'Adoption & Fostering' journal

Adoption & Fostering is the only quarterly peer-reviewed journal dedicated to adoption, fostering and kinship issues. Over the years, it has gained an international reputation as one of the world’s leading sources of knowledge for academics, practitioners and all those concerned with childcare practice and research.

Edited by Dr Dennis Golm, Adoption & Fostering is published by SAGE on behalf of CoramBAAF.

CoramBAAF Conversations

This episode of the Adoption and Fostering Journal Podcast introduces the April 2026 issue, offering key insights for academics and social work professionals. Editor-in-Chief Dennis Golm discusses a major randomised controlled trial on the Reflective Fostering Programme, highlighting its impact on carers’ reflective functioning, stress, and burnout, while noting more mixed findings for child outcomes. The discussion emphasises the importance of evidence-based interventions in foster care. 

The episode also explores research on conduct difficulties in children in care, comparisons between local authority and independent fostering provision in the UK, and international perspectives on adoption. Studies from the United States and Pakistan examine birth mothers’ motivations for adoption and the impact of stigma on adopted adolescents.

Watch the conversation

Volume 50 (Issue 4, October 2026)

Special Issue: Reflecting on 100 years of Adoption in England and Wales: 1926–2026

Editorial

Reflecting on a hundred years of adoption in England and Wales
Harriet Ward, Dennis Golm, John Simmonds

Articles

Choice, consent and coercion: Understanding the supply and demand of infants for adoption during Britain’s baby scoop era
Michael Lambert

Unmarried mothers’ experiences of closed adoption: Scoping Review
Donna E Shields

Reviewing the history of domestic adoption for racially minoritised children in the United Kingdom: Over half a century of controversy
Derek Kirton

The role of birth country/heritage interest in adult international adoptees’ wellbeing: Evidence from the English and Romanian adoptees study
Mark Kennedy, Abigail Baker, Sarah Toner, Jana Kreppner, Edmund J S Sonuga-Barke

How can we BeST? meet the needs of adoptive families? Relevant findings from a major Randomised Controlled Trial of infants in foster care in the UK
Fiona Turner, Gary Kainth, Karen Crawford, Helen Minnis

‘You think it’s your own parenting, don’t you?’: The experiences of adoptive parents of care-experienced children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder in England
Alan D. Price, Raja A. S. Mukherjee, Deborah Davys, Penny A. Cook

Post adoption support needs and implications for future practice – a systematic review
Andrea Bujor, Helerin Raikkerus, Mark Kennedy

Discussion paper

‘New doors are opening up all over’: Modernising post adoption contact – findings from adopters and birth relatives in evaluations of the Letter Swap digital platform
Julia Rimmer, Elsbeth Neil, Cassian Rawcliffe, Ruth Copson

Health Note

Lessons from a specialised service for care-experienced (fostered) and adopted children
Matt Woolgar, Stephen Scott, Carmen Pinto

Legal Note

Baroness Butler-Sloss and Sir Andrew McFarlane – a discussion

CoramBAAF Members also have free access to the following journals: