Learning from ICAR8 - Global insights, identity, development, and support

The International Conference on Adoption Research (ICAR-8) is devoted to ensuring permanent nurturing family care for every child. Held in Minneapolis at the University of Minnesota in July 2024, this conference brought together cross-disciplinary researchers and practitioners from across the globe to discuss ideas, innovation and information, together with best-practice and contemporary evidence in adoption.

In this session, we will be joined by a diverse team of specialists to discuss some of the learning from the ICAR-8 conference and how this can apply to the children and families sector here in the UK.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Global perspective on adoption: Learn about the current research base and best practice internationally and how this fits in with your practice.
Meeting identity needs: Discuss meeting the identity needs of adopted children including in relation to diversity and transracial placement.
Child and adolescent development: Explore brain development through early childhood and adolescence.
Supporting adult adopters: Best practice and process in supporting adults including through post adoption support.

PRESENTERS

Satwinder Sandhu, Chief Executive Officer, Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies (CVAA)

Satwinder is a leader in the adoption sector, influencing national and international practice and policy. He is a qualified social worker with almost thirty-years of work experience in adoption, fostering and children in public care. Satwinder is passionate about how adoption needs to modernise and focussing this evolution on the needs, and experiences, of adopted people. At Changing Script he is also involved in driving change in organisations through the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion. Satwinder is a TEDx speaker and a member of numerous sector Boards, including the Rees Centre, University of Oxford. Satwinder took up the role of CEO at CVAA UK in October 2023.

Jane Poore, Adoption Consultant, CoramBAAF

Jane is a qualified Social Worker with over 15 years' experience in fostering and adoption, assessing, matching and supporting adopters, alongside training prospective adopters. Jane has experience in working for both LA’s and VAA and was involved in the development of the Regional Adoption Agencies in the South West. Prior to joining CoramBAAF she was Agency Advisor in Somerset, for both Fostering and Adoption Panels as well as coordinating Agency Decisions for Children, amongst other pieces of work such as researching Long Term Placement endings.

Dr Tam Cane, Senior Lecturer (Social Work and Social Care), University of Sussex

Dr Tam Cane joined the University of Sussex in 2018, assuming the role of Course Lead for the BA Social Work programme. Her research interests centre around HIV reproductive health and adoption. Over the past few years, she has researched and published peer-reviewed articles around HIV-related reproductive health, adoption, problematic and unhealthy alcohol misuse and contextual safeguarding. Dr Tam Cane has led research projects and evaluation projects examining anti-racist practice in social work practice. Tam has developed several models to support adoption practice, including the BRAC2eD model for debiasing the assessment and recruitment processes with racialised and minoritised ethnic prospective adopters. Tam founded and developed AFDiT, a transracial adoption framework, subsequently co-created with people with lived experience of transracial adoption, piloted and rolled out nationally. Dr Tam Cane is actively leading and co-researching on a number of care and adoption projects.

Dr Amy Paine, Senior Lecturer (School of Psychology), Cardiff University

Dr Amy Paine’s core research area is social development, with a focus on protective factors in children's close relationships such as family members and friends. In her work, she uses observation and longitudinal methods to investigate how children develop understanding of the social world through play. Amy is interested in understanding the social, emotional, and cognitive mechanisms that underpin emotional and behavioural problems in childhood. She is the Co-Director of the Neurodevelopment Assessment Unit in the Cardiff University Centre for Human Developmental Science and is working on projects aiming to develop understanding of the experiences and support needs of adoptive and special guardianship families.

Sarah Johal MBE, National Strategic Lead, Adoption England

Sarah has been the National Adoption Strategic Lead working with Regional Adoption Agencies since September 2021. Prior to taking up this post, Sarah was the Head of One Adoption West Yorkshire, the first Regional Adoption Agency (RAA) in England. Sarah has over 30 years’ experience as a social worker and has worked for Leeds City Council developing fostering, adoption and kinship services. Sarah is a firm believer in restorative practice and developing services based on research and evidence of what works well. Key to this approach is hearing from those with lived experience so they can influence decisions and services that affect their lives. There are experienced social workers and RAA leaders working with Sarah regarding the progression of practice issues within the strategy as well as supporting the involvement of and voice and influence of experts by experience.