The Department for Education funding package includes £144m for the Adoption Support Fund (ASF) and £19.5m to strengthen the work of regional adoption agencies (RAA), improve how children and families are matched and recruit more adopters.
At £48m per year over the next three years, the new ASF funding is a slight rise on the £46m allocated to the scheme in 2021/22.
Under the scheme, adopters can apply for therapeutic support and counselling to help an adopted child address trauma linked to their early life experiences.
The Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies (CVAA) welcomed the investment but said it remained “extremely concerned” over the fall in the number of children being adopted in the last four years and the recent decline in permanence orders being issued.
Andrew Webb, CVAA chair, said: “Despite studies consistently showing that adoption gives children the best life chances of all forms of care, fewer children are being offered this opportunity for a positive future. We are really worried about what is happening to the children who would have previously been adopted – is a life in care in their best interests? More attention urgently needs to be given to care planning to ensure children can access the families for life which VAAs provide.”
Charity Adoption UK said it was “delighted” with the funding for the ASF, which it claimed has benefited 40,000 families since its launch in 2015.
Adoption UK’s director of public affairs and communications, Alison Woodhead said: “This increased investment in the ASF is nothing short of a lifeline to families bringing up some of the most vulnerable children in England. A third of adopters told us the support they accessed via the ASF has helped them to avoid a potential breakdown of their adoption.”
“The Adoption Support Fund should be renamed and its scope extended to provide all kinship families with therapeutic as well as other practical and emotional support – not just those whose children were previously in care,” she said.
“We need a kinship care strategy and investment so kinship carers get the financial, practical and emotional support they need and deserve.”
New research also shows that boys aged six to 18 and girls aged 12 to 18 who were adopted into families benefitting from the ASF saw significant improvements in their conduct and aggressive behaviour. The data is made up of responses to two surveys; a baseline conducted between November 2018 and February 2020 and a second wave ending in March 2021.
The DfE also announced that since the launch of a campaign in 2019 to recruit more adopters from black and minority ethnic backgrounds (BAME), there had been a 30 per cent rise in the number of adopters from these communities being approved.
Last summer, the DfE launched the National Adoption Strategy with the aim of improving adopter recruitment and tackling the recent decline in adoptions.
