Alan Rushton obituary

My husband, Alan Rushton, who has died aged 79, ran a post-qualifying course for social workers specialising in mental health for many years and played a prominent part in research into children placed away from home.

From 1979 until his retirement, Alan taught mental health social work to qualified social workers at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, inspiring his students and teaching them research skills. His work on family placements of older children gained him a doctorate in 1999.

He was an author, with colleagues, of numerous papers and books about adoption and fostering, including a study of women adopted from Hong Kong, published by the British Association for Adoption and Fostering in 2013. On retirement in 2007, Alan continued with academic work and took up voluntary work with a post-adoption service. He was appointed OBE in recognition of services to adoption and children in 2014.

Alan was the only child of Elsie (nee Thornton), a housewife, and Bernard Rushton, an accountant. The family lived in Raynes Park, south London, and Alan attended Wimbledon county school for boys. His early love of music led him to piano lessons and to teach himself the guitar. He studied psychology at Manchester University and later qualified as a mental health social worker at Sussex University.

On leaving school Alan had an administrative job in the NHS, and on leaving university he was employed by Lambeth social services department as a social worker specialising in mental health. This was where we met in 1971. The following year we moved to Canada, where Alan provided counselling and family therapy for patients at Toronto East general hospital, also lecturing in social work at a local college in in the city. In 1974 we were married in Toronto, and in 1976 we travelled home around the world for four months – a high spot in life.

Back in England in 1976 we lived in a flat in Brixton, south London, before moving to Putney in the following year. Unable to have children of our own, in 1979 we fostered Mary, who was 18 months old, and, a year later, Simon, who was four. We adopted them in 1983, maintaining contact with their birth family in an open, transracial adoption, and seeing them grow to successful adulthood.

Alan had many interests and a gift for friendship. He and a cellist friend gave concerts at our home for many years. He belonged to the Labour party. He polished his French the better to enjoy holidays in Mirepoix in France, and explored the countryside around Tisbury in Wiltshire, where we shared a cottage with friends. He studied church architecture, became a keen photographer, and for many years played tennis in Putney.

He is survived by Simon and Mary, and by me.