ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of the welfare principle in the modem adoption process. Adoption has become a pivotal sector for all of family law and one which has been functionally distorted by a legislative and judicial requirement that it respond to the pressures and changes characteristic of the family in modem society. The parent or parents to whom the child is bom are the parties with whom an adoption process begins. Blom-Cooper once rightly observed that: the process of adoption is not essentially justiciable; the issues in adoption are hardly susceptible of solution by the application of legal concepts and rules of law. A ‘family’ adoption most usually results from one natural parent simply retaining care and possession after a breakdown in joint parenting arrangements. The long-term residential care option in children’s homes has proved damaging to the welfare interests of thousands of children placed in the care of local authorities by court orders.
