Adoption

Getting it right for each and every child in Scotland in need of care and protection is at the heart of CELCIS's permanence improvement and trauma informed work.

We recognise that what ‘getting it right’ looks like is unique to each child’s developmental needs and personal family circumstances. You can read more about this by exploring our Permanence and Care Excellence (PACE) resource, which centres on developing practice and improvement around permanence decision making.

Graphic - The four routes to permanence - Adoption, Home with parents, Kinship care order and Permanence order.

For a small number of children permanence means legal adoption, which is a deeply significant lifelong decision. Adoption practice demands sensitive holistic assessment, building relationships of trust and lifelong child development informed support for everyone involved, including the child, their parents, their brothers and sisters, practitioners and prospective adoptive families.

Linda Davidson, Permanence Consultant at CELCIS, is Chair of the national Adoption Task Force, which aims to enable and support the development of best adoptive practice for all concerned. More information on the Task Force is available at the link below.

Read more about the Adoption Task Force

Resources

The latest evaluation and research in to adoption has produced a wide variety of reports, articles and statistics. These include: 

Adoption Week Scotland Practitioner Workshop presentations

Watch the presentations from our Practitioner Workshop held during Adoption Week Scotland 2019, including a talk from Richard Rose, Director of Child Trauma Intervention Services, presents on Therapeutic Life Story Work.

Watch the presentations

Towards modernising adoption in Scotland: A focused mapping review (2024)

Read the review

Adoption Barometer report
2024

Read the report

Adoption and permanence planning in Scotland

Read the article

Mapping adoption support in Scotland - Parts one and two

Learn more

 

Latest blog posts

Whose experiences are we relying on to explain what the reality of adoption feels like for adoptees?

Whose experiences are we relying on to explain what the reality of adoption feels like for adoptees?

In this blog post, Dr Polly Cowan, a Practice Manager at Scottish Adoption and Fostering, explains how the organisation’s Young Ambassadors developed a new…

28 November 2024
Developing a new resource to help support adoptive families caring for brothers and sisters

Developing a new resource to help support adoptive families caring for brothers and sisters

In this blog post, Dr Christine Jones, an adoptive parent and researcher who worked to ensure the rights of care experienced brothers and sisters are protected…

27 November 2024
Playing Child

When data tells us the what but not the why

CELCIS’s Data Lead, Micky Anderson, takes a look at the latest social work statistics in Scotland for clues about what is happening in the support for children…

15 May 2024
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“It’s about…believing our own words”: Bringing together the voices of care experienced people

Rebekah Pierre is a care experienced writer, author, social worker, and editor of a new anthology, ‘Free Loaves on Fridays: The Care System As Told By People…

07 May 2024

Other useful resources on adoption

CELCIS publications

Towards modernising adoption in Scotland: A focused mapping review

This review of current adoption legislation, policy and practice considers what works well, what challenges and issues there are, and what factors sho…

Blog

Towards modernising adoption in Scotland: A focused mapping review

This review of current adoption legislation, policy and practice considers what works well, what challenges and issues there are, and what factors sho…

Blog

When data tells us the what but not the why

CELCIS’s Data Lead, Micky Anderson, takes a look at the latest social work statistics in Scotland for clues about what is happening in the support for…