Peter Seymour Chair and Finance & Scrutiny committee member Expand How did you become involved with adoption and Adoption UK? My wife and I started our adoption journey in 1996 – a journey that saw us take delivery of a sibling group of four pre-school children in December 1997 and a birth daughter in 2002. A journey that after many years of trying to progress the support we needed for our family via our local authority, eventually brought us to the services provided by Adoption UK. Any specific skills or areas of expertise relevant to the work of Adoption UK? My years of adoptive parent experience (contested adoption, local authority adoption services, life story, school statements/appeals, CAMHS, etc), along with my business experience (12 years with Marks & Spencer followed by the last eight years in a business development role across parliament and government departments) provide a useful mix of practical adoption and business experience and expertise to support Adoption UK. This adoption and business experience is particularly valuable, as it encompasses things that have worked well and things (as they say) that have worked less well. How do you want to see Adoption UK develop over the next five years? I would like to see Adoption UK championing some specific adoption areas on top of its broader agenda (e.g., in education getting “adopted” children included in the same category as “looked after children”) as well as seeing the charity increasing its profile across both the wider population and also government, so that more people are aware of the services that it offers
Mary Greenwood Trustee Expand How did you become involved with adoption and Adoption UK? I applied to become a member of the Adoption UK Board to complement my social work knowledge and practice in respect of children and their families, and to inform my more recent role as independent chair of adoption panels. Having spent over 30 years in children’s social work, both in statutory and independent agencies, I wished to get an informed perspective, both from adopters and adoptees, through the work of Adoption UK. Any specific skills or areas of expertise relevant to the work of Adoption UK? I have more than 30 years’ experience of social work with children, young people and their families both in a statutory and voluntary setting. My chairing of adoption panels is particularly relevant to the work of Adoption UK. I can therefore bring an understanding of social work and agency practice to the Board, whilst being able to influence adoption practice from my learning of the experiences of adopters and their children from Adoption UK’s work. How do you want to see Adoption UK develop over the next five years? I am interested in using adopters’ experiences to inform the process of adoption at all levels, from recruitment and preparation to the challenges of parenting and to explore ways of influencing social work practice to improve the outcomes for adopted children and their parents.
Anita Bharucha Trustee, Vice Chair and Finance & Scrutiny committee member Expand How did you become involved with adoption and Adoption UK? My husband and I started the process of adopting from India in 2009 and finally our baby daughter came home in 2011. Friends recommended Adoption UK to us and we have been able to draw on that support right from the start of our journey, which has been invaluable. Any specific skills or areas of expertise relevant to the work of Adoption UK? I have worked in the civil service for 17 years in the Northern Ireland Office, Cabinet Office, Home Office and Ministry of Justice in a variety of roles dealing with strategy, policy and change. I have senior board level experience within Government and also spent a year on secondment to Marie Curie Cancer Care, leading a programme to improve services to hospice patients and their families. I hope that I can contribute my experience as someone who has recently gone through the adoption process, including a perspective on the issues that may arise for ethnic minority adopters and inter-country adopters. How do you want to see Adoption UK develop over the next five years? I would like to see Adoption UK extending its reach even further over the next five years so that it provides support to more parents and families throughout the adoption journey, increases its influence with decision-makers and raises wider public awareness of adoption issues.
Barry Catchpole Board member, Chair of Finance & Scrutiny committee, Treasurer Expand How did you become involved with Adoption UK? Having seen the advertisement for new trustees, I began to research the subject of adoption and was astonished to learn of the level of inequality suffered by adopted children and their adoptive parents compared to children in care and living with their birth families. I was also disappointed to see how comparatively few children within the care system were given the opportunity of adoption into a loving, caring and stable family environment. I felt my professional background in finance and senior management together with my knowledge of public service at both national and local level could help Adoption UK with their work to improve these issues, and was delighted to be invited to join the Board of Trustees. Any specific skills or areas of expertise relevant to the work of Adoption UK? As a retired accountant I am comfortable with finance issues large and small, and have a strong background in financial planning aimed at supporting an organisation’s strategic plan. Having been a local authority chief executive for over twelve years, I have a wide range of knowledge, skills and experiences which could be helpful especially in the strategic and financial planning together with the campaigning and lobbying aspects of Adoption UK’s work. How do you want to see Adoption UK develop over the next five years? With the coalition government now beginning to prioritise adoption issues within the care system, I would like to see Adoption UK grow to assist many more adopted children and their new families, and also to strengthen its role in influencing legislative changes using its unique bank of knowledge to ensure changes are truly for the benefit of adoptees and adopters.
Eleanor Bradford Trustee, Scotland Expand How did you become involved with adoption and Adoption UK? I was given membership of Adoption UK by my local council when I adopted two boys in 2013. My partner and I were unusual in that we were adopting brothers aged 3 and 7. Sadly, the chances of being adopted decline sharply for children over 5. I found the magazine to be a great source of advice, and also attended a couple of workshops. Shortly after I saw an advert looking for trustees, and applied. Any specific skills or areas of expertise relevant to the work of Adoption UK? I have worked in the media and communications industry for more than 20 years. I spent most of my career as a correspondent with the BBC and have now moved into a communications role with a university. This has given me a good understanding of how the media works, and how the charity can maximise press coverage of important issues. How do you want to see Adoption UK develop over the next five years? My adoption experience was fairly smooth but we still faced many tricky issues such as lying, stealing and toileting problems. Adoption UK already offers a helpline and online forum for advice, but I'd like to see the charity develop a larger online resource of factsheets and information. It would also be great if we could put training videos on our website, for parents to access when it suits them.
Jane Game Trustee and Finance & Scrutiny committee member Expand How did you become involved with adoption and Adoption UK? We began the process of adopting our daughter in 2007. Early on, I became aware of and joined Adoption UK. The adoption process ultimately took over 3 years and the website and bulletin boards were a great support providing additional information and showing me that we were not alone in our experiences. Adoption doesn't finish with placement and through the 4 years our daughter has now been with us, I have continued to value the support that being part of the Adoption UK community provides. Any specific skills or areas of expertise relevant to the work of Adoption UK? I am a chartered accountant with over 25 years experience in practice working with both businesses and charities. In that time I have both advised others on their finances and also run my own business. In latter years, I have concentrated on working with small and medium size organisations where the owners or managers are closely involved in the day to day activities. When I saw that Adoption UK were looking for trustees with financial experience, I was delighted to be able to get involved feeling that the experience I have gained could be put to good use in helping the charity move forward. Working with an organisation whose aims are so close to my heart is a great opportunity. How do you want to see Adoption UK develop over the next five years? Adoption is a lifelong process and I strongly believe that adoptive parents need as much, if not more help, after placement than before it. Yet it can seem that support falls away once a child is placed. Adoption UK have consistently campaigned for ongoing support and have had some significant successes in this area already. I would like to see this campaigning and the direct support that the charity provides to parents continue and grow so that every adoptive parent feels they will have the support they and their child nee
Tony Breslin Trustee Expand How did you become involved with adoption and Adoption UK? My wife, Ann and I adopted our sons, Lewis and Rhys, 12 months ago, a couple of years after registering our interest with St Francis Children’s Society in Milton Keynes. We have been members of Adoption UK throughout the process and have found the organisation’s services and publications invaluable. Adoption has always been something thsat we have been positively disposed towards, not least because I was adopted as a child by wonderful parents. As such, I am acutely aware of the positive impact that adoption can have. Any specific skills or areas of expertise relevant to the work of Adoption UK? I am a teacher by profession and have worked in or around education and youth services throughout my career. For the better part of the last decade I led the Citizenship Foundation, the education and participation charity that led the campaign to establish Citizenship in the National Curriculum in the late 1990s and has played a similar role in sustaining it as a statutory subject following Michael Gove’s recent curriculum review. I now work as a public policy analyst, specialising in education and participation, and hope that I might be able to support Adoption UK in the education sphere and in its efforts to influence public policy. How do you want to see Adoption UK develop over the next five years? I would like to see Adoption UK established as the key authoritative voice at the heart of the national debate that I believe we are now embarked on about the future of adoption, fostering and care, not necessarily having a position on every issue bur certainly having the organisaitonal self-confidence to raise the questions and host the debates. I’d also like us to do as much to tell the positive story about adoption as we do, rightly, in highlighting needs and challenges; sometimes the former gets lost and, when it does, we are all losers.
Katherine Shelton Trustee Expand How did you become involved with adoption and Adoption UK? I became involved in adoption through a multidisciplinary research group based at Cardiff University that was successfully funded to undertake the Wales Adoption Study. The Wales Adoption Study is a national research study that used a mixed-methods approach to examine the characteristics and experiences of a sample of children recently placed for adoption in Wales, to consider the early support needs of adoptive families into which these children were placed, and to better understand what helps such families flourish. The study is now in its fourth year. I became aware of and involved with Adoption UK because Ann Bell is a member of the advisory group for the study. Any specific skills or areas of expertise relevant to the work of Adoption UK? I am a developmental psychologist with core interests in family processes and the relationship with children’s well-being. I am interested in adoption research generally, with specific interests in the mental health and educational experience of children adopted from care. Our research group is currently examining the school performance and experiences of adopted children (led by Andrew Brown) as well as the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACE) and mental health of children post placement (led by Rebecca Anthony). Rebecca is also examining the role of parental expressed emotion about their children in relation to children’s psychological health. I am particularly interested in adoptive family relationship quality, including parent-child, couple and sibling relationships, and the implications of such relationship quality for children’s well-being. How do you want to see Adoption UK develop over the next five years? I would be keen to see Adoption UK champion the need to obtain reliable information about how children adopted from care fare in relation to their psychological well-being, health and education. The capacity to monitor trends or even the most basic outcome data is limited, with consequences for those advocating on behalf of children and families and for those who want to produce useful information relevant to the development of best practice.