There has not been a systematic study of the mental health needs of adopted children in the UK so it's not possible to say what kind of mental health issues adopted children in the UK are likely to have. And we know that we can't generalise from the research in other countries because so few others primarily adopt children within country and from the care system as we do in the UK. So how do we know what treatments are likely to be useful or whether CAMHS are meeting families’ needs?

This paper presents adoptive parents’ concerns about their children's mental health and well-being when the child first moved into the home and currently. Parents reported a wide range of mental health concerns at placement, and in fact the number increased over time [so no evidence of things settling down after three years, for example]. Interestingly, the reported concerns were not dominated by attachment and trauma, but many other things as well.

Many of these concerns were things that CAMHS services ought to be able to help with, so the second part of the paper looks at the experiences these parents had with support services, including CAMHS, but also social services, paediatric services and private voluntary services. A very clear message comes through of very high levels of dissatisfaction with CAMHS, especially around developing a shared understanding of the child's problems - so it seems like something is being lost in translation between how services are understanding parental concerns about their adopted children and what they are getting offered.

To read the full article, click here.