entry to adopted Nigerian children. It's a problem advocates say is inexcusable and contravenes Canada's international and domestic commitments to children.

"I've missed — we both have — family events, Christmas, my parents have my dogs, my house is vacant," said Eaton who now lives in Accra, Ghana with Maya.

AHMEDABAD: Prachi, 12, was surrendered to the court as a five-year-old by her parents following a family feud. Suffering from TB and a rare skin condition - erythroderma or exfoliative dermatitis - she initially lived in a juvenile foster home for three years and then at Missionaries of Charity facility for five years. As her condition leaves her with blackened skin which is hard like 'scales', she was rejected twice as a child for adoption, said foster home officials.
Prachi, however, got third time lucky when she found her family in Manju Goel, a MD (medicine) from Madison, Wisconsin in the US. Manju is already a single mother to two daughters, both adopted. She will welcome Prachi to her family and is likely to fly back to US this week following completion of formalities. The Ahmedabad regional passport office processed Prachi's passport in a day as a special case, said adoption agency officials.
 

The state child protection officers said that family conditions forced the parents of Prachi to surrender her to the court in 2015 when she was four years old. She was first kept in Shishu Gruh at Paldi and later the NGO's facility for children and adolescents. Officials said that as a child Prachi was diagnosed with a lesion of TB for which she has undergone surgeries twice - once in Civil Hospital and another at a private hospital.

Dimple M, a coordinator at Missionaries of Charity, said that while Prachi's TB is under control, her skin condition, attributed to genetic factors, persists.
Prachi was happy to meet her sister, mother
Dimple M, a coordinator at Missionaries of Charity, said, “The condition requires regular moisturizing to avoid the skin from getting too dry and peel off. As the condition affects the upper layer of skin, it also hampers perspiration. Due to her looks, she could not make many friends. The rejection by prospective parents also hurt her somewhere. But her pain vanished when she got to know about her new family – in the US”. Goel also has an interesting story of her own, said NGO officials. She emigrated to the US as a child and lives across the home of her parents. She never got married, but to fulfill her wish to be a mother, she adopted two girls – one from Mumbai and another from Pune over the past 16 years.
The girls are now 20 and 15 years of age. One of the girls accompanied her to India to complete the formalities of adoption at the NGO. “A medical practitioner, she feels closer to orphan children as her father was a probation officer in one such facility in Delhi. It was a wholesome moment as both Manju and Prachi got a member to complete the family. The family has made special arrangements at the Madison residence to welcome her,” said a social worker at the NGO. “Prachi was so happy to meet her sister and mother. A reserved girl, she enjoys the company of close friends. We’re sure that she’ll grow to her full potential with her family.”

A senior official at Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) official in Gujarat said that children with any health conditions or disability find it difficult to get adopted. “The trend indicates that Indian parents often go for the healthier children. Girls are often the first choice. It is mainly adoptive parents from abroad who choose children that need special care,” said the official.

With her second book 'Love from China', former Balk star Tirza Kingma has written a disarming and honest story about the adoption of her son Wen, his growing up with cleft palate and the trips the family made to China.

In 2010, Kingma traveled to southern China with her husband, their two biological daughters and Kingma's mother to adopt Wen. A year earlier he was born in the vicinity of Kunming, the city of eternal spring. He grew up in Friesland, underwent several operations on his cleft palate and followed an intensive speech therapy program. Wen developed into a cheerful and active boy. In the meantime, the family traveled to China twice more, including for a 'roots trip'.

Cleft palate

In 2014, the family traveled around the world to Thailand, Australia and Hong Kong. Kingma: “Wen was five years old and we wanted to introduce him to his native country in a casual way that was not adoption-related. At home, after a wonderful trip, he said: 'I didn't see anyone with a cleft lip in China.' We had seen that he felt at home in Hong Kong, but we had not realized that he had looked at all the faces so intently.”

Personal book

Another significant amendment in the Rules envisages immediate investigation by the police (Rule 55 A & 57 A) in cases where a child is being used for begging and labour even before registration of an FIR.

The UT administration Saturday notified the Chandigarh Juvenile Justice (Care & Protection of Children) Amendment Rules, 2023 subsequent to the notification of Rules by the Central Government on September 1, 2022.

The provisions laid under the Amended Rules, 2022 have been fully adopted in Chandigarh, the administration added. A senior officer said that the recent amendment in the rules has simplified and strengthened the procedure of child adoption by vesting the powers of taking decisions with the District Magistrate, who is the Deputy Commissioner, for issuing of orders in cases of In-country/Inter-Country/Relative/Step Parent Adoption in order to ensure speedy disposal of such cases.

Previously, the adoption orders were passed by the only District Court as per Juvenile Justice (Care & Protection of Children) Model Rules 2016.

Meanwhile, the amended rules also empowers the District Magistrate along with Additional Deputy Magistrate to monitor the functioning of agencies such as Child Welfare Committee, Juvenile Justice Board and Special Juvenile Police Unit. The said monitoring will ensure that all the agencies are adhering to the norms laid under the Act, subsequently, preventing any kind of violation of provisions of the Act.

Chandigarh: The Chandigarh administration has notified ‘Chandigarh Juvenile Justice (Care & Protection of Children) Amendment Rules, 2023’. The amendment has come subsequent to the notification of Rules by the Union government on September 1, 2022. The provisions laid under amended Rules 2022 have been adopted by the UT.A UT spokesperson said, “The recent amendment in the Rules has simplified and strengthened the procedure of child adoption by vesting the powers in district magistrate (DM) for issuing orders in cases of in-country/inter-country/relative/step parent adoption in order to ensure speedy disposal of cases. Previously, the adoption orders were passed by the district court as per Juvenile Justice (Care & Protection of Children) Model Rules, 2016.”The amended rules also empower the district magistrate along with additional deputy magistrate to monitor the functioning of agencies under the Act such as child welfare committee, Juvenile Justice Board and special juvenile police unit. The said monitoring will ensure that all agencies are adhering to the norms laid under the Act, subsequently, preventing any kind of violation of provisions of the act.Another significant amendment in the Rules envisages immediate investigation by the Police (Rule 55 A & 57 A) in cases where child is being used for begging & labour before registration of an FIR.In addition to the above mentioned amendments, any affected child or anyone connected with the child may file grievance arising out of the functioning of child welfare committee before the district magistrate.

Henk-Jan was adopted by a Dutch family as a baby. Only years later did he hear from Nelleke, the woman who brought him from Indonesia to the Netherlands, that this trip was not completely legal. On the contrary: he was quite lucky both in Jakarta and at Schiphol. 

Henk-Jan (45) : 'When I was nineteen years old, Nelleke contacted me. I hadn't seen her since she brought me to the Netherlands, and I can't remember anything about that trip. I only knew her from the photos I still had. In the late 1970s (when I was born), private adoption agencies were still allowed to carry out adoption mediations, but nowadays this is only allowed through government-appointed organizations. Nelleke – a Dutch expat – ran her own adoption agency from Jakarta. The fact that she found me after all these years is quite amazing, because over the years my first and last name have changed twice. My parents invited her, and we met in the backyard. Here she told me the story about my adoption.

Henk-Jan as a baby, 1978

My adoptive parents were a childless couple from Drenthe. My father Henk was a lieutenant in the Royal Dutch Army, and my mother Robin worked as a nurse and freelance journalist. Before my adoption, they had already tried twice to adopt a child from Taiwan, because friends had also adopted two Taiwanese children. Unfortunately, one died before the adoption was finalized, and in the other case, the birth mother withdrew from the process at the last minute. In addition to the many miscarriages that Henk and Robin previously suffered, these were major disappointments to process. Robin's father had previously served in the Royal Dutch East Indies Army (KNIL) and therefore said that an Indonesian baby might be nice. How lucky for me! So I got the third try.

Scott Lieberman, an American who lives in San Francisco, always knew that he was adopted from Chile. What he did not know was that he had been stolen as an infant.

“I lived 42 years of my life without knowing that I was stolen, not knowing what was happening down in Chile during the 70s and 80s and I just, I want people to know… There are families out there that can still be reunited,” Lieberman said.

During the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-90), many babies were funneled to adoption agencies. Some of the children came from rich families, taken or given up to protect reputations. Other babies from poorer backgrounds were simply stolen – as it appears was the case with Lieberman.

In the last decade, CNN has documented multiple cases of Chilean babies who were stolen at birth. Authorities in the country say priests, nuns, doctors, nurses and others conspired to carry out illegal adoptions, with the main motive being profit.

Eline van der Woude (33) and her husband Sander adopted three sisters from Hungary in one fell swoop. The girls have now been in the Netherlands for 1.5 years. A difficult, time-consuming, but above all valuable process. “Many people ask us if they will stay with us forever.”

Eline shares their story on Instagram and TikTok (@eline.vanderwoude). “It became clear to me that there is still so much unknown about the adoption process ,” she tells LINDA.

MISCARRIAGE

Eline and Sander already have a son together, named Noah (now 10 years old), when the desire for more children arises. “Again I quickly became pregnant. But unfortunately things went wrong after fifteen weeks. Our hearts broke because it was a girl. I always dreamed of one day having a special mother-daughter bond and one day being able to pass on my life lessons as a woman to a daughter. We had never been so sad.” Eline then becomes pregnant twice more, but these pregnancies also end in miscarriage.

During the last pregnancy, Eline had to take pills to induce the miscarriage. While they wait, Eline and her husband watch a documentary about an American couple who adopt three children at the same time. “My heart jumped. I thought: this is it. Then, as I put Noah to bed, I realized that there are millions of children around the world who fall asleep alone, with no one to tell them how loved they are. Every child deserves that,” says Eline. Her husband also thinks adoption would suit them perfectly.

Henk-Jan was adopted by a Dutch family as a baby. Only years later did he hear from Nelleke, the woman who brought him from Indonesia to the Netherlands, that this trip was not completely legal. On the contrary: he was quite lucky both in Jakarta and at Schiphol. 

Henk-Jan (45) : 'When I was nineteen years old, Nelleke contacted me. I hadn't seen her since she brought me to the Netherlands, and I can't remember anything about that trip. I only knew her from the photos I still had. In the late 1970s (when I was born), private adoption agencies were still allowed to carry out adoption mediations, but nowadays this is only allowed through government-appointed organizations. Nelleke – a Dutch expat – ran her own adoption agency from Jakarta. The fact that she found me after all these years is quite amazing, because over the years my first and last name have changed twice. My parents invited her, and we met in the backyard. Here she told me the story about my adoption.

My adoptive parents were a childless couple from Drenthe. My father Henk was a lieutenant in the Royal Dutch Army, and my mother Robin worked as a nurse and freelance journalist. Before my adoption, they had already tried twice to adopt a child from Taiwan, because friends had also adopted two Taiwanese children. Unfortunately, one died before the adoption was finalized, and in the other case, the birth mother withdrew from the process at the last minute. In addition to the many miscarriages that Henk and Robin previously suffered, these were major disappointments to process. Robin's father had previously served in the Royal Dutch East Indies Army (KNIL) and therefore said that an Indonesian baby might be nice. How lucky for me! So I got the third try.

Things got tense for a moment: I got pneumonia, which meant the crossing had to be postponed for a few months. Fortunately, I recovered, so when the time came, Nelleke wanted to make the crossing as quickly as possible so that Henk and Robin would not have to wait any longer. Yet she did not leave with confidence. She suspected that something was missing from my official documents that she needed to identify me during the trip. After all, as a Dutch woman she could not simply board a plane with an Indonesian child that was not her own - even though human smuggling was already taking place on a large scale. Ultimately, she decided to just catch a plane before anyone found out. She knew that I was already the third attempt for Henk and Robin, and she did not want to cause the couple another disappointment.

Miraculously, she cleared customs in Jakarta without any problems and was eventually on the plane. In the meantime, I cried to all the people on the plane, I was inconsolable (I'm sorry, dear people). Just when Nelleke thought she could relax, a flight attendant's voice came over the loudspeaker: 'Does Nelleke want to report to the crew?' Her heart flew into her throat. Had customs been paying attention after all? She decided to keep quiet and looked out the window "unsuspectingly". Not much later, the pilot announced that he had just received a message that he was not allowed to take off. If everyone would sit quietly, and he would soon come up with further news. Half an hour passed and Nelleke was convinced that they were waiting for her outside the plane to pick her up.