My friend John Small, who has died aged 74, was a social worker who rose to be deputy director of social services at the London borough of Hackney before returning to his native Jamaica to work as a lecturer at the University of the West Indies.
One of John’s key concerns throughout his career was to make sure that black children in care should be given access to, and greater knowledge of, their cultural heritage. Though controversial at the time, his view, set out in a 1984 paper, The Crisis in Adoption, initiated a sea-change in Britain’s approach to the adoption and fostering of ethnic minority children.
