Trust v Law: Promoting and Safeguarding Post‐Adoption Contact

Abstract

For adopted children, arrangements are increasingly made for some form of continuing contact between adoptive and birth families. Supporters of such post‐adoption contact argue that it is so important for children's long‐term well‐being that legislation and judicial intervention should act to promote and enforce contact arrangements. Although legislation (Adoption and Children Act 2002) directs courts to consider contact before making a placement or adoption order, there has been longstanding judicial resistance to interfering with adoptive parents' autonomy in making decisions about their children's best interests. An alternative approach to agreeing and maintaining contact, which is experienced as beneficial by those involved, suggests that trust rather than law should play a central role in securing contact arrangements. In this article, I argue that post‐adoption contact incorporates complex moral, motivational and relationship issues that require explicit attention to trust and to ways of enhancing trusting relationships between birth and adoptive families.