Dear Janet,
I am writing to you on behalf of the PATCH community –
Passionate Adopters Targeting Change with Hope
www.ourpatch.org.uk
We are campaigning for change because the current systemic response to families in crisis — particularly where early life trauma is a factor — is nothing short of scandalous. To get this right, we need to listen to those who live it. That’s what this letter and our campaign are about—we want to be heard, so that the problems can be acknowledged, and meaningful changes can be made for better outcomes.
This failure is not only impacting society as a whole, but more urgently, it is failing children.
Children are removed from harmful environments, only to be failed again — a process that is, at best, re-traumatising and, at worst, devastating in its long-term impact.
The consequences are profound:
• Children return to care,
• Enter the justice system,
• Become heavily involved in mental health services,
• And all too often, go on to become parents themselves who also need support from the very same system.
This is a 360-degree cycle of unmet need, systemic failure, and significant human cost. Financial pressures are escalating, and an increasing number of adopted—and post-adopted—children are returning to care due to inadequate planning around trauma-responsive, recovery-focused care.
As an adoptee, an adopter, and a social worker, I believe in the power and the truth of our collective voice. We are right to push for change — not just for ourselves, but for our children’s rights to be prioritised, respected, and protected. They have suffered enough, and the failure is not ours to carry.
As a social worker, I recognise what harm looks like. And I know that you do too — through your work in social care and your role within the community, where you will have seen firsthand how societal inequalities impact children’s lives.
Although this campaign is being driven by adopters, its purpose and urgency go far beyond adoption. It speaks to the lived experience of all parents and carers raising children affected by early trauma — and to every professional who sees the cost of unmet needs in our communities.
Before I share our four core campaign pillars, I ask you to pause and reflect on our core vision:
A system that sees the whole child, values the whole family, and responds with humanity, expertise, and compassion.
The Patch Way: Seeing and Valuing
All families — regardless of how they were built or patched together — must be treated with humanity, dignity, and respect. The lives of our children, and of their families, must be seen, valued, and respected in their entirety, with appropriate focus on all elements of their journeys.
Support must be:
• Trauma-responsive and recovery-focused,
• Empathetic, compassionate, curious, and considered,
• Built on transparent, ethical, and collaborative communication,
• Delivered by practitioners who walk alongside families, not ahead or above them.
These are not words to decorate policy documents. They must be the core principles embedded into every practitioner’s personal and professional compass. Anything less fails the child, the family — and ultimately the practitioner themselves — costing society more than money and losing the opportunity to truly change outcomes.
We, the adopters of the Patch community, are angry and frustrated.
Our children’s trauma — and the profound impact it has had on them — is being ignored.
When challenges or crises arise, we are blamed. When we ask for help, we are met with delays, unaligned and baseless interventions, and little to no input from trauma experts.
Instead of support, we face suspicion. Instead of empathy, we face judgement.
As a result, families fall deeper into crisis, and the harm multiplies — to our children, to ourselves, and to the system meant to support us.
I don’t need to describe what the end result looks like — most of us already know.
But if we must use a word, let it be this: cost.
• Cost to society.
• Cost to individuals.
• Cost to government.
It is not in the government’s interest to ignore the fact that flawed systemic responses to families fundamentally fail children — and the impact is catastrophic.
So I have pulled together the community of PATCH and asked them what they most want from you, our Children’s Minister.
1. Introduce Impact Pathways and Trauma-Responsive, Recovery-Focused Planning –
Implement a change in social care so that there is a more trauma responsive, recovery focused landscape.
What do we mean by this…
Children are removed from their families due to significant harm, yet what happens next often fails to address the real impact of that harm. Whether the trauma occurred in utero or during the critical early years, the long-term effects are not adequately considered, planned for, or treated. Most concerningly, there is no structured recovery or repair plan to help children heal.
Care plans focus on family connections, education, school placements, and physical health, all of which are important. But the most significant factor—the child’s trauma— is largely overlooked. Trauma is not just a part of their experience; it is the defining element that shapes their emotional, social, and psychological well-being. Without intervention, trauma prevents children from thriving, disrupting their ability to form healthy attachments, regulate emotions, and succeed in life.
One of the biggest failings is that trauma symptoms often manifest in the home, directed towards caregivers, rather than in professional settings. As a result, social workers, teachers, and other professionals may never see the full extent of a child’s distress, leading to misjudged assessments and inadequate support. These emotional explosions are dismissed as behavioural issues, rather than recognised as symptoms of deep, unresolved pain.
Another fundamental flaw is the assumption that love is enough. While love is essential, it does not hold the power to heal trauma on its own. Without structured therapeutic intervention, trauma responsive, recovery focused planning, and long-term emotional support, children are expected to “move on” without the tools to actually do so. This means that the very system designed to protect them fails to provide what they truly need to recover. So, what has gone wrong? Trauma is not treated as a priority. Recovery is not built into care plans. Children are left to navigate the aftermath of their experiences alone. Until the care system recognises, prioritises, and actively addresses trauma, we will continue to fail the most vulnerable children in society.
An Impact Pathway should consider and respect the child’s journey. It should help make sense of their experiences, identify their current and future needs, and determine how the adults around them can support their recovery, repair, and ability to thrive. This is not about adoption alone — it should be standard practice for every child who is removed from their family. The process must include oversight from a qualified expert in trauma, neuroscience, or psychology to ensure the right lens is applied. There must be transparency throughout care planning, underpinned by evidence-based interventions. Crucially, this work must be embedded within a framework of multi-agency collaboration, where professionals across sectors in education, health, and social care, work in partnership to ensure cohesive, child-centred support throughout each stage of the pathway.________________________________________
2. Capture the actual real numbers to represent our lives and the lives of other parents and carers.
No Data, No Sight, No Action
What do we mean by this…
Adoption is often portrayed as a stable, lifelong solution for children in care — but for many families, the reality is far more complex. Disruptions, breakdowns, and fractured relationships happen more often than official figures suggest. Yet the absence of transparent, consistent, and national data means we do not know how many families in adoption or permanence are struggling — and without that knowledge, we cannot respond effectively.
No data, no sight, no action. Without recording struggles in adoption and permanence, crises are hidden and solutions are lost. Government cannot fix what it refuses to measure. Families pay the price for systemic blindness.
Currently, pre-Adoption Order breakdowns are often recorded as fostering disruptions and may never enter adoption data. Post-Adoption Order, there is no mandatory follow-up, and changes to children’s ID numbers across social care, education, and health systems make long-term tracking almost impossible.
The result? Families in crisis go unseen, unsupported, and unheard. They are left to navigate trauma, attachment challenges, and complex needs alone, often reaching crisis before any help is offered — if at all.
We cannot build a meaningful, effective adoption support system without evidence. Policymakers continue to shape practice based on assumptions rather than reality. Without formal tracking and joined-up data, even the most committed services cannot meet need.
It is time to act. Disruptions (although this word is not adopter or adoptee friendly), or the process of moving out of the family home prematurely, both before and after legal orders — must be recorded accurately. Follow-up must be embedded in policy. And families must be heard and counted, so the system can learn, improve, and truly support those it was designed to serve.
It is not acceptable for local authorities and regional adoption agencies to continue to quote incomplete and undercalled data that serves their narrative. The most recent government study: “Beyond the Adoption Order: challenges, interventions and adoption disruption”, was completed 11 years ago and even states that “the research team were somewhat concerned that, for the reasons outlined in the methods chapter, there may have been some under-reporting of disruptions by adoption agencies” (reference the “Discussion and recommendations” section pg 270). Yet the 3.2% statistic on disruptions from this report continues to be used as fact.
We need a clear process of ensuring accurate data is collected on disruptions/breakdowns and independently audited. We believe the true picture would be very different.
________________________________________
3. Commission a Public Inquiry into Systemic Failings in Social Work
Families and communities are deeply concerned about the ongoing harm caused by punitive, blame-based social work practices. These approaches have led to family breakdowns, lifelong trauma, and significant societal costs.
What do we mean by this…
We are calling for a fully independent, public, statutory inquiry — a legal investigation that is transparent, listens to families’ lived experiences, and exposes the truth about systemic failures.
Why a public inquiry?
A public, statutory inquiry is a formal investigation, empowered by law, to uncover what’s gone wrong. It compels witnesses to speak, examines systemic practices, and produces an open report accessible to all. Its purpose isn’t just to review — it’s to expose the facts, hold systems to account, and inform real understanding.
This is about safeguarding future generations by uncovering the root causes of harm, addressing public concern, and ensuring accountability.
Request:
We call for a public inquiry to examine social care outcomes in relation to the lived experience of families, with a focus on how social care values and ethics are demonstrated in everyday practice.
The inquiry should explore:
• How current outcomes compare with the ethical values that underpin social care.
• Whether the system truly operates in a way that is child- and family-centered.
• How practice can evolve to be more impact-focused, humane, and responsive to complex trauma.
This inquiry must go beyond data and performance targets. It must ask: Are we treating families with dignity? Are we healing or harming? Are we delivering what children actually need to thrive?
This is being launched as a formal petition and will be shared with all parents and carers effected by social care. The numbers will be staggering due to the negativity publicly for social care.
4. Establish Independent Audit Panels Led by Those with Lived Experience
Too often, local authority culture is shaped by toxic professionalism and punitive bias. Involving individuals with lived experience brings real-world insight into how systems operate and impact families on the ground. This will increase accountability, ethical oversight and align outcomes.
What do we mean by this…
We urge the government to implement independent audit panels composed of parents, carers, and individuals with lived experience of social care. These panels would review care planning, training, complaints handling, information sharing and service development at a local and national level.
Key principles:
• Panel members must be selected independently of local authorities.
• National organisations such as PATCH, FRG (Family Rights Group), AUK (Adoption UK), ARG( Adopter Reference Group), and other family-focused professionals and volunteers should support a fair, transparent selection process, with cross committee consideration not sole to ensure continuous fairness.
• This should be a nationwide initiative, ensuring consistent, accountable, and unbiased oversight across the country.
• Social work practice must be transparent and open, particularly in how placements for fostering and adoption are matched.
These audit panels would offer much-needed accountability and help shape a system that respects and values the perspectives of those it serves.
________________________________________
In a final note –
We do not condemn social workers. They too are impacted by systemic failings. No social worker sets out to be part of a failing system—yet when the system is broken and the culture becomes toxic, a greater force for change is needed. Social Workers built with pre-conceptions, produce poor outcomes and this needs to be part of the past.
We do not blame children. We do not wish to parent from a distance. We want to walk alongside the professionals who support us so that, together, we can lift children into lives where they thrive, achieve, and benefit from a world that is positively shaped to hold space for their recovery and growth.
We do not want our pathways prescribed for us. We want to shape them together. Our lived experiences should guide practice and inform better approaches that lead to improved outcomes for all children, parents, and carers.
The cost of inaction—to individuals and to society—is too great. These changes are not only necessary, but they come at a far lower cost than continuing with the status quo.
We, the members of PATCH look forward to hearing from you,
With hope and kindest regards,
Fiona Wells
The PATCH Steering Group
And All PATCH Members
patch@ourpatch.org.uk
fionawells.patch@gmail.com
www.ourpatch.org.uk