Family Routes has launched a new study about the experiences and needs of adoptive and special guardianship families in England. Please visit Family Routes to find out more.

This is a new ground-breaking study funded by the Department of Education and it’s all about adoptive and special guardianship families.

Family Routes want to hear from you if you are a parent, special guardian, young person (12-17 years) or young adult (18-25 years) who came to live with your new family from foster or residential care. They need to learn more about your experiences of growing up, how things change and what support can be helpful so the government can try and improve the lives of families like yours in future.

From February 2024, you can register to take part in the research if you live in England and one of the following is true for you:

1) You are an adoptive parent or special guardian of a young person aged 12-25 years who came to live with you from foster or residential care in England.

2) You are aged 12-25 and left care on an Adoption or Special Guardianship Order. Please note young people aged 12-17-years will need consent from an adoptive parent or special guardian before they can take part.

Taking part will give you a voice. It is so important! What you tell Family Routes can make a real difference. To find out more about the study, visit the FAQ page.

There are two ways to take part

You can choose to tell about your experiences and views through either …

• A family interview, with parents, special guardians and young people. This will last up to 2 hours with parents/carers, and around one hour with young people. Your family can choose to do the interview in person, via a video call or on the phone.     

Or

• An online survey only which will take around 30 minutes for parents/carers and around 20 minutes for young people.

You’ll be asked about different things including:

• You and your family
• Important relationships
• Experiences with school/college
• Health and wellbeing
• The help you and your family need and have received
• How you feel about family life 
• There will be time or space at the end for you to tell us anything else you would like to.

Everyone who takes part will receive a thank you voucher of up to £20 (£20 for taking part in a family interview, £10 if you complete the online survey only). 

Family Routes want to hear from people with very different experiences – whether your family is thriving or struggling. We want to hear from families if your young person is no longer living with you and directly from you, if you are a young person.

They want the results to represent the experiences of all types of families in England. The more families and young people that take part, the stronger and more useful the evidence will be.

Sign up to take part

Step one:
Send an email with your name and phone number to family.routes@ecorys.com or ring on 08081759341 to let us know you are interested in taking part in this research.
Step two:

• Family Routes will ring you to chat about taking part.
• On the call they will ask a bit about you and your family to make sure we get to speak to a mix of families (things like if you are from an adoptive or special guardianship family, your age, your ethnicity, how many children are in the family and their ages, and how well or not family life is going right now).
• You can ask any questions you might have.
• You can confirm if you’d be happy to take part in a family interview or an online survey only.

The research findings and published reports will be anonymous and will not identify you or your family. No personal information will be passed to anyone outside the research team.  All responses will remain confidential unless you say something indicating that you or someone else is at risk of harm.

• Find out more information about the research.