Adoption support service warns against increasing adoption in Queensland
Jigsaw Queensland warns the state government against seeing adoption as a solution for children in the child safety system. (ABC News: Lucas Hill)
In short:
There are renewed calls to amend adoption laws in Queensland as an inquiry investigates adoption practices in the child safety system.
Post-adoption support services warn that the practice and loss of legal identity can have lifelong impacts for adopted people.
What's next?
A commission of inquiry into the child safety system in the state is due to report back by November 2026.
Queensland should overhaul "outdated" adoption laws that sever children's legal ties to their families, while ensuring adoption remains a last resort, a peak support service has told a commission of inquiry.
Jigsaw Queensland, a support service for people affected by adoption, has written to the Commission of Inquiry into the Child Safety System to voice concerns over adoption practices in Queensland.
The submission was made public this week, coinciding with the 13th anniversary of the Queensland government's apology for forced adoption, delivered by then-premier Campbell Newman.
The commission of inquiry is reviewing the Adoption Act 2009 and adoption practices in the child safety system.
The Crisafulli government has repeatedly flagged that it wants to strengthen pathways for children in residential care to move to foster care or adoption.
Jigsaw Queensland argued plenary adoption, the current model in Queensland, caused lifelong harm because it severed adopted children's legal identity, kinship, heritage and the truth about their family.
Instead, the organisation is pushing the state to establish "simple adoption", which involves adopted children retaining legal connection to their parents, while recognising their adoptive parents.
The service's president Jo-Ann Sparrow said evidence had shown adoption could cause lifelong harms and that it was unacceptable the same structural risks remained in legislation despite it being the 13th anniversary of the apology.
Jo-Ann Sparrow is calling for the state to change adoption laws. (ABC Radio Brisbane: Kenji Sato)
"There's a fairytale narrative about adoption and what it provides. People think about what you gained, not what you had to lose in order to be adopted,"she said.
"Even people who had good experiences with adoption still report issues.
"Seventy per cent of people who responded to Australian Institute of Family Studies research on this said they had issues with identity, attachment, relationships and mental health.
"In the Australian Institute of Family Studies research, 44 per cent of respondents, adopted people, said they had poor or very poor relationships with one or both of their adoptive parents."
The research focused on Australians who experienced adoption during the era of forced adoption, and were willing to share their experiences.
Forced adoptions in Australia largely occurred in the 1950s to the mid-1970s, when it is estimated 250,000 Australians were affected by forced adoption policies and practices.
The period saw widespread unethical and often illegal removal of babies from their mothers, which federal and state governments have acknowledged caused lifelong pain and suffering.
About 50,000 people in Queensland have been adopted, but since the 1980s the number of adoptions has dropped substantially.
In recent years the number of adoptions annually is fewer than 40.
Moves to increase adoption
In the lead-up to the state election last year, then-Opposition leader David Crisafulli flagged an intention to strengthen pathways for children in residential care — which is managed by the child safety department — into foster care and adoption.
"There's over 800 kids in resi care in this state, so the biggest parent in Queensland is the state government," Mr Crisafulli said in March 2024.
"Many of those kids don't have discipline in their life, they're not going to school, they don't have the ability to have a job, to have extracurricular activity, there's no pathway to foster care or adoption."
In a question on notice this year, Child Safety Minister Amanda Camm was asked how many children under a child protection order had been adopted.
"There have been no adoptions of children under child protection orders in the last three years, a shocking indictment of the failure to care for our most vulnerable children and a point which will be explored in the current commission of inquiry," Ms Camm said.
Jigsaw Queensland cautioned against using adoption as a solution for children in the child protection or in the youth justice system.
"When adoption does happen, and it should only be as a last resort, we need options that don't sever identity and don't sever connection to culture and kin," Ms Sparrow said.
Instead, the organisation suggests permanent care orders continue to be used, which are a type of child protection order made by the Children's Court to grant long-term guardianship of a child.
Amanda Camm says she makes no apologies for believing children in the child safety system are better off in a family-based environment. (ABC News: Chris Gillette)
In response, Ms Camm acknowledged the commission of inquiry was reviewing adoption practices in the child safety system.
"I do not apologise for believing that young people who enter the child safety system are better off in a family-based environment, whether that's foster or kinship care or, in what has become rare, adoption,"she said.
"Children have been languishing in residential care that has grown into a billion-dollar industry built off the backs of vulnerable kids, and these children deserve to be in a loving and caring environment, not moving from placement to placement for, in some cases, years."
Concerns for adoption of First Nations children
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are over-represented in the child protection system, making up 47 per cent of children in out-of-home care, including placements with kin, other carers or residential care.
The Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Protection Peak has already submitted to the inquiry that it strongly opposes the use of adoption as a response for children in care, particularly given the suffering caused by forced removals during the Stolen Generations.
"Adoption should be removed as an option for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in the child protection system, noting that traditional Torres Strait Islander practices occur outside of the system and subject to the Meriba Omasker Kaziw Kazipa Act 2020," the submission said.