Department of Human Rights: Vive report can be abused politically to justify forced adoption
Vive research helps to stamp out the government's plans for more adoptions as a social measure, but the report's conclusions lack the necessary reservations and nuances, writes Anette Faye Jacobsen, senior researcher at the Department of Human Rights.
Anette Faye Jacobsen
Ph.d. and senior researcher, Department of Human Rights
This post is merely an expression of the writer's own position. All submissions to the Althing must comply with the rules of press ethics.
A new Vive report fits like a glove for politicians who want to lean on science when the Child's Law is to be presented.
The problem is that Vive's report and accompanying fact sheets draw far too one-sided conclusions, which lack the necessary reservations.
Adoption agenda trumps less drastic interventions
The report from Vive is highly topical, because precisely in these months, employees in the Ministry of Social Affairs are working intensely to put the finishing touches on the major reform: the Child's Law.
It has been a top priority in the government since it took office. And increased use of adoptions as a social measure is a key element of the government's agenda. The first proposal for a new law also called for a greatly expanded access to adopt children.
A square message that 'research says' that multiple forced adoptions are the best way to ensure the well-being, development and stability of children of the most vulnerable parents, I find really problematic
Anette Faye Jacobsen , Ph.D. and senior researcher, Department of Human Rights
Since then, it has been modified, but adoption will probably again be one of the crucial themes when the bill is to be considered in the Folketing in the autumn.
The intention of the adoptions is to give vulnerable children a more stable life with better opportunities. But could not less drastic interventions ensure both stability and security for the child without cutting all ties to the biological parents? Unfortunately, such considerations do not seem to have filled anything in the legislative work so far.
Vive report lacks good answers to key questions
And now back to Vive's new report on adoption as a social measure. It is precisely the very current political context that makes me seriously concerned about how the publication can and will be used.
The report itself also proposes to be included as a useful tool in the political process. It is accompanied, as mentioned, by a fact sheet. Here, the main conclusions are presented in short, witty headlines: "Adopted perform better than placed" and "Adoption provides stability."
One has to go far into the subsequent review of the selected literature to reach the many reservations that need to be made if one is to have a true picture of what we actually know from the research.
There is not much research that can say anything about the question that is really relevant in the context of adoption as a social measure: namely how adopted children perform in comparison with children who have been placed for a long time. in a foster family.
When adoption is considered as a social measure, we are dealing with families with extensive and complex problems. Here, the alternative to adoption will pretty much always be a long-term care placement, perhaps childhood out.
The vast majority of the research reviewed in Vive's study does not make this comparison. Reference is made to some very interesting Swedish studies, but they do not provide a basis for concluding as unambiguously and far-reachingly as one would think when one just reads Vive's fact sheet and the report's conclusions.
Where one can most clearly read better results for adoptees in comparison with long-term placement is when measuring on attachment to the labor market. There are also figures that suggest that adoptees receive better education compared to long-term placement.
Risk of square messages
But the comparison has the weakness, which the Swedish researchers also point out that the parental background was generally worse for children who came into care, compared to children who were adopted away.
In comparisons on well-being and social development, the few studies available show no significant differences. The same has been observed when it comes to attachment patterns.
But could not less drastic interventions ensure both stability and security for the child without cutting all ties to the biological parents?
Anette Faye Jacobsen , Ph.D. and senior researcher, Department of Human Rights
There is not much relevant research on stability in placement either. And although the small studies that exist conclude that adoptions are more stable than care placements, there is a significant bias.
The caregivers are typically significantly older at the placement than the adopted ones - and the caregivers are thus already behind this point with this so-called selection bias .
When there is cause for concern about an immediately purely knowledge-gathering report, it is because it will certainly be used as a tool to argue for more forced adoptions against children in vulnerable families. It is already in the draft of the Child's Law.
My point here is not that adoption can never be the right solution for a child. But a square message that 'research says,' that multiple forced adoptions are the best way to ensure the well-being, development and stability of children of the most vulnerable parents, I find really problematic, even almost sinister, when the consequence is a radical break in any bond between a child and its biological parents.
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