This research study is about child and adolescent well-being in adoptive families, with the main purpose of evaluating how adoption, child’s pre-adoptive history, parenting behaviour, parenting stress, and child rearing practices can best promote child and adolescent development and well-being.
The research team for this study is led by Dr Pedro Alexandre Costa, and there are two other team members: Dr Fiona Tasker in the UK (Birkbeck, University of London, UK) and Dr Isabel Leal in Portugal (William James Centre for Research at ISPA – University Institute, Portugal). This research study has received ethical approval from both the Department of Psychological Sciences Research Ethics Committee of Birkbeck University of London, and the Ethics Committee of ISPA – University Institute.
The research team are interested in recruiting parents from different family arrangements and structures to understand what works for different families, what are the risk factors and difficulties in different families, and what are the main protective factors for family and child’s well-being.
The study consists of this online survey to be completed by parents of school-aged children/adolescents (5-18 years old), whose child (or children) has been placed with them for at least 1 year. Children will not be asked to participate in this study.
An earlier pilot study was conducted in close collaboration with John Simmonds, Director of Policy, Research and Development at CoramBAAF, Tor Docherty, Chief Executive of New Family Social, Satwinder Sandhu, Director of Operations at Homefinding and Fostering, and Peter McGraith, Consultant and Trainer in LGBT adoption and fostering, as well as adoptive parents in the United Kingdom, who gave us valuable consultation in developing the survey “Empowering Adoptive Families – A study about adoptive families in the UK and in Portugal”.
To help the research team with the Empowering Adoptive Families survey open this link with all the information about their research. Alternatively for more information you can visit their website, or email empoweringadoptfamilies@gmail.com.
