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Section 23
Adoption and Parenting

Question 23 | Test | Table of Contents

The educational/illuminative intervention
The ‘educational/illuminative’ approach has been designed specifically for the study with the aim of improving the parents’ understanding of the meaning of the children’s current behaviour. The word ‘illuminative’ is employed because the intention is to throw light on the possible origin of problems rather than to attempt to identify very specific causes. It is accepted that many interacting influences combine to shape the current behaviour.

By contrast with the behavioural intervention, this approach is more ‘historical’: that is, links are made to what is known of the placed child’s history. The amount and accuracy of the information given to adopters can vary considerably. Even when reliable information is given, many unknowns remain and adopters may need help in grasping the significance of the child’s experiences. The intervention is also more social and environmental as it includes the adoptive parents experience with schools, family and friends. It is more theory-driven in some ways in its concern with broken and distorted attachments, with the child’s adaptive and coping mechanisms in the face of adversity, and with aspects of parenting, like capacity for self-reflection, sensitivity and responsiveness. Some of these topics do have a research base, but less has been established on how to intervene effectively to improve ‘understanding’.

Content of the educational/illuminative approach
Session 1 - Getting to know the parents and introducing the programme
Session 2 - Understanding insecurity
Session 3 - Helping parents understand their own reactions to disturbed children’s behaviour
Session 4 - Understanding how ‘bad experiences’ affect learning and behaviour
Session 5 - Understanding how ‘bad’ and broken relationships affect development
Session 6 - Children’s survival strategies and defensive reactions: the outward show
Session 7 - The expression and control of feelings
Session 8 - Understanding how children develop new relationships
Session 9 - Surviving in the wider world
Session 10 - Review and ending.

This approach bears greater resemblance to methods widely used by British social workers, although such work is rarely so formalised. In this case we wanted the intervention to be selective, sequenced and set out in a more structured format. The specialist adoption advisor, when preparing the manual, discussed with the researchers the content of the programme, the style and language thought to be most suited to adopters and how well founded were the educational aspects of the manual. Publications by adoption specialists like Brodzinsky, Lang, & Smith (1995), Keck and Kupecky (1995), Hughes (1998) and Howe (1997) were especially influential in devising the programme.

It is generally thought that if the child’s behaviour can be better understood, problems can be better tolerated, the child can develop trust and allow expression to their positive as well as negative feelings. Reliable knowledge of the major pre-placement circumstances and events in the child’s life should help in enhancing understanding which, in turn, should reduce the parents’ impatience, bewilderment or dashed expectations. They should not just to be able to ‘read’ the child better but to devise parenting strategies more rationally and to consider new approaches if their own methods are failing.

In this intervention, the parent advisors were required to consult the local authority adoption files prior to meeting the parents, in order to brief themselves on the new family and the child’s history. The BAAF Form E records the number of moves the child has experienced and specific incidences in their history. This can be an invaluable tool in aiding the understanding of adoptive parents as to what genetic and biological risk factors and life experiences have had an impact on the child’s current psycho-social functioning. How, for example, has living in chaotic surroundings, or with inconsistent or rejecting parenting or constantly having to adjust to new carers, influenced current behaviour? (Dance, Rushton, & Quinton, 2002).

The role of the parent advisors involved in delivering the educational/illuminative programme is to discuss and reflect together with the parents on how the difficult behaviour might best be interpreted and how parenting strategies and responses might change accordingly. We wanted the advisors to avoid simple explanations linking single events to certain consequences, and instead to emphasise the coping styles frequently shown by abused and neglected children. We noted that, in most cases, it will be useful to see a pattern of behaviour as adaptive in the previous abusive situation (e.g. withdrawal, hyper-vigilance or distractibility). In the new family such behaviour may well be dysfunctional because the emotional and social context has changed. The parent advisors were informed that they should not carry the burden of thinking that they have to produce definitive answers about the specific origin of problems: this will rarely be possible. Research efforts are ongoing to disentangle the relative contribution of adverse factors and their complex combinations. Some difficulties will require much more specialist advice.

Summary
Interventions designed to help parents improve children’s behaviour or attachment difficulties in non-infant adoptive placements have not yet been subject to scientific trials. A number of programmes are being used with adoptive parents but concerns about their effectiveness and cost will inevitably exist while these are untested. The interventions described here are the result of synthesis and modification based on current developments in theory and in parenting research. Both programmes reflect the special circumstances of new adoptive families, in which the parents are not the people who provided the original care environment in which the child’s disturbed behaviour or distorted reactions developed. Both the interventions aim at enabling parents to enhance and adapt their skills to the specific needs of the child who also has to learn new skills, and un-learn old habits that, in other settings, may have been adaptive. The Department of Health (1998) has emphasised the importance of social services basing their practice on ‘the best evidence of what works’. The current study can be seen as a first step in specifying and evaluating the outcomes of two differentiated interventions. However, they cannot be recommended at this stage to practitioners as having proven effectiveness.
- Rushton, Alan, Monck, Elizabeth; Enhancing Adoptive Parenting: Devising Promising Interventions; Child & Adolescent Mental Health; Feb 2006, Vol. 11, Issue 1.

Personal Reflection Exercise #9
The preceding section contained information about the educational/illuminative intervention. Write three case study examples regarding how you might use the content of this section in your practice.

Update
Parenting interventions
to support parent/child attachment
and psychosocial adjustment
in foster and adoptive parents
and children: A systematic review

- Dalgaard,N. T., Filges, T., Viinholt, B. C. A., & Pontoppidan, M. (January 5, 2022). Parenting interventions to support parent/child attachment and psychosocial adjustment in foster and adoptive parents and children: A systematic review. Wiley Online Library, 1-70.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Article References:
Canzi, E., Molgora, S., Fenaroli, V., Rosnati, R., Saita, E., & Ranieri, S. (2019). “Your stress is my stress”: A dyadic study on adoptive and biological first-time parents. Couple and Family Psychology: Research and Practice, 8(4), 197–207.

Díez, M., González, M., & Morgado, B. (2021). Single mothers by choice in Spain: Parenting and psychosocial adjustment in adopted and ART children. Journal of Family Psychology, 35(6), 767–779.

Ludeke, S. G., Gensowski, M., Junge, S. Y., Kirkpatrick, R. M., John, O. P., & Andersen, S. C. (2021). Does parental education influence child educational outcomes? A developmental analysis in a full-population sample and adoptee design. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 120(4), 1074–1090.

QUESTION 23
What is the aim of the educational/illuminative intervention regarding adoption? To select and enter your answer go to Test.

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