The Potato Group Publishes Research Report

PRESS RELEASE

Far, far beyond the Adoption Order by The POTATO Group

For release 30th June 2025

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New research into the long term consequences of early life trauma has shown the true impact on mental health, relationships and future prospects of adopted young people and how they are being failed by services.

Established adopters’ support organisation, The POTATO Group, conducted research among its members and found that services are failing to recognise that today’s adopted children come with complex and long-term needs. The group hopes their research will serve as a unique reference point for professionals working with families, and to improve support for traumatised teenagers and the families caring for them.

Euan Preston, chair of POTATO said: “These children have experienced traumas that no child should ever face. They have then been let down by the education, health, and social care systems that should have supported them. We found that a quarter of our children have to be accommodated outside the home for their safety. We do not regard this as a failure of the parents (who are still parenting from a distance), but as a failure of the system to understand the long-term effects of early life trauma..”

POTATO was set up by parents to support adoptive families once their children reach the teenage years, traditionally a flashpoint when trauma-related behaviours become harmful. Reported behaviours included teenagers becoming verbally aggressive, injuring parents, damaging their home, going missing, not attending school, stealing, committing offences, being groomed, joining drug-related peer groups, dealing drugs, and misusing substances. Five children were so severely impacted that they died prematurely. One in four children had attempted suicide, and 59% had self-harmed. One in 25 had received prison sentences.

Over half (56%) of children had experienced fixed-term or permanent exclusions from school. Thirteen percent had been convicted of a crime. A quarter of those experiencing criminal charges were aged 13 or under, and a third (33%) were aged 14 or 15. Over a third (37%) of children had experienced sexual risk or harm since being adopted.

Self-harm and depression were widespread, as were diagnoses of ADHD, Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), autism, and trauma-related conditions. Nearly all teenagers and young adults were hyper-vigilant and/or anxious. Seventy-six percent of children came from first families with parental alcohol misuse, but only 16% had been able to obtain a diagnosis of FASD.

A quarter of the children are currently, or have previously been, accommodated away from their adoptive families under Section 20 voluntary accommodation or a Care Order, due to risks arising from trauma-related behaviours. Three-quarters (73%) of families surveyed believed they were at risk of having to consider this. Two-thirds (66%) of families with more than one child could not leave siblings together unsupervised due to the risk of violence.

As adopted children reached adulthood, parents were still providing support in all areas, including finances, housing, clothing, food, digital access, relationships, professional and service interactions, safeguarding, and mental well-being checks. Adult children shared experiences of being not in education, employment, or training (NEET), of homelessness, and, in a smaller proportion of cases, of having been in prison or psychiatric inpatient care.

Families fell into two groups: those for whom the impact of developmental trauma was evident soon after their child came to live with them, but then escalated dramatically at puberty; and those who saw an explosion of need at puberty and on entry to secondary school, which had not been evident or visible before then. Whatever their age at adoption or removal from their first families, even when this occurred in early infancy, POTATO members’ children presented with significant needs related to developmental trauma.

Parents found that the severity of problems was not recognised, which exacerbated stress on the family. Over a third of families were turned down by Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) or an equivalent service for assessment. Forty-four percent of families had assessment requests rejected by the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF, England). Nearly two-thirds of parents said their children’s behaviour had been blamed on their parenting.

When it could be accessed, appropriate therapy for children and families was immensely valuable. It helped children become more confident, trust their parents, build attachment, process what had happened to them in early childhood, and helped parents better understand their children’s behaviour. However, too often support came too late, was short-term, or was limited to parenting courses and contact with a social worker. Last month, more than a thousand adoptive parents marched on Downing Street to deliver a petition calling for an immediate reassessment of cuts to the ASGSF, which has provided therapeutic support to adoptive families and to those parenting children under special guardianship or child arrangement orders.

Gillian Elam, researcher for POTATO said: “What stands out in these experiences, is the extreme, long-lasting impact of trauma on the lives of teenagers, young adults and adults exposed to neglect and abuse in their early years. These young people then continue to have lives further defined by trauma, through interactions with education, social care and the criminal justice system. The single, biggest issue adopters were unprepared for, and that impacted significantly on accessing support, was the sheer lack of understanding of trauma in statutory services. To move forward, families and professionals need a shared understanding of modern adoption, and trauma must be central to that understanding.”

Notes for editors:

POTATO (Parents Of Traumatised Adopted Teenagers Organisation) is an established online peer-to-peer support group for parents of traumatised adopted teenagers and young adults. POTATO carried out research in 2024 into the lived experiences of families caring for traumatised adopted children. 70% of members replied to the survey, representing the experiences of 438 parents caring for over 700 pre-teens, teenagers, young adults and adults. In addition, 23 members participated in qualitative research, producing in-depth insights into adoptive families’ experiences.

Contact details: For further details about our research and a copy of the full report ©The Potato Group 2025 Far, Far Beyond the Adoption Order, contact Euan Preston (Chair) research@thepotatogroup.org.uk  or visit our website www.thepotatogroup.org.uk