‘We cannot keep him safe’: the impact of trauma post adoption

By Gillian Elam and Euan Preston, The Potato Group

This research does not present abstract policy or distant academic concerns. It reflects the daily lived experience of adoptive families - families who have opened not only their homes, but their hearts, to children who carry the deep and lasting impact of early trauma.

The findings are stark, but they are familiar to those of us who live this life. They speak to the exhaustion, isolation and relentless advocacy that characterise the parenting of children and young adults who do not respond to conventional strategies, whose needs are routinely misunderstood, and who too often fall through the gaps in the systems meant to support them.

Potato (Parents Of Traumatised Adopted Teenagers Organisation), an online peer-to-peer support group, carried out research into the lived experiences of members in early 2024: 70% of families responded to the survey, representing 438 parents caring for over 700 pre-teens, teenagers and adults. Twenty-three members participated in the qualitative research.

Trauma's long-lasting impact 

Just under half of children (47%) were removed from their birth families in their first year, including a quarter (24%) at birth. At adoption, 15% of children were placed with families aged one and under and a third were one or two years old.

Nearly all children, including adult children, were described as hypervigilant and/or anxious, years after adoption.

Sixty two per cent of children had suspected or diagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but just 31% received medication.

Three-quarters (76%) of children came from birth families with parental alcohol misuse, but only 3% were diagnosed with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder pre-adoption, and 13% post. Yet 65% of all parents agreed that their children’s behaviour had been blamed on their parenting.

Harmful sexualised behaviour is common but unsupported

One in five (20%) children experienced sexual abuse before adoption and over a third (36%) experienced sexual risk and harm after being adopted. Harmful sexualised behaviour occurred in a range of circumstances:

• Familial sexual abuse before adoption;
• Sexualised behaviour between siblings prior to and post adoption;
• Transference of historical sexual abuse to adoptive parents and grandparents, including filial abuse or false allegations;
• Sexual abuse towards siblings post adoption;
• Sexual abuse towards younger people outside the immediate family post adoption;
• Sexual assault from a peer;
• Access to or sharing inappropriate sexual images online and in social media.

The survey data cannot indicate whether prior sexual abuse was more likely among children with subsequent harmful sexualised behaviour or whether there was a vulnerability to harmful sexualised behaviour in this population.

Qualitative accounts indicate that prior sexual abuse was a factor in later harmful sexualised behaviour, but did not explain all such behaviour. Harmful sexualised behaviour was one of the factors in adopted children being accommodated by local authorities under section 20.

One in four families reported that their children were involved in criminalised sexually harmful behaviour. Forty four per cent reported that their children were involved in sexting and 37% reported that their children had underage sex. Thirty four of those families reporting coercive control experienced sexualised forms towards parents or siblings.

While not necessarily involving harmful sexualised behaviour, two-fifths of teenagers, young adults and adults had unhealthy romantic or sexual relationships. A fifth of members joined POTATO due to concerns about their child’s sexual activity and 16% due to concerns about their child being sexually exploited.

Sibling conflict after adoption 

Two-thirds of families adopted more than one child.  Parents adopted siblings, believing the advice they were given, that siblings need to stay together.

Families’ day-to-day experiences indicate that placing siblings together can be harmful for both siblings and families. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of families with more than one child reported sibling-to-sibling violence (qualitative accounts indicate this violence is frequent and at dangerous levels); and 66% could not leave siblings together unsupervised due to the risk of violence.

Two-thirds (66%) of parents of more than one child were refused support for sibling relationships when requested, instead being told “all siblings fight”. 

Children living away from adoptive families

One in four of families’ children are currently or have been parented at a distance while living away from their adoptive families via section 20 voluntary accommodation or a care order. Three-quarters (73%) of all families said they were at risk of having to consider such arrangements now or at some point.

At the cusp of a section 20, teenagers and families found themselves face-to-face with accumulating needs, extreme behaviours and unfamiliar services that varied in their ability to understand and meet this explosion of challenges; in particular safeguarding frameworks were poorly equipped to meet the needs of traumatised adopted teenagers and their families.

Self-harm, exclusions and criminal exploitation

One in four children attempted suicide and 59% self-harmed. Over half (56%) of children had experience of fixed or permanent exclusions from school.

Over a third (36%) of families reported that their children had experienced criminal exploitation. One in 25 of children have been sentenced to prison and 13% of children have been convicted of a crime. A quarter of those experiencing criminal charges were 13 years or under; a third (33%) were aged 14 and 15 years.

Fifty nine per cent of children were reported to have episodes of running away, including periods of going missing and police involvement.

Child to parent abuse and secondary trauma

For the majority of parents, caring for a traumatised teenager and dealing with services had an impact on emotional wellbeing, mental health, secondary trauma and access to life outside the home. Nearly all families experienced verbal abuse and damage to the home from their children. Three out of four families experienced child to parent violence and abuse.