Social workers say they are seeing an increase in the number of adoptions that breakdown because parents cannot cope with the difficulties of the children they take in and lack support from local authorities.

A new report reveals that about two thirds of local authorties believed adoption breakdowns were increasing while a similar number felt there was insufficient post adoption support available for children or adoptive parents.

But adoption professionals are viewing the figures in the Community Care magazine survey with suspicion, saying it is notoriously difficult to be accurate about the level of breakdowns.

Figures for the number of breakdowns within five years of a placement are put at one in five.

But the rate of breakdown is strongly linked to a child's age at the time they were first placed. For babies, the rate is said to be five per cent, rising to nearly 50 per cent for 11 to 12 years olds.

A spokeswoman for the British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering said that every child had a right to a family but the kind of youngsters being placed for a adoption now were children that would never have even been considered for adoption ten years ago.

Most have suffered some form of abuse or neglect which makes it harder for them to fit in with a family.

Their psychological damage means they find it difficult to trust people and form loving attachments to their new parents.

According to Marion Hundleby, post adoption specialist for Catholic Children's Society, Nottingam, one of the main causes of breakdown is because the level of difficulties a child has are greater than what the adoptive parents expect.

Failure of an adoption can also be caused by a lack of information about a child's history - a past that may only emerge as the child gets older and starts to display behaviour problems connected to previously unrecorded abuse.

Long-term support was essential if modern-day adoptions were to have the best chance of success, she said, and agencies needed to assure families that they would not be judged badly if they ran into difficulties.

As well as support such as psychotherapy, there was also a need for professionals, such as teachers, doctors, and social workers dealing with these children, to have an understanding of the kind of difficulties and issues that adoption raised.

"These children do need to be seen as needing partnership - and lifelong partnership," said Ms Hundleby.

"Adoption is not a cure. These are children who are not going to live happily ever after," she said.

The Catholic Children's Society, Nottingham, had a low and stable rate of breakdowns probably because it dealt with very difficult-to-place children and therefore offered a high level of post adoption support, she said.

The agency works on behalf of local authorities across the East Midlands, placing about 20 children a year including older children, youngsters with special needs or disabilities and groups of brothers and sisters. It deals with children and families of any religious belief.

BAAF backs up the need for more and better post adoption support for families including respite to give parents a break from the stress of caring for a demanding child.

A spokeswoman said: "We have always asked for better post adoption support. Some people, after they have adopted, feel they have just been left to get on with it alone."

A Government report last month recognised the need for a more consistent approach to post adoption support but fell short of promising extra money to fund it or making it a statutory requirement.

As Nick Hughes, adoption and fostering manager for Sheffield social services, pointed out, whenever a service was not a statutory duty, you ended up with the postcode lottery of provision.

Derby City Council's adoptions manager Robin Short agreed there was a need for more specialised support services across the country - with Derby no exception to this.

At the moment all that was available to most adoptive families that ran into a crisis was what their local social services department could offer generally to families and not a service tailored to the specialised needs of adopted children, said Mr Short.

His neighbouring county of Nottinghamshire, however, had a post adoption support centre, a voluntary organisation that received funding from their local authority, he observed.

Mr Short, along with Mr Hughes and the Catholic Children's Society, all cast doubt on the reliability of figures on failed adoptions, figures which, they said, were difficult to collate because of time and geographical problems.

For example, a child may be placed in Derby, move with his new family to Kent, and then, after four years, start having difficulties. It is quite possible that Derby City Council would never find out that the placement had broken down.

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