Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers

Abstract

A witty newspaper correspondent who had visited East Anglia noted that as many market towns contained attractive residences with names like ‘The Old Rectory’, ‘The Old Forge’ and ‘The Old Mill’, will visitors two centuries hence be passing ‘The Old IT Centre’, ‘The Old Burger Bar’ or even ‘The Old Social Services Office’? A scrutiny of child care history raises a similar question as past policies and practices, even those within living memory, can seem quaint and incomprehensible. As a colleague remarked, ‘It’s like a glimpse at a Sunday School prize.’ Some things seem so strange that one cannot imagine how people ever believed in and pursued them with vigour. Dozens of examples spring to mind: the shipment of children to the colonies, the institutional care of infants, the terms used for disabilities, the public flogging of miscreants, etc. At the time, these practices seemed so ‘normal’ that critics could be dismissed as woolly-minded liberals. Part of the problem was that there was hardly any robust research available on the effects of what was being done and children’s voices were unheard, so evidence could be conjured up to support almost anything. People could ‘believe’ in things irrespective of their relevance or context, just as my grandmother didn’t ‘believe’ in Christmas cards for reasons I never understood. Separating children from their families inevitably engenders strong emotions and this ‘believe in’ perspective has affected many policies in a way that is less apparent in more science-based disciplines, such as medicine. No one ‘believes’ in surgery; it saves your life if you’ve got peritonitis, is irrelevant for dermatitis and is a possible option for a broken wrist. Adoption has been especially vulnerable to this type of debate, which is hardly surprising as it is the most radical action – apart from execution – that can be taken about a child. But recent years have seen something new: the emergence of a body of knowledge developed from a set of independent studies all indicating similar results. There have been reports on disruption, concurrent planning, long-term outcomes for abused and neglected infants and an overview of a major research programme, as well as studies of particular groups of adoptees and those from other countries. Never before has there been so much information. This can only be a good thing. But is it enough? Most of the new evidence is empirical in that it focuses on establishing facts rather than offering theoretical explanations or comparisons of contexts and alternatives. Julie Selwyn and colleagues, for example, answer the perennial question ‘How many adoptions from care disrupt?’ and conclude that the rate is low – between two and nine percent (Selwyn, Wijedasa and Meakings, 2014: 275). This is good news since it suggests that ‘adoption works’ despite all the challenges and heartbreak some parents face. But is this result sufficient for us to ‘believe’ in it and act with confidence?