Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to evaluate the potential (a) effects and (b) consequences of social media on contact between adopted children and their birth families.

Improving adoption is a manifesto commitment and Adoption UK’s Adoption Barometer report is a valuable resource for informing policy debate. We will be considering Adoption UK’s barometer report carefully as part of our planning for funding for future years.

Contact will continue to be a challenge for adopted children, their birth parents, and their adoptive parents, particularly when this contact comes through social media. It is important that social workers help children, birth parents, and adoptive parents to understand the implications of disclosing personal information on social networking sites, and the harm unauthorised or unmediated contact can have.

We continue to work with Regional Adoption Agencies and Voluntary Adoption Agencies to ensure that services including contact support are delivered to a high-quality standard.