‘Something to just be ticked off on a care plan’: organisational professionalism and procedure-based decision-making in practice with children who go on to be adopted

Over the last decade, at a time when funding for services intended to support families has been dramatically curtailed, successive governments in England and Wales have sought to increase the numbers of children being adopted from care. In light of the central role that children’s social workers play in progressing plans for adoption, this research seeks to investigate 15 practitioners’ experiences of operating within the current context. Evidence of significant tensions in social workers’ accounts of planning for adoption and post-adoption contact under austerity is presented, and Evetts’ distinction between organisational and occupational professionalism is drawn upon to understand the influence of the wider political context on decisions made by practitioners in working with children who go on to be adopted.