Satwinder Sandhu

Satwinder is CEO of IAC – The Centre for Adoption in the UK. As a qualified social worker he has spent the last 27 years working within adoption, fostering and children in public care services. . 

Satwinder feels passionately that all children belong in families and that adoption, which can be transformative, is just one of the ways that this can be achieved. He spoke of this in his TedX talk. He feels equally passionately that adoption needs to modernise and that the experiences of adopted people must be at the centre of this process.

Satwinder has spent his career influencing practice to ensure that prospective adopters, whether adopting in the UK or internationally, are supported to achieve the best for their children. He believes this happens through deep, reflective learning and development on their part and must be backed with robust, life-long adoption support, which must be available to their children too. 

As a person of colour and a gay man, the intersectionality of racism, adoption, trauma and adoption have long been a focus for his work, as has work with the LGBTQ+ community wishing to parent through adoption.

Satwinder is a member of: the Adoption & Special Guardianship Leadership Board; the EurAdopt Council; the National Adoption Recruitment Steering Group; CoramBAAF Advisory Committee for Adoption; Vice Chair of the CVAA Board (Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies) and soon to join the Advisory Board for the REES Centre, Oxford Univerity.   

https://www.linkedin.com/in/satwinder-sandhu-2192126b/

Twitter @SatSandhu