Rise in babies in care proceedings raises fears of unnecessary adoptions, experts tell BBC

The number of children involved in care proceedings before they reach their first birthdays is at a persistently high level across England, according to experts who have published new figures.

Data from the universities of Lancaster and Oxford indicates care proceedings for babies have risen by 64% over the past two decades, with one in 118 infants affected. The figures - up to 2024-25 - peaked during Covid, before dropping slightly and plateauing.

While there are cases where it is unsafe for parents to continue contact with their children, experts have told File on 4 Investigates that many babies may not have needed to go into care if support had been in place.

And, since very young children who go into care are more likely to be adopted than older children, there are also concerns from experts that some may have been permanently separated from their birth families unnecessarily.

The BBC understands that new guidance for Family Court judges, to significantly reduce the number of short-notice care hearings - within hours or days of a baby being born - will be announced before the end of the year.

According to latest government figures, 72% of adopted children in England went into care before turning one.

Most of the adoptions, more than 90%, went ahead without parents' written consent - according to CoramBAAF, which represents those working in adoption and care.

Courts overruled parents' wishes in just under half of those cases. The rest were classed as "unopposed", with many parents advised not to contest the adoptions, because they would be unlikely to succeed.

Adoption should be pursued as a last resort, the government and adoption organisations have told us, because, while it offers stability, it also severs the legal relationship between the child and its birth family forever.

When a child is placed in care, birth parents are often allowed contact - but not always.

Analysis of care proceedings suggests between a fifth and a quarter were "clear-cut", where a child had suffered serious harm or abuse, says Prof Karen Broadhurst from Lancaster University.

But the majority were "grey area" cases of neglect by families with complex needs, she says, including drug and alcohol abuse, and housing issues, which might have improved with support.

However, children's charity Coram - which, like CoramBAAF, is part of a wider network of specialist children's organisations - warns that if infants in care are not adopted, they would likely remain in care. And research shows that many children brought up in the care system experience much poorer outcomes in life than those outside it.

Social workers are at the heart of the decision-making process as to whether a child should be taken into care.

One of them, whom we are calling Tracy, describes the dilemmas she and her colleagues face daily, balancing giving families time to get through a crisis, against the risk of failing to intervene.

She says she and her colleagues carry out wide-ranging and detailed assessments of parents - including judging whether there is enough past and present evidence of a future risk of harm to their children.

In some cases, she says, they deal with families "riddled with abuse and neglect" where no-one is able to safely bring up a child.

The stakes could not be higher. Extreme, high-profile cases, like those of Baby P in north London and Sara Sharif in Woking, Surrey, have served as a reminder of that.

The British Association of Social Workers told us their members are doing their best against a backdrop of increasing caseloads and reduction in resources.

With only about 10% of adoptions in England made with written consent from birth parents, according to CoramBAAF, this has led campaigners and some experts to describe the situation as modern-day "forced adoption".

Broadhurst acknowledges that term is "politically loaded" and the modern care system is very different from the coercive practices that took place mainly between 1949 and 1976 - and for which the government recently apologised for cases in England.

But she says it "is actually what's happening because parents do not agree".

"They want to continue to be in contact with a child," she says. "Even parents who feel they couldn't look after a child at that point find it particularly brutal that they're going to have no contact, or very little contact, with that child until they're 18."

One birth mother, Jean, tells us she never wanted to give up her daughter, Tye, for adoption - and describes it as "forced". Her local council says it followed a lawful process.

Jean was separated from her daughter for 16 years, after Tye was taken into care at 11 weeks' old and then adopted at the age of two.

Now, with Tye an adult, they are reunited. When she turned 18, having struggled with adoption and questions about her identity, Tye looked for her mother on social media.

"I knew I had a mum somewhere and it wasn't the people I was growing up with," she says - describing her adoption as something that had left her "completely alone" without a "whole chunk of heritage".

When Jean became pregnant, she was looking forward to being a mother. But she had concerns too: "The only thing I knew for certain was that I was disabled, I couldn't look after myself properly, so I wasn't sure how I was going to be able to look after a baby, so I needed help."

Her local authority at the time, Newham Council in east London, told her such help was not available, she says. Tye was put into foster care, but Jean was able to see her often.

There had been multiple assessments and residential placements as Jean tried to keep Tye. But professionals, including doctors and social workers, ultimately advised the court that Tye needed a stable, permanent family and that Jean could not provide it.

Jean says she fought and "gave it my all" through years of court proceedings. She even asked if she could have visiting rights, in a similar way to a parent in a divorce. "I was told that was an unrealistic expectation," she says.

Newham Council told the BBC Jean had been offered "extensive support", including 24-hour-a-day help in a residential mother and baby unit.

It said Jean had been offered contact with Tye through "two-way letterbox communication" - when birth parents and adoptive parents send letters or emails to each other - which was "a standard way for birth parents to remain in contact with children who have been adopted".

Sarah Johal - who heads Adoption England, which works with adoption agencies - says she understands why some birth parents might use the term "forced adoption". But today's decisions are "a response to child protection", she says, with the Family Court considering all the options for each child.

Although birth parents lose all legal responsibility for their children post-adoption, Johal says there is a chance for emails and photos to be exchanged: "We've really been trying to advocate for the need for more support for birth families around helping with contact."

Since Tye's adoption, support for birth families across England has been reduced.

Spending on early intervention services has been cut by 44% over a decade, according to a report commissioned by the Children's Services Funding Alliance. The costs of looking after children in care have risen by 50% in the same period.

With less funding for local authorities, it has been hard to help struggling parents cope, says social worker, Tracy.

Had a family been given better support at the beginning of care proceedings, she says, "maybe the child wouldn't have needed to be removed… maybe the child wouldn't have needed to be adopted."

Lancaster University's Karen Broadhurst says the reduction in support means that more of the "grey area" cases happen.

"In the face of cutbacks in preventative services and huge waiting lists, what's happening is those grey cases, those borderline cases, more of those children are coming to care," Broadhurst explains.

Concern has also grown that an increasing number of care decisions are made too quickly.

More than half of urgent care hearings in England in 2024-25 were for newborns, where mothers had to attend court within days of giving birth or even potentially on the same day.

The new guidance for judges, the BBC understands, will allow family courts to be "rigorous in refusing to deal with cases that do not meet the criteria of urgency".

But Broadhurst, who sat on the working group for the new guidance, says judges are just one "cog in the chain" of a wider system of support and intervention for families in crisis.

"If a case comes in on a Friday afternoon, what are they [judges] going to do? What resources do they have at their fingertips to say no?" she says. "So I think they're in a really unenviable position."

The government is investing £2.4bn to transform children's social care - including giving children and their families earlier and better support, to help them stay together wherever possible - a Department for Education spokesperson told us.

Research from the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory (NFJO) consistently shows that providing early, intensive support to birth mothers - especially those facing repeat care proceedings - is critical to safely reducing the number of children entering the care system.

In Salford, the work of one project suggests that, with the right support, many children in "grey area" cases can stay out of care.

Strengthening Families works with parents, most of whom have previously had a child removed, and offers specialised, intensive support during a child's early years. About three-quarters of families referred have been able to stay together, staff told us.

Some parents had "quite awful experiences in their life", team member Jude Hannam says, but "that can lead them to be an even better parent, because they don't want to parent how they were".

There are still cases where children still need to be removed from birth parents. The project's dedicated midwife, Adele Martin - having built up trust with pregnant mothers - is the one who has to step in.

"It's probably the most important bit of my job I think. And a mum who's in utter crisis says, 'yeah, you can take my baby from my arms'. That's really something," she says emotionally.

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