Adoption is often viewed as the happy ending in a child’s journey through trauma and instability, but for many families across the UK, it marks the beginning of a far more complex and challenging chapter. The issue of adoption breakdown — when adopted children leave the family home prematurely — is a crisis that continues to grow, largely hidden from public view and governmental action.
While adoption is intended to offer children a stable, loving home, the reality for many is far more difficult. Once the legal adoption order is signed, families often find themselves alone, navigating a complex web of trauma, behavioural challenges, and inadequate support.
Since being elected, I’ve spoken to parents in my constituency and beyond who share the same story: exhaustion, isolation and a sense of abandonment by the very system meant to support them.
In recent weeks, uncertainty over the future of the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) for 2025/26 has only added to their stress. The adjournment debate I led last week on the issue of adoption breakdown could not have come at a more critical time.
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What is undeniably clear is that post-adoption support in this country is falling short. Accessing services is an uphill battle — families often wait months for help, by which point situations have already escalated. The ASGSF, while a crucial lifeline, is stretched thin. Its limited scope, strict eligibility criteria, and precarious year-by-year renewal make it unreliable at best. For families already at breaking point, that instability can be the tipping point. That is why the fund must be made permanent and reliably accessible — before crisis hits.
The need for better support systems is overwhelming. Adopted children often come from deeply traumatic backgrounds, and the impact of that trauma is long-lasting. According to Adoption UK, 70% of adoptive families report significant emotional and mental health needs in their children. Conditions like foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, ADHD, PTSD, and attachment issues are common, and their manifestations can be severe. These realities underscore just how essential the ASGSF is – and how many families urgently depend on it.
This is all happening in the absence of up-to-date, reliable data. The last government study into adoption disruption was in 2014, estimating breakdown rates between 2% and 9%. Local authorities and regional adoption agencies record cases inconsistently, leading to serious discrepancies. For example, while national averages suggest 0.2 breakdowns per constituency annually, my local authority reported three in my constituency in one year. Without accurate, up-to-date data and a true understanding of the scale of the problem, targeted policies are impossible to implement, and families will only continue to fall through the cracks.
The personal stories that have been shared with me highlight the deeply human cost of a system that isn’t working. One mother told me how her son, after surviving horrific abuse, became violent and unmanageable. Instead of receiving the help they so desperately needed, the family was left to cope alone – until things reached a breaking point and the adoption collapsed. Another family spent ten years together before the pressures of adolescence, trauma, and inadequate school support pushed them past breaking point. Both children returned to care and both parents suffered breakdowns. Despite everything the two families gave, the system failed them.
Tragically, there’s a culture of blame rather than support – where adoptive parents are too often held accountable for challenges far beyond their control. Many have told me they were never fully informed about the extent of their child’s needs. When those needs later surface as complex or difficult behaviours, instead of receiving support, they are met with criticism and suspicion. Advocacy group PATCH has highlighted a troubling trend: local authorities shifting blame onto parents, rather than recognising the trauma driving a child’s struggles.
Adoptive families are not asking for miracles. They are asking for the system to work with them, not against them. They have taken on one of the most selfless and challenging roles in society — offering love and stability to children who have already suffered too much. In return, they deserve support they can rely on — not endless bureaucracy, judgement, or silence.
There is a long road ahead, but change must start now. The government must commit to making the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund permanent, introduce a national statutory post-adoption support policy, and urgently begin collecting accurate, up-to-date data on adoption breakdowns to guide future policy improvements.
Behind every statistic is a real child, and a real family doing their best to heal wounds that others inflicted. As a society, we owe them more than just gratitude — we owe them action. It is time for the government to listen, to learn and to act.
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