ABSTRACT
The profile of children who are being adopted has changed over recent years; children are now increasingly adopted at an older age, often with some form of contact with members of their birth family (Rushton 2003b; Scott and Lindsey 2003). They are likely to have been looked after within the care system, undergone several moves of placement once they have left their birth family and may have established close ties with foster carers whom they have to leave to join their adoptive family. The ethnic and cultural backgrounds of children being adopted is now much more diverse, and black and minority ethnic children may not be placed with a family of a similar background.
