‘It broke my heart’: the adopters forced to return their child to care after struggling alone
Victoria Bristow was devastated when she was forced to place her adopted son back into the care of social services in England after years of struggling with little support.“It broke my heart.But my son’s behaviour was unmanageable.He was violent.He would attack his sister, he would attack me, he attacked his grandmother.
He was running away, and I was having to report him as missing – at this point he was only 10 years old,” she said.She adopted two siblings, then aged one and three, in north Derbyshire in 2013 with her former husband.The siblings, who are neurodiverse, came from a traumatic family background and quickly developed challenging behaviour.After years of little support other than “basic parenting courses”, Bristow had to beg social services to accommodate her son, even though medical professionals and the police advised it was the best course of action.“I love my children.
I would walk over hot coals for my children and never, ever have I regretted making them my children,” she said,“I can hate some of the things my son has done but I love him,I want him to be a happy adult with a fulfilled existence, surrounded by family and friends that love him,But at the moment, I can’t get him there on my own,”He is now in a residential placement and getting an enhanced level of support.
Meanwhile, her younger daughter relies heavily on therapy, funded by the Adoption and Guardian Support Fund, which was cut by 40% per child by the government in April, news Bristow found deeply worrying,“That support has been life saving, and I know that sounds dramatic, but it’s really not,Families are held together by this therapeutic work, it is the glue,The NHS just can’t provide it, so there’s nowhere else to turn,” she said,“There’s a lot of talk about recruiting new adopters and that scares me because the system can’t support the adopters that are already in existence.
“How on earth does anybody think that more families can be supported when the families that are already begging for help can’t get it?”Her experience is not unique.The children’s minister, Janet Daby, recently told parliament that 170 – to 180 adopted children return to the care system each year, although she admitted “the figures are not as robust as we would like them to be”.The subject is still something of a taboo – campaigners and adoptive parents are aware that many people in power are reluctant to highlight an issue that may deter much-needed adoptive parents from coming forward.But parents say there is an unacknowledged crisis of poor post-adoption support, and a lack of oversight in what happens when things go wrong.Many adoptive parents said they had been threatened with prosecution for abandonment, or told they risked their other children being taken into care, when asking for their children to be housed by their local authority.
Demand for specialist lawyers is rising, and adoptive parents are more vocally campaigning for better rights and support.Sarah* and her husband adopted a two-year-old boy after she had a hysterectomy in her 20s after struggling with endometriosis.From a young age her son struggled with anger, and began hitting his parents from the age of four.They attended several parenting courses, worked with his school and begged social services for more support.Things deteriorated rapidly after Sarah’s husband died of cancer.
“It got way, way worse because I was dealing with it by myself,It was really hard and my mental health started to really take a nosedive,” she said,Her son was eventually diagnosed with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and as he got older, the violence got worse,“My strongest memory is of lying on my bed and my son literally repeatedly kicking me in the stomach,This was happening on a daily basis and I went to hospital a few times because of my injuries,” she said.
“I just got to the point where I had a complete breakdown and said I can’t do this any more.I was a child protection social worker – professional, responsible, well educated.I really researched everything I possibly could to try to help my son.But my life had just changed beyond recognition.”She first applied through section 20 of the Children’s Act for her local authority to temporarily accommodate her son, before a care order was issued, meaning she now shares parental responsibility with them.
She said the whole experience was “deeply and painfully traumatic” and has left her feeling suicidal,“At first, they said if I went ahead with it then I could be taken to court for abandonment,” she said,Then, during the court proceedings for the care order, she felt she was blamed for what happened to her son,“I know what kind of parent I’ve been and I know how dedicated I’ve been to my son, and it was almost like none of that counted for anything,” she said,Sarah is part of a group called PATCH (Passionate Adopters Targeting Change with Hope) that has swelled to 1,500 members, who all have similar experiences of poor post-adoption support, in many cases leading to an adoption breakdown.
The group’s founder, Fiona Wells, an adopter and social worker, recently wrote to the children’s minister to say that “a 360-degree cycle of unmet need, systemic failure, and significant human cost” was leading to “an increasing number of adopted and post-adopted children returning to care”.The group is calling for “trauma-responsive, recovery-focused planning” that moves away from the “assumption that love is enough” to help adopted children heal.They also want official data to be collected on the number of adoption breakdowns nationwide, a public inquiry into “punitive, blame-based social work practices”, and independent audit panels led by those with lived experience of social care.“The current systemic response to families in crisis – particularly where early life trauma is a factor – is nothing short of scandalous,” Wells said.* Some names have been changed to protect anonymity.
HSBC high street bank staff face bonus cuts over remote working
HSBC has told staff in its UK high street banks that it may cut their bonuses if they do not work in the office frequently enough.The bank told employees at its HSBC UK division, which includes its retail and domestic commercial banking businesses, that anyone who did not spend at least 60% of their time in the office could end up being paid less, according to a report by Bloomberg.It is the latest bank to harden its stance on remote working. In January, the rival bank Barclays ordered all staff to work from the office for at least three days a week, up from a previous requirement of two days. Last year Santander told employees they must be in the office for at least three days a week
Liberty Steel has not produced anything at two key plants since July 2024
Liberty Steel has produced nothing at two of its key UK plants since July, in a sign of the deep financial difficulties for Britain’s third-biggest steelmaker as it looks for rescue funding.The plants at Rotherham in South Yorkshire and Motherwell in Scotland have not produced any steel for about nine months because of a lack of funds to buy vital materials, with staff on furlough on 85% of their salaries for the duration, according to workers who spoke to the Guardian.Steel companies have been struggling for several years. UK steel production fell in 2024 to its lowest since the 1930s, and in the last month the government in effect took over the British Steel blast furnaces at Scunthorpe, amid fears of more than 2,700 job losses and the end of primary steel-making in the UK.Liberty Steel is ultimately owned by Sanjeev Gupta, whose GFG Alliance metals empire is under severe financial pressure across the world after a debt-fuelled expansion spree
OpenAI buys iPhone architect’s startup for $6.4bn
OpenAI is buying an untested startup for $6.4bn, the ChatGPT maker’s biggest acquisition yet. The hardware startup, called io, was founded by Apple design guru Jony Ive, known best as one of the principal architects of the iPhone. Ive and OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, said in a blog post that their partnership has been two years in the making.“A collaboration built upon friendship, curiosity and shared values quickly grew in ambition,” they wrote in the blog post, which offered scant details on upcoming devices
Scattered Spider is focus of NCA inquiry into cyber-attacks against UK retailers
A hacker community known as Scattered Spider is a key suspect in a criminal inquiry into cyber-attacks against UK retailers including Marks & Spencer, detectives have said.Scattered Spider, a loose collective of native English-speaking cybercriminals, has been strongly linked with hacks against M&S, the Co-op and Harrods. M&S said on Wednesday it will take an estimated £300m hit to profits after its systems were hacked last month.The UK’s National Crime Agency, whose remit includes combating cybercrime, said the group was a focus in its investigations.“We are looking at the group that is publicly known as Scattered Spider, but we’ve got a range of different hypotheses and we’ll follow the evidence to get to the offenders,” Paul Foster, the head of the NCA’s national cybercrime unit, told the BBC
Haliburton and Pacers stun Knicks with wild comeback in Game 1 of East finals
The ghosts of Reggie Miller were alive and well at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night – and Tyrese Haliburton once again played the role of Garden villain to perfection.Haliburton tied the game with a wild jumper at the buzzer in regulation, then helped Indiana complete a stunning 14-point comeback in the final three minutes to shock the Knicks 138-135 in overtime in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals.The Pacers now hold a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series after one of the most improbable finishes in recent playoff memory.Trailing 121-107 with under three minutes left in regulation, the Pacers stormed back behind a flurry of Aaron Nesmith three-pointers and timely defensive stops. Haliburton, who finished with 31 points and 11 assists, tied the game with a high-arcing jumper that hit the back of the rim, bounced straight up, and dropped through as time expired
Athletes warn against potential health risks of ‘dangerous, unethical’ Enhanced Games
A group of prominent Australian athletes including former Olympic diver Melissa Wu and Diamonds netballer Natalie Butler (nee Medhurst) has taken aim at the Enhanced Games after the “superhumanity” startup confirmed plans for its first event next year in Las Vegas, where former world champion Dolphin James Magnussen is expected to take part.The inaugural Enhanced Games planned for next May will include medical screening and individualised health profiling for the sprinting, swimming and weightlifting events as well as oversight by independent scientific and ethics boards to address widespread concerns for the safety of those who take part.But Sport Integrity Australia’s six-member Athlete Advisory Group, which also includes rugby sevens representative Ben O’Donnell and gymnast Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva, issued a plea on Thursday for athletes to resist the lure of prize money and recognise their status as role models in society by staying clean.“The normalisation of performance-enhancing drugs promotes doping as entertainment, putting athletes at risk, and devalues the efforts of those who choose to compete clean,” the athlete advisory group said.“We are concerned about the negative role modelling impact on young athletes in particular, and the related health risks of using performance-enhancing substances or methods that may be inadvertently viewed as safe
Layer up: spring fillings for filo pies
Rukmini Iyer’s quick and easy recipe for gildas in carriages | Quick and easy
‘For indulgence, brioche is king’ – the sweet, buttery bread stealing sourdough’s crown
Richard Goodman obituary
How to make the perfect pasta al limone – recipe | Felicity Cloake's How to make the perfect …
The Fat Badger, London W10: ‘A set menu, yes, but a hearty, meat and two veg-type set menu’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants