Adopted children also need help breaking the ‘care ceiling’

Adopted children experience many of the same issues in education as children in care, notes Kimberly Clarke

Ten cheers for Floella Benjamin, Civitas and the cross-party group of peers behind the report Breaking the Care Ceiling (Young people leave care, then are hung out to dry. Why don’t we help them get to university instead?, 11 September). However, I would urge them – and anyone who is considering the issues involved – to expand their work to explicitly include adopted children.

There is no doubt that children who are adopted have better outcomes than those who spend a lot of their young lives in care, but it is a widely believed myth that adoption magically erases or reverses the trauma that children have been through, and often continue to experience as they try to make sense of their lives.

Adopted children are 20 times more likely to be excluded from school than their peers. This in itself is evidence that adopted children experience many of the same issues in education as children in care, but often there is an expectation from professionals (educators and others) that they don’t deserve different treatment.
Kimberly Clarke
Exeter