Who this is for

Adoption practitioners and managers (Voluntary Adoption Agencies, Regional Adoption Agencies, Local Authorities, and independent social workers), children’s social care services, children and family social workers, foster carers, kinship carers, designated teachers, and other professionals working with children and families.

Details

Despite the Equality Act 2010 making ‘race’ and ‘religion or belief’ protected characteristics, the Children and Families Act 2014 no longer required English adoption agencies to give ‘due consideration’ to a child’s race, religion or cultural birth heritage.

However, while the legislation may have changed, practitioners are continuing to strive for the most appropriate ways to support the care journeys of children and young people from minoritised backgrounds. This includes them asking how social care systems can further improve to accommodate diversity and identity so minoritised children can be best supported in expressing and understanding their identities.

“Knowledgeable and engaging presenters. Gained real insight in to how to think about working with people of muslim heritage – lots of thoughts provoking ideas about placements, assessments, working with children.” Attendee, 2021

Drawing upon interviews with care-experienced minoritised children and young people on asking and getting help from social workers, foster carers, adopters and other support structures, this training will:

• Explain how an intersectional framing of young people’s identities in care, particularly around the intersections of ethnicity and faith, can improve provision.
• Use case studies based on lived experiences to help understand how children and young people engage with faith whilst in care.
• Explore ways to support young people and children in negotiating transitions and transformations within their faith identities whilst in care.

Learning outcomes

• Greater insights into how looked-after children and young people from minoritised backgrounds perceive, experience and express their ethnicity, religion and identity.
• Identify formal and informal support that aids minoritised children and young people of religious heritage in having positive relationships between themselves, their carers, social workers, and their communities (religious and non-religious).
• Reflect on how to amplify minoritised children and young people’s views so decision-makers and care-providers, including review panels, have a more complex rendering of identity that is shaped directly by children and young people’s voice.

About the trainers

Dr Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor

Sariya is Feminist Sociologist of Religion. She is Assistant Professor and Research Group Lead for Faith and Peaceful Relations at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University, UK. She chairs the Muslims in Britain Research Network (MBRN). Her publications include Muslim Women in Britain: Demystifying the Muslimah (Routledge 2012), Religion or Belief, Discrimination and Equality: Britain in Global Contexts (Bloomsbury 2013) and Islam on Campus: Contested Identities and the Cultures of Higher Education (OUP 2020). She led the first research exploration of the experiences of children of Muslim-heritage in the care system in Britain. She is proud adoptive mother to two children.

Dr Alison Halford

Alison is a Research Fellow at the Centre of Data Science. She is a sociologist of religion, with particular interest in minority religions in the UK. Her work on British women and Mormonism was recently published in the Handbook of Gender and Mormonism (2020).  Before entering academia, Alison worked with families at risk of offending.

Instructions

A member of staff will be in touch with attendees one week prior to the event to share a pre-event delegate pack.

If you have any questions regarding this webinar, please contact us at info@cvaa.org.uk. We will aim to answer your query within two working days.

CVAA accept online payments only. In case you do not have instant access to your company card, we suggest using your personal card instead to book a training event and claim it back with your agency in your expenses. Requesting an invoice to pay for our standard practice events is not possible.

Who this is for

Adoption practitioners, Managers (Voluntary Adoption Agencies, Regional Adoption Agencies and Local Authorities) and Independent Professionals.

Details

What is known about children who are placed with parents who do not reflect their racial or ethnic heritage?  How do they fare long term?

What can social workers help parents do to manage their child’s needs in a way that promotes their heritage and their esteem and how can they ensure that the social work assessment is robust?

The ethnic identity development plays a crucial role in adolescence and emerging adulthood and may be more complex for adoptees who do not share their ethnic identity with their adoptive families. Together with Professor Rosa Rosnati we will explore the findings of her latest research study on Ethnic Identity, Bicultural Identity Integration, and Psychological Well-Being Among Transracial Adoptees. 

We will share some of the main findings stemming from the international empirical studies on these topics and we will outline some guidelines form parents and for social workers and psychologists working in the field of adoption.

We will then bring it all together in the practice part of this evidence seminar which will be facilitated by Jan Way MBE, social worker and adoptive parent. IAC- The Centre for Adoption has a long history of assessing applicants where there is a transethnic/transracial component. This part of the seminar will draw upon their experience, alongside research and input from an adoptee and an adoptive parent who have direct experience of transracial adoption.

About the trainers

Professor Rosa Rosnati, Ph.D., is a Full Professor of Social Psychology in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences; a member of the executive board of the Family Studies and Research University Center; the Director of the biennial Master Course on Adoption and Foster Care in partnership with Istituto degli Innocenti in Florence; a member of the National Observatory on Childhood and Adolescence, 2020-22 (appointed by Minister of Family); and the ICAR7 Chair. Her prevalent research interests mainly explore family relationships; in particular, she has paid great attention to adoptive families with internationally adopted children with a specific focus on ethnic identity, Bicultural Identity Integration, discrimination by peers and intergroup and intragroup contact in adoptive families. On these topics she has authored and co-authored papers in peer reviewed indexed scientific journals and books.

Jan Way MBE has been a social worker since 1975, working in a range of settings including hospitals, local authorities, and adoption agencies. For the last 30 years she has worked in the adoption field, specialising in intercountry adoption, and working as a senior executive for a national adoption agency and charity. In 2019 she was awarded an MBE for her work in intercountry adoption. She now acts as a practice advisor and research lead for the agency. Jan is also an adopted person and an adoptive mother, having adopted a daughter from South America. In addition to her daughter, who is now 33, she has two grown up birth daughters.

Instructions

A member of staff will be in touch with attendees one week prior to the event to share a pre-event delegate pack.

If you have any questions regarding this webinar, please contact us at info@cvaa.org.uk. We will aim to answer your query within two working days.

CVAA accept online payments only. In case you do not have instant access to your company card, we suggest using your personal card instead to book a training event and claim it back with your agency in your expenses. Requesting an invoice to pay for our standard practice events is not possible.