Was founded because too many families are being failed. Adoption is often framed as a happy

ending, where a child is placed in a safe home and left to thrive. But trauma does not

disappear with adoption. When it is ignored, the wounds deepen.

Why Trauma Cannot Be an Afterthought in Adoption

Our social care system is designed to assess risk and remove children from

harm, but it does not prioritise what happens next. There is no structured plan for

recovery. There is no formal requirement to assess the impact of trauma or ensure

families have the right support to help a child heal. The result?

-Children struggle. Their trauma is dismissed or misunderstood until it

escalates.

-Families collapse. Support is reactive, delayed, or non-existent.

-Blame replaces help. Adopters are scrutinised instead of supported.

-Public money is wasted. Crisis responses cost far more than early

intervention.

This is not a failure of parenting. This is a failure of system design.

Why Would Anyone Step Into This System?

Adopters, foster carers, and kinship carers open their homes with the intention of

giving children stability, care, and the chance to recover. But too often, the reality is

far from what they were led to expect.

Instead of being supported, many adopters find themselves blamed for system

failures:

-Trauma is misunderstood, but parents are judged. When a child’s past trauma

manifests as distress, aggression, or extreme behaviours, adopters are told they are

“not coping” instead of being offered meaningful support.

-Requests for help are treated as risks. When families seek intervention, they

are often met with scrutiny rather than solutions. Adopters asking for help are

assessed, not assisted.

-There is no recovery plan, but families are expected to cope. A child is

placed, and adopters are left to manage complex trauma without structured, long-

term planning.

When trauma is not understood, families struggle alone. When families struggle

alone, placement breakdowns increase. When placements fail, children suffer

more rejection.

It is no surprise that fewer people are stepping forward. Who would willingly enter a

system where they are set up to fail? If adopters, foster carers, and kinship carers

are expected to hold trauma, the system must hold them. Right now, it does not.

The Fundamental Failing: Trauma is Not Prioritised

The system continues to overlook one simple truth: removal is not recovery.

Children who have experienced abuse, neglect, or instability do not simply “heal”

because they are now in a safe home. Trauma does not resolve with time. It does

not disappear when a child has fresh clothes and a warm bed. Without intervention,

trauma remains. It shapes behaviour, identity, relationships, and long-term stability.

Yet, the system does not require:

-A structured trauma assessment for every child entering permanence.

-A mapped recovery plan that follows the child, not just placement changes.

-A consistent trauma-informed approach in education, social care, and mental

health services.

Instead, families are left to navigate this alone—until crisis hits. Then, the response

is blame, not support.

Blame is Not a Support Strategy

Adopters, foster carers, and kinship carers do not fail because they are not

resilient enough. They fail because they are not supported enough.

-Parenting courses are offered in the middle of trauma breakdown—ignoring the

root issue.

-Families are told to “manage” when they have no access to specialist help.

-Adopters are assessed for their parenting, rather than the child’s trauma

history.

This approach is not neutral—it is harmful. It isolates families, pushes children into

further instability, and fails to uphold the right to recovery.

Balancing Humanity with Accountability in Social Work

PATCH believes in compassionate, ethical, and evidence-based social work.

Social care must balance kindness with accountability—one should not cancel out

the other.

✅ Risk must be recognised early and acted upon proportionately.

✅ Support must be embedded into intervention, not an afterthought.

✅ Difficult conversations should lead to meaningful change, not blame.

A system that fails to acknowledge trauma fails the children it is meant to protect.

Being trauma-informed does not mean being passive—it means acting with

knowledge, understanding, and responsibility.

Social Workers Are Not the Problem – The System Is

Most social workers enter the profession with a deep commitment to helping others.

They are trained to intervene in crisis, advocate for vulnerable children, and

support families.

So, what has gone wrong?

The failure is not with individual social workers. It is with a system that is:

-Overloaded with cases

-Constrained by rigid policies

-Suffocated by bureaucracy

-Stripped of the financial resources to implement real interventions

Social workers are not empowered to use professional judgement. They are forced

to tick boxes, meet deadlines, and follow processes that do not serve families or

children.

Meanwhile, Local Authorities celebrate performance targets, while families and

frontline professionals are unheard.

-Social work must evolve.

-Trauma must be acknowledged.

-Systems must stop managing crisis and start preventing it.

What Needs to Change

PATCH is not about blame—it is about solutions. The fundamental failing of this

system is the absence of a structured trauma recovery process. The response

must be clear:

-Trauma assessments must be embedded into permanence planning.

Without assessment, there is no foundation for recovery.

-Trauma-responsive support must be standard. Families cannot be left to

navigate complex trauma alone. This is a clinical issue, not just a parenting

challenge.



-Social care must shift from crisis management to proactive planning.

-The system cannot continue waiting for failure before responding.

-Psychological expertise must be embedded in practice. The current

system operates without the right lens—trauma is misunderstood,

mismanaged, and dismissed.

-Stop treating adopters and carers as disposable. If people step forward to

raise, protect, and support vulnerable children, the system must stand with

them, not against them.

If Trauma is Not Mapped, It Cannot Be Repaired.

-If it is not supported, it will escalate.

-If it escalates, families will collapse.

-If families collapse, children will face more rejection.

-If children are failed, society pays the cost.

This is the failure.

This is what must change.



Where PATCH Stands

PATCH was founded by Fiona Wells—an adopter, adoptee, and social

worker—to challenge a broken system. We are a collective of families,

professionals, and adoptees who refuse to stay silent about the systemic failings

we live with.

-Our experiences must be acknowledged, validated, and seen.

-Harmful practices that push families into crisis must be exposed.

-Psychological thinking must be embedded in policy, not optional.

We are stating what is missing—not for debate, but because the cost of inaction is

too high. Children and families are being set up to fail by a system that does not

recognise what recovery requires.

This is not a difficult fix—it is a necessary one.