Post-adoption contact: time for cultural shift

Post-adoption contact remains one of the most jurisprudentially delicate issues in contemporary family law. It sits between two powerful and sometimes competing principles: the legal finality and psychological security long associated with adoption orders, and the child’s lifelong welfare interests, including identity, continuity of relationships, and an understanding of personal history.

Despite repeated calls to modernise our professional approach, the historic concept of adoption as a clean break from the birth family continues to exert influence. Anecdotally, post-placement or post-adoption contact orders remain rare, with a judicial preference for recording arrangements by recital rather than by enforceable order.

Traditionally, adoption implied not merely the transfer of parental responsibility but the severance of ties with the birth family. The modern approach calls for a genuine shift. Courts and practitioners now recognise that identity formation is fundamental, and that safe, structured forms of continuing connection may support placement stability rather than undermine it. We also understand far more about the enduring importance of sibling relationships, often the only relationships that last throughout life.

The statutory anchor remains section 1 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002, which provides that the child’s welfare “throughout his life” is paramount. Pre-placement planning must therefore account for consequences extending well beyond minority. Identity, heritage, sibling relationships, and the psychological integration of past and present experiences fall squarely within that framework.

Section 26 governs contact arrangements following authorisation to place and before the making of an adoption order. It creates a self-contained regime, with the court required to set the template for contact going forward as earlier child arrangements orders fall away. Section 51A, inserted by the Children and Families Act 2014, introduced an express mechanism empowering the court to order post-adoption contact.

Judicial interpretation has historically emphasised restraint. In Re B (A Child: Post-Adoption Contact) the Court of Appeal reaffirmed that orders imposing contact upon unwilling adopters remain “extremely unusual”. That approach reflected legitimate concerns about placement stability and the autonomy of the adoptive family. However, no authority relieves the court of its obligation to conduct a full welfare evaluation of contact arrangements.

More recently, in Re R and C (Adoption or Fostering), Baker LJ underscored that it is the court’s responsibility to “set the template for contact going forward”. The court rejected the argument that the speculative possibility of adopters later declining to facilitate contact should dictate refusal of a placement order. The focus must remain on welfare, not apprehension.

Re S (Placement Order Contact) now stands as the leading authority on section 26 contact orders. The Court of Appeal stressed that although a section 26 order is temporally limited, the welfare analysis underpinning it must adopt the statutory lifelong perspective. The court warned against formulaic reasoning and emphasised that contact arrangements must be bespoke and flexible.