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, and other professionals working with children and families.

Anyone interested in learning about the experiences and perspectives of Black social workers on the subject of identity and the children they work with.

Details

This engaging evidence seminar will focus on how historically, social work practice has not always met Black children’s identity needs. In the 70s, it was standard practice to place Black children in white homes. In 2002, legal policy was amended to emphasise children’s religion, race, and culture in finding permanent homes. However, in 2014 the legal requirement to consider ethnicity was removed, allowing transracial placements.

In this session, we will present the oral history of Black social workers in Britain. We will explore how Black social workers navigated policy shifts on ethnicity and identity in the UK—what were their perceptions of these changes, and how did they experience them in practice?

This project was funded by the National Heritage Lottery Fund and conducted by the University of Coventry.

Learning outcomes

• Hear their voices: Listen to the oral history of 18 Black social workers and their experience navigating a changing policy landscape on identity and the consideration of ethnicity in children’s social care.
• Meeting identity needs: Uncover the professional and personal commitment of Black social workers, who went above and beyond to care for vulnerable children and meet their identity-needs.
• Contribution to social work: Learn about the historic, significant, and often under-recognised contribution of Black, South Asian and other minoritised communities to social work and civil society more widely

About the trainers

Dr Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor

Dr Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor is a 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.

Kusha Anand

Kusha Anand is Research Fellow and Co-Investigator, currently contributing her expertise to two pivotal research projects at the esteemed Centre for Trust, Peace, and Social Relations, located at Coventry University, UK. As a seasoned political sociologist, Kusha’s scholarly pursuits revolve around the nuanced intersections of identity, citizenship, and education. Drawing upon a rich decade of immersive fieldwork experience, Kusha specialises in collaborative and interdisciplinary research initiatives, with a primary focus on ethnic minoritised groups, refugees, and migrants within the UK context. Her commitment extends beyond academic curiosity, delving into a genuine passion for amplifying the voices of individuals from ethnic minoritised groups in the UK.

Dr Jordan Brown

Dr Jordan Brown is a historian specializing in the intersections of gender, political activism, protest, and social history, with a particular focus on economic history and the contributions of marginalized groups. Their PhD explored the often-overlooked roles of women in militant activism during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, challenging traditional narratives about far-right organizations. They have led interdisciplinary research projects, such as the Black Social Workers Heritage Project, where they managed sensitive oral histories and highlighted systemic inequalities. With extensive experience in qualitative research, public engagement, and inclusive teaching, Jordan is committed to fostering critical thinking and diverse perspectives in academia.

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 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, and other professionals working with children and families.

Details

What is known about the well-being of children placed with parents who do not share their racial or ethnic heritage? Additionally, how can social workers assist parents in supporting their child’s ethnic identity and self-esteem while ensuring a thorough assessment process?

“It was very interesting to hear other professional perspective on the issues discussed. It was also beneficial to hear personal stories, to better understand the challenges and also strengths of transracial placements. From this, I have identified ways of which I could improve my practice in the future, particularly in relation to assessment discussions” – Attendee, 2022

Adolescence and emerging adulthood pose unique challenges to developing ethnic identity, particularly for transracial adoptees. We will highlight key findings from international studies on these topics and provide guidelines for practitioners working with transracial adoptive families.

This training aims to use the lived experience of adoptees alongside research findings to understand the challenges for children placed transracially or trans ethnically with adoptive parents and to think about the skills needed in assessment and beyond to assess and support families.

“It addressed the issue from so many perspectives – thinking about assessments, follow up work with families, personal histories and experiences of adopters and adoptees. It made for a very interactive and really interesting seminar” – Attendee, 2022

Learning outcomes

• To learn and understand the challenges to the adoptee of being transracially placed
• To consider key research findings and the value they can bring to understanding
• To explore the key ideas that workers should focus upon in assessment in order to built rigour into the process and ensure the child’s needs remain paramount

About the trainers

Jan Way MBE

Jan has been a social worker since 1975, working in a range of settings including hospitals, local authorities and adoption agencies. For the last 35 years she has worked in the adoption field, specialising in intercountry adoption and working as a senior manager for IAC- The Centre for Adoption. She now acts as the training and research advisor for the agency and as a panel chair. She has published several articles in journals on intercountry adoption and the issues and challenges that arise with these placements and runs specialist training sessions on these topics. In 2019 she was awarded an MBE for her work in intercountry adoption.

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 35, she has two grown up birth daughters.

Lorna Ramsay

Lorna Ramsay is a Senior Practitioner in Adoption Support at IAC. She has over 30 years’ experience of working in both the Adoption and Fostering arena in various leadership positions including the role of Team Manager of a Voluntary Adoption Service. She has extensive experience of family placement work, including writing complex reports /assessments and supporting families and children who have experienced trauma and adversity. In addition, she has supervised student social workers on work placements and worked as a selected panel member on both Local Authority and Voluntary Adoption Agency adoption panels making key decisions about children’s long term future.

Her commitment to children’s positive outcomes is such that she is passionate in taking a trauma informed approach to her direct work with children and she has undertaken her own self-directed learning to expand her knowledge and skills of Child, adolescents & Family Mental wellbeing, and is currently studying psychotherapy with children, young people and families.

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 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

This is an interactive expert-led training session delivered by an experienced trainer and anti-racism practitioner, Esher Williams, founder of Anti-Racism Hub. You will be guided on a journey of understanding how racism is interwoven in or society and how to recognise it. With that foundation, the group will explore how race and ethnicity impact children and young people from their personal identity to racial and generational trauma.

“The course was fantastic from start to finish. I feel this course should be made mandatory within the organisations we work.” – Attendee, 2023

Going on to explore culturally responsive competencies during an assessment. The group will consider the impact of race, ethnicity and culture on adoption practitioners, foster carers, prospective adopters and adoptees. Building an understanding of the ingredients for successful transracial placement, care and parenting. Setting adopters up for long-term success.

“Excellent trainer. Esher was very knowledgeable on the subject matter and made it really interesting. She facilitated the course at just the right pace.” – Attendee, 2023

In this session, attendees will be encouraged to share and grow in a non-judgemental environment where curiosity and humility underpin the learning. Group exercises, discussions, quality resources and real-life examples bring the subject to life. Self-reflection is at the core of this session along with developing practices to strengthen assessment exploration around ethnicity.

Learning outcomes

• Better recognise racism in everyday life
• Understanding collective trauma and generational trauma
• Appreciate the importance of racial identity for all children
• Develop an understanding of the impact of racial trauma on children
•  Understand the impact of ethnicity on adoption assessments
• Explore transracial care and parenting

About the trainer

Esher Williams

Esher is an anti-racism practitioner, educator and the founder of Anti-Racism Hub. Delivering thought-provoking and engaging training Esher is adept at facilitating challenging but essential conversations that build understanding of the complex subject of racism and transracial assessment, placement and parenting. As a late-discovering step-parent adoptee, a transracial adopter and former foster carer Esher has a personal interest and dedication in helping parents, social workers and teachers understand their responsibility in building cultural competency in their role. Ensuring the adults around our children are best prepared to help them build meaningful cultural capital to carry with them and build upon through their lives.

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 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, and other professionals working with children and families.

Details

What is known about the well-being of children placed with parents who do not share their racial or ethnic heritage? Additionally, how can social workers assist parents in supporting their child’s ethnic identity and self-esteem while ensuring a thorough assessment process?

“It was very interesting to hear other professional perspective on the issues discussed. It was also beneficial to hear personal stories, to better understand the challenges and also strengths of transracial placements. From this, I have identified ways of which I could improve my practice in the future, particularly in relation to assessment discussions” – Attendee, 2022

Adolescence and emerging adulthood pose unique challenges to developing ethnic identity, particularly for transracial adoptees. We will highlight key findings from international studies on these topics and provide guidelines for practitioners working with transracial adoptive families.

This training aims to use the lived experience of adoptees alongside research findings to understand the challenges for children placed transracially or trans ethnically with adoptive parents and to think about the skills needed in assessment and beyond to assess and support families.

“It addressed the issue from so many perspectives – thinking about assessments, follow up work with families, personal histories and experiences of adopters and adoptees. It made for a very interactive and really interesting seminar” – Attendee, 2022

The training day will be facilitated by Jan Way MBE who is a social worker, adoption advisor, adoptee and a transracial adoptive parent. Joanna Burnett is a panel member and a transracial adoptee.

Learning outcomes

• To learn and understand the challenges to the adoptee of being transracially placed
• To consider key research findings and the value they can bring to understanding
• To explore the key ideas that workers should focus upon in assessment in order to built rigour into the process and ensure the child’s needs remain paramount

About the trainer

Jan Way MBE

Jan has been a social worker since 1975, working in a range of settings including hospitals, local authorities and adoption agencies. For the last 35 years she has worked in the adoption field, specialising in intercountry adoption and working as a senior manager for IAC- The Centre for Adoption. She now acts as the training and research advisor for the agency and as a panel chair. She has published several articles in journals on intercountry adoption and the issues and challenges that arise with these placements and runs specialist training sessions on these topics. In 2019 she was awarded an MBE for her work in intercountry adoption.

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 35, 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.

Who this is for

Adoption Practitioners, Managers, Social Workers (Voluntary Adoption Agencies, Regional Adoption Agencies and Local Authorities), Children’s Social Workers, Support Workers and Independent Professionals.

Details

This practice webinar will explore current themes around multi-cultural adoption with a view of promoting children being placed in multicultural placements. We will consider barriers at local, national and societal levels in making multi-cultural placements and how these can be overcome.

The webinar will consider best practice in assessing and preparing prospective adopters who are able to care for children of different ethnicities to their own. How to support adopters to develop cultural heritage plans as a way to evidence their skills will be discussed, as well as highlighting tools available to families once they have their child/ren placed.

We will focus on how best to support children to develop a positive identity relating to their cultural background over the course of their childhood and beyond. This will include how to support children where pre-birth information is limited or not known, drawing on research from intercountry adoption for how to help children navigate this lack of information and the impact this has on their sense of self.

This practice webinar will look at the challenges for social workers in preparing and assessing prospective carers who wish to parent transracially or trans-ethnically and provide some tips and ideas for ensuring that any assessment is robust.

We will hear from senior adoption practitioners at Yorkshire Adoption Agency.

Learning outcomes

• To consider barriers to multicultural placements and how each worker and Agency can contribute to overcoming these.
• To develop best practice in assessing and preparing prospective adopters to support multi-cultural placements.
• To gain an increased awareness of cultural heritage plans and how these can be used within assessment, matching and post placement.
• To develop effective tools that support adoptive parents to promote their child/ren’s cultural and ethnic backgrounds.
• To consider how we can support children where little or no pre-birth information is known to develop a strong sense of their cultural and ethnic background.

About the trainer

Sarah Clarke

Sarah is the Team Manager for Training & Adoption Support at the Yorkshire Adoption Agency. She qualified as a Social Worker in 2013 at Manchester Metropolitan University, obtaining an MA in Social Work. Sarah is registered with Social Work England. She has previously worked across two Local Authorities in the fields of Child Protection, Fostering and Adoption. After initially being employed as an Adoption Social Worker at Yorkshire Adoption Agency, she has now been with the team since July 2020 and as a Team Manager since October 2022.

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.