Adoption as Part of the Irish Care System: A New Challenge for Social Work

Placing adoption as an adjunct to the care system will have many implications for current service delivery and especially for social work practice. Not only is it likely to change the nature of care planning, foster and adoptive parent assessment and social work involvement in judicial processes, but it also has implications for the profession’s relationship with adoption. This seismic shift requires keen deliberation at a policy and practice level if best outcomes for some of the most vulnerable children in Irish society are to be realized. The debate needs to include those individuals affected by and responsible for legislative change, policy formation and best practice and its implementation (O’Brien and Palmer, 2015). This paper sets out to explore a number of the issues involved.