ABSTRACT
This chapter is all about the importance of continuity of care, a quality that adoptive parents say they most appreciate from professionals. The author shows how change affects families and how change and loss deeply affect the adopted child. Many families are repeatedly expected to establish new relationships with professionals, such as their social workers, who come and go. Roy explains how getting to know and trust a professional who then leaves can be destabilizing for a family, whereas a commitment to providing continuity for families, a model developed in East Sussex, helps to prevent the experience of loss being replicated. She argues that the “hard to put into words” feelings, which may relate to loss and uncertainty, can be the ones that cause the difficulty for families.
Roy advocates developing an adoption support model that invests in families for the longer term and shows how this approach can improve relationships and the life chances for adopted children while also saving the state time and money. She adds that emotional investment can happen when professionals know their families well enough to be able to intercept and prevent a crisis or, at the very least, provide them with a “safety harness” to minimize the risks.
