Now five, he has spent most of his life in a happy, supportive home, which his parents say has helped him with his tough start to life in a Thai orphanage.

Many children who have been adopted locally or from overseas suffer from past trauma which can create difficulties for their new families, particularly if they do not have the support to deal with it.

''Things were out of balance as a result of his trauma and others were telling you it's behavioural problems. Adopted kids are often dismissed as having behavioural problems,'' Mrs Lucey said.

Luckily, Kai had an excellent preschool teacher and Mrs Lucey got additional support from the ACT Adoption unit. But other parents are not so lucky.

It was her first-hand experience of the system which led Mrs Lucey, president of the ACT Adoptive Families Association, to lobby the ACT government to provide more services to parents of adopted children.

She said the current services were inadequate. ''There's next to zero support in the ACT,'' she said. ''It's great that they've raised adoption in the spotlight, but I don't believe the government has any true desire to improve things for children, at least not in a child-friendly time frame. They just seem to think that money and love is enough, but it's not.''

But a spokesman for the Community Services Directorate said the ACT government had taken big steps to improve child trauma services in the territory.

A new multimillion-dollar Trauma Recovery Centre is due to open in July 2014.

''This will be a new model of service delivery for the ACT, aimed at facilitating the healing, recovery and positive life outcomes for children who are recovering from abuse, neglect and other trauma,'' the spokesman said.

He said the centre would provide an early-intervention service for carers with children and young people who are exhibiting complex behaviours.

Still Mrs Lucey isn't alone in her criticism of the current system. Marymead Centre for Early Life Matters program manager Sonia Costello runs a program called Circle of Security to help parents understand their children.

''When children have come out of an orphanage or wherever, they develop ways of relating which help them to survive in that context which might not work when they're in a family in Australia,'' she said.

Ms Costello said her program was often accessed too late, once things had reached a crisis point. She agreed there were gaps in the ACT's support coverage.

''There's not really much [support] at that earlier stage, it seems to really wait until things are going wrong,'' she said.

''A lot of parents would like support from the beginning.''