FtSE Member News: Action For Children - Siblings Separated in Care is Rife

Action for Children responds to news that nearly half (49 per cent) of all children currently waiting to be adopted are part of a sibling group.

As National Adoption Week starts this Monday (3 November) the children’s charity, which runs fostering and adoption services, is supporting BAAF[i] to help find loving homes for children. Action for Children, however, also states that the separation of siblings is a huge issue across the care system.

Sir Tony Hawkhead, chief executive of Action for Children said: “Sadly, we know that the separation of siblings is rife across the care system and it is not just children waiting to be adopted; our latest research found that a third of UK children (3,582[ii]) were separated from their brothers and sisters when placed in foster care during the last financial year. 

 “For many children, being taken into care is a confusing and upsetting time; if you add to this the distress of being split up from your brother or sister and the impact lasts a lifetime.

“Nobody wants to separate brothers and sisters, so by arming ourselves with a pool of dedicated people who can provide a loving and caring home to groups of children, whether it’s foster care or adoption we can avoid breaking more young hearts in the future.”

If you are interested in adopting a child, or fostering, please get in touch with Action for Children.

[i] The British Association for Adoption & Fostering – discovered that through a survey of its entire member Local Authorities and Health and Social Care Trusts that 49% of children who are waiting got be adopted is part of a sibling group.  National Adoption Week is BAAF’s annual adoption campaign. The response rate was 53 per cent.

 [ii] Taken from a Freedom of Information request by Action for Children to all local authorities in the UK between April 2013 and March 2014. The request, completed on Friday, 15 August, 2014, discovered that 11,082 children from sibling groups were placed in local authority care and 3,598 children had been separated from their siblings. The response rate was 89 per cent.

Source:
http://www.actionforchildren.org.uk/news/archive/2014/november/national-adoption-week

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