The Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) will continue in 2025-26, with £50m available to fund therapies and specialist assessments for children formerly in the care system.

Children’s minister Janet Daby made the announcement today after being called to the House of Commons to confirm whether the ASGSF had a future, one day after it expired.

The announcement ends months of speculation about the ASGSF’s future, during which Daby – and on one occasion, Keir Starmer – have repeatedly failed to confirm whether the fund had a future beyond 31 March 2025.

Significant uncertainty for children and families

The situation had created significant uncertainty for thousands of children and families, led to some having their therapy brought to an abrupt end and delayed applications for support for those whose needs had been newly assessed by councils or regional adoption agencies (RAA).

Campaigners and therapy providers warned that this had exacerbated the trauma experienced by the children concerned, all of whom were formerly in care and, in most cases, were now in adoptive or special guardianship placements.

When funding ended yesterday, the Department for Education maintained the line ministers had kept to for two months – that it would set out details on the ASGSF “as soon as possible”.

Liberal Democrat spokesperson for education, children and families Munira Wilson then tabled an urgent question in Parliament today asking the government to confirm whether the ASGSF had a future.

Surprise announcement of £50m for 2025-26

To her surprise, Daby responded by saying: “I’m very happy to confirm today that £50m has been allocated for the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund for this year. I’ll be sharing further details with the House in the next few days and opening applications.”

The funding is broadly in line with levels over the past three years, during which £144m was allocated to the ASGSF.

Funding beyond 2026 is subject to the government’s spending review, which will report this summer.

However, Daby said that ministers had “no plans” to end the ASGSF in March 2026, pointing to councils’ duties under the Adoption and Children Act 2002 to assess needs for adoption support and then decide whether to provide services.

Minister ‘appreciates’ impact of delay on children and families

Daby added: “I very much appreciate that the delay conforming continuation has bene a very difficult time for many. I’m especially concerned for children and families as many of those who the ASGSF supports are in great need of continued help.”

She said she also recognised the impact on therapy providers, some of whom have had to seek other sources of work, prompting warnings from adoption leaders of reduced capacity for ASGSF-funded services.

In response, Wilson said: “I welcome the announcement we’ve just heard form the minister, which none of us were accepting as many of us on all sides of the chamber have spent the last few months asking question after question and being batted away and told that an answer was forthcoming.”

Children ‘left in limbo’

She said the fund was for children who had suffered the “deepest trauma”, but they had been “left hanging and in limbo”.

Wilson and several other MPs shared stories of the anxiety experienced by constituents because of the delay in confirming the fund’s future.

Concerns were also raised about the significant backlog of ASGSF cases that will need to be considered by consultancy Mott MacDonald – which administers the fund on behalf of the DfE – when applications reopen.

Conservative MP Julia Lopez asked if there would be resource put into clearing the backlog, but Daby did not answer the point.

No commitment to putting funding on longer-term basis

Though Daby suggested funding would continue beyond 2026, MPs also asked for it to be placed on a longer-term basis.

Currently, funding for therapy is only provided for 12 months – or until £5,000 has been exhausted – meaning councils and RAAs must reapply on behalf of children and families who need longer-term support. However, Daby did not respond to this point.

At one point during the debate, Daby appeared to imply that the fund would be extended to those kinship families who are currently not covered by it, but she later said its remit would not be expanded.

‘What has happened has been really unforgivable’

Sector bodies welcomed the continuation of the fund but heavily criticised the delay in making the announcement.

For Adoption UK, chief executive Emily Frith said: “The fund has transformed the lives of tens of thousands of children and it’s a huge relief to have this commitment for a further year of specialist support.

“Unfortunately the delay has caused great distress for families and has risked further harm to children. There will now be a backlog of applications, and further waits for people in desperate need of support. What has happened has been really unforgivable. The government must open applications immediately, and then announce a permanent Fund so they avoid ever causing such distress again.”

Families face ‘dangerous gap in therapy’

Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies (CVAA) chief executive, Satwinder Sandhu said it was “enormously relieved and pleased that the funding has been confirmed”.

However, he warned: “We now have to redirect our concerns to the thousands of families facing a dangerous gap in therapy, of unknown length, while the fund is flooded with applications (once they re-open the application portal that is).

“It’s a dire situation which needs an emergency strategy from the DfE to identify and fast-track families in most need. There also needs to be consideration of emergency funding to plug the gap or at least reimburse services which have to use their reserves to keep children safe these next few months.”

He added: “What’s clear is that in recent months we have witnessed a shortsighted approach from government towards adoptive families. They recognise the urgent need for more prospective adopters, yet they undermine this by failing to provide adopters with assurances of support which is essential for all children being placed.”

Kinship, which advocates for kinship families, issued a similarly qualified message.

Delay ‘has led to immense worry and stress’

“This news will come as welcome relief to all of those kinship families who were deeply concerned about their children losing access to vital therapeutic support,” said its director of policy and communications, Rhiannon Clapperton.

“However, we remain deeply frustrated that this clarity has only come after the fund had expired and after a lengthy period of unnecessary uncertainty.

“The absence of any information about the future of the fund has led to immense worry and stress amongst the kinship families we support and campaign alongside.”

She added: “It is vital the government now works at pace to mitigate against the negative impacts of the delay and ensure that applications for therapeutic assessments and support can proceed as quickly as possible.”

Call to extend fund to more kinship families

Family Rights Group’s chief executive, Cathy Ashley, said the government had “extended a vital lifeline for families to access therapeutic support for adopted children and some in kinship care arrangements”, but urged ministers to extend the ASGSF’s remit.

“Family Rights Group has long urged the government to remove the requirement for kinship children to have been in the care system to be eligible, and to include those in informal arrangements.

“Longer-term funding security and improving the application process would be a boost to families too.”

Parliament’s All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Kinship Care made a similar point in response to the news, saying: “The minister was unclear on whether further children in kinship care could become eligible for this support. Our group, alongside families and the sector, has been calling for this to ensure all children in kinship care who need this are able to access it.

“We are encouraged by the extension but will scrutinise the details including any expansion when they are available.”

After this article was published, the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund was confirmed for another year, with £50m in funding. Get the latest on the ASGSF here.

The Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) has expired today (31 March 2025), with no news on its future.

The Department for Education said today that it would “set out more details on the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund as soon as possible”, while children’s minister Janet Daby reported that announcements on ASGSF funding from April 2025 would be made “shortly”. 

The statements echo several issued by Daby in response to written parliamentary questions over the past two months, and Keir Starmer’s response to a question on the ASGSF in Parliament last week.

Therapies cease for thousands of children

The lack of a decision means therapy for thousands of children and families will cease, with large numbers of new applications for services left on hold, as the government continues to defer an announcement on the ASGSF’s future.

In 2023-24, 16,970 therapy applications were approved for services including creative and physical therapies, family therapy, psychotherapy, parent training and therapeutic life story work.

Therapy providers and adoption leaders have warned that abruptly ending support for former looked-after children with significant levels of trauma poses significant risks to them and their parents and carers, and would likely trigger large numbers of placement breakdowns.

While therapy is continuing for some children and families whose services started in the latter part of 2024-25, they represent a small minority, say providers.

And though some regional adoption agencies (RAAs) have developed multidisciplinary teams that deliver therapeutic support, they are not resourced to replace ASGSF-funded provision.

‘Devastating for children and families’

In a written parliamentary answer published today, Daby said the DfE would “shortly be finalising business planning decisions on how we will allocate the department’s budget for the next financial year. All decisions regarding the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) are being made as part of these discussions.”

However, should the DfE provide ASGSF funding for 2025-26, families will face long waits for support because of the backlog applications, warn campaigners. At the same time, therapy providers have taken on other work, risking a loss of capacity to provide ASGSF-funded provision should it restart, according to Adoption England, the national support body for RAAs.

Sector charity Adoption UK described the lack of news on the ASGSF’s future as “devastating for children, and for the families and the professionals who care for them”.

After this article was published, the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund was confirmed for another year, with £50m in funding. Get the latest on the ASGSF here.

Keir Starmer has failed to confirm the future of the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF), with the scheme to provide therapy for children and families just days from ending.

He was questioned about the ASGSF – worth £50m a year – at prime minister’s questions (PMQs) this week by LLiberal Democrat spokesperson for education, children and families Munira Wilson.

She said the adopted daughter of one of her constituents had been receiving “much-needed therapy” through the fund to help her recover from “immense trauma”, but was now among “thousands” who did not know whether they would get more help, with the ASGSF due to expire on 31 March.

Starmer fails to confirm fund’s future

Wilson said ministers had “repeatedly refused to confirm” whether the fund would continue and asked Starmer: “Can the prime minister give a cast-iron guarantee to vulnerable children, adoptive parents and kinship carers that he will not cut that fund?”

However, in response, the prime minister merely said the government would “set out the details just as soon as we can”, an answer that has been given repeatedly by children’s minister Janet Daby in response to multiple parliamentary questions.

The ASGSF funds specialist assessments and therapy for adopted children, those placed for adoption, former looked-after children cared for under special guardianship or child arrangements orders, and those whose permanence placements had broken down.

Prime minister links ASGSF and welfare reform

However, Starmer appeared to characterise it as part of the welfare system and link its future to the government’s reforms to disability and incapacity benefits.

“The welfare scheme overall is not defendable on terms, but it must be one that supports those who need it,” he told Wilson, adding that this should be on the “basis of the principles that I set out earlier”.

The “principles” appeared to be those Starmer gave in response to an earlier question from the SNP’s Stephen Flynn related to the government’s plans to tighten eligibility for the main working-age disability benefit, personal independence payment, and cut the level of incapacity benefits.

“We need to give support to those who need it, we need to help those who want to work into work, and we need to be clear that those who can work should work,” the prime minister replied.

In a post on X following PMQs, Wilson described Starmer’s failure to confirm the fund’s continuation as “very disappointing”.

The fund’s rules stipulate that therapy can be provided for up to 12 months – or until a £5,000 annual limit has been exhausted – after which the relevant council or regional adoption agency (RAA) must reapply on behalf of the relevant child or family.

‘Small proportion’ will therapy services beyond 31 March

In her responses to parliamentary questions, Daby has repeatedly pointed to a provision that enables families whose ASGSF funding was agreed in the latter part of 2024-25 to be able to continue therapy into 2025-26, meaning their services would not end on 31 March.

However, this applies to a very small proportion of recipients, said Jay Vaughan, chief executive of Family Futures, a voluntary adoption agency and therapy provider.

“What [Daby] is referring to is that, for about 2% of families, if they got funding in the latter part of the financial year, they can get split funding [carried over into the next financial year],” she said. “But that’s not allowed for 98% of families. Their contract and their work ends on 31 March.”

It is not known how many are affected, but 16,970 applicants were awarded therapy in 2023-24.

A similar point to Vaughan’s was made by sector charity Adoption UK, whose chief executive, Emily Frith, said: “The promise of funds for therapy being rolled over into the next financial year was welcome, but in reality applications have been backing up for some time and this does nothing for those who didn’t get their applications extended in time, or for many making new applications in the run up to March.”

‘The most traumatised children in society’

Family Futures, Adoption UK and several other organisations have been raising increasing concerns in recent weeks about the impact on children with significant trauma, and their families, of uncertainty over their ongoing therapy or services abruptly coming to an end.

Vaughan said there were the “most traumatised children in society”, and a withdrawal of services risked placements being disrupted and young people re-entering the care system.

“Some of those families are in a terrible state, really close to the edge of disruption. We’re talking pre-order, where they’re not even sure if they can proceed with the adoption.

“Some of them we’ve got have a high level of violence, where the parent doesn’t know if they can keep going. Some are children who are suicidal, who are self-harming, who somehow don’t meet the criteria for Camhs. All of those have nothing [come 31 March].”

She said the situation had been exacerbated by therapists not being able to prepare children and families for sessions coming to an end, because providers had repeatedly been given assurances over the past few months that an announcement confirming the fund’s continuation into 2025-26 was imminent.

Level of uncertainty ‘unacceptable’

Frith issued a similar message, saying that the situation was “creating additional anxiety and distress for children and families dealing with complex trauma”.

“This level of uncertainty is unacceptable when we are talking about children who have already experienced so much disruption in their lives,” she added.

Should the fund continue, councils and RAAs have pre-loaded applications onto the ASGSF’s portal, which could then be considered, said Adoption England, the national support body for RAAs.

However, Vaughan said there would be a “huge backlog” of applications for the fund – delivered by consultancy Mott MacDonald, on behalf of the Department for Education – to go through.

Therapists taking on other work, leaving potential gap in provision

Meanwhile, therapy providers who have historically delivered support through the fund are taking on other work, potentially leaving a gap in provision should the ASGSF continue.

“RAAs do have providers who are moving to take alternative work and reduce the capacity they hold for ASGSF, and therefore we are at risk of losing sufficiency in the local market that RAAs have worked hard to achieve,” said Adoption England.

“RAAs are undertaking work, funded by the DfE, to look at regional sufficiency and commissioning arrangements, and providers are clear that the delay in decision making regarding ongoing funding of the ASGSF does risk being able to achieve this.”

Vaughan added: “I’m aware of other agencies making mass redundancies. I’m aware of lone providers, who have mortgages and children, who are thinking, ‘I have no work’, because we’re all dependent on one funding stream.”

Alternative sources of funding and provision

Adoption England said there were “no other streams of funding for therapeutic support, other than the local NHS provision that is available for all children”, though RAAs were “continually developing their adoption support provision” and some had multi-disciplinary teams who deliver ASGSF-funded work.

Vaughan said that Family Futures had been given a donation to help continue services for children and families post-31 March 2025, while one RAA had offered the agency interim funding.

However, she added: “But that’s one out of the country.”

For Adoption UK, Frith said: “We would like to see the Department for Education communicate clearly with families about the support they are entitled to and to issue clear guidance to therapists and agency staff so that they can effectively advise parents and carers on the best course of action.”

ASGSF ‘must be extended’ – directors’ body 

The Association of Directors of Children’s Services, meanwhile, joined the calls for the fund to be renewed.

Nigel Minns, chair of the association’s health, care and additional needs policy committee, said the ASGSF provided “essential therapy” and “must be extended to provide longer term certainty for all those involved, including children, families, providers and local authorities”.

“Alongside this, the fund needs to be made more accessible and widened out, to avoid breaks in therapy and ensure more children and families get the help and support they need when it is needed,” he added.

The children’s minister has said she is doing everything possible to “push forward” a decision on the future of the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF), which expires at the end of this month.

Janet Daby told MPs that she understood the “uncertainty and insecurity” created by the government’s delay in confirming the future of the ASGSF, which largely funds therapeutic support for adopted children and those who left care under a special guardianship order (SGO), along with their families.

The delay has meant that councils and regional adoption agencies (RAAs) cannot make applications for therapeutic support for newly assessed children and families, nor to continue therapy for those currently in receipt of it. ASGSF awards last up to 12 months or up to the point when a £5,000 limit has been reached, meaning RAAs and councils must reapply to the fund to ensure continuity of support.

‘Thousands of children at risk of losing therapy’

As a result, therapy providers say thousands of children face a break in their therapy, even if the Department for Education eventually does confirm the renewal of the ASGSF, which is currently worth just under £50m a year.

Providers and adoption bodies have warned that this will be very damaging for children for whom the therapy is designed to support recovery from trauma.

Daby was quizzed on the issue by Liberal Democrat MP Manuela Pereteghella, in an appearance this week before the education select committee as part of its inquiry into children’s social care reform.

Perteghalla said the uncertainty around the future of the ASGSF was causing “a lot of distress” to families and asked the minister if she could provide reassurance to them that the fund would continue.

Minister ‘doing everything to push forward’ decision

In response, Daby, a former fostering social worker and manager, said: “I am aware of the uncertainty and the insecurity that that is causing because, obviously, the announcement has not been made. The announcement will be made very soon about the adoption and special guardianship funding, and as soon as that information is available, then it will be made known.

“But I absolutely understand, and I hear and I do get it. I am hearing from organisations as well around this, and I am doing everything I can to push this forward.”

The charity Kinship, which supports and campaigns on behalf of kinship families, voiced its concerns about the ongoing uncertainty around the fund and “the detrimental impact this is having on kinship families who desperately need therapeutic support”.

Risk of ‘catastrophe of more children going into care’

Chief executive Lucy Peake said the fund was a “vital lifeline for many kinship families, often helping children in kinship care to navigate complex challenges with their mental health, identity and family relationships”.

She added that, in its 2024 annual survey, 13% of carers said they were worried about whether they could continue caring for their children, with nearly three-quarters of this group saying this was due to difficulties managing the children’s social, emotional and mental health needs.

“If we are to avoid the catastrophe of children being placed back into an already overstretched care system, it is essential that additional funding for the ASGSF is confirmed as soon as possible,” Peake added.

Kinship has long campaigned for the fund to be extended to kinship families other than those where a child had left care under an SGO.

Earlier in her evidence session before the select committee, Daby hinted that not only would the fund continue, but that the DfE was exploring extending its scope to children in other kinship care arrangements.

Potential extension of fund to kinship families

In response to a question from Labour MP Amanda Martin about support to kinship carers, Daby said: “We are looking at other ways and other areas in which we can support kinship carers. And we are looking at the adoption and special guardianship funding to enable kinship children to benefit from that.”

Martin had earlier asked Daby about when further detail would be announced on the government’s plan to test the payment of allowances to kinship carers in 10 local authorities, announced in last year’s Budget.

Daby said the DfE would be seeking expressions of interest from councils to take part, adding: “We will be looking to roll this out towards the autumn, and as soon as we have more information and more detail, we will make that known.”

In response, Peake said Kinship was pushing the government to use its forthcoming spending review, which will set public expenditure plans for 2026-29, to “accelerate its plans to trial a kinship allowance and invest in delivering a national offer of financial allowances for kinship carers”.

“At minimum, the Department for Education must work at pace to confirm plans for the trial so that kinship carers across England can understand how it might impact them and how it will build the case for a wider rollout in the future,” she added.

Thousands of vulnerable children risk losing access to vital therapy with the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) set to expire at the end of this month.

That was the claim from psychological support providers in a statement that warned that the breaks in therapy that many children now faced risked deepening their trauma and undermining placement stability.

ASGSF therapy funding lasts for up to 12 months, or when the typical £5,000 limit has expired, and local authorities and regional adoption agencies (RAA) must reapply each year to continue support for children and families.

In 2023-24, 16,970 therapy applications were approved for services including creative and physical therapies, family therapy, psychotherapy, parent training and therapeutic life story work.

‘Too late’ to apply for funding

However, with no Department for Education (DfE) funding committed beyond 31 March 2025, such applications can only be made for services starting or renewing before the end of this month.

According to charity Adoption UK, it is already too late to make an application before the deadline, meaning many existing services are set to stop even if DfE funding is announced for 2025-26.

Last week’s statement was issued by six therapy providers: Anna Freud in London, Beacon House (West Sussex), Family Futures (London), The Family Place (the Midlands and Devon), Gateway Psychology (Staffordshire) and TouchBase (East Sussex).

They said the AGSCF had been “crucial” in helping adopted children and those who left care under a special guardianship order (SGO) recover from trauma, neglect and abuse.

‘Emotional toll of uncertainty is immense’

“Trauma recovery work is all about facilitating safety, security and stability, “said  Louise Michelle Bombèr, founding director of TouchBase.

“We are being prevented from providing this with breaks in therapy now expected. The families we work with are committed to their children but gravely concerned about the impact this break will have upon mental health and wellbeing.”

Jay Vaughan, chief executive and co-founder of Family Futures, added: “Our experience demonstrates that delays in therapy have a direct and detrimental impact on the safety and stability of adoptive and special guardianship placements, placing the children we support at significant risk.

“The emotional toll of this uncertainty is immense. Our families are experiencing a significant and unnecessary increase in stress and worry, exacerbating their already stressful home lives which will have long-lasting consequences for their wellbeing.”

They urged the government to confirm funding arrangements for the ASGSF for April 2025 onwards.

‘Most families set to lose support’

Separately, Surrey-based occupational therapy provider The Sensory Smart Child Ltd said that just 18 of the 123 children it supports through ASGSF funding had support confirmed beyond April 2025.

In an open letter to education secretary Bridget Phillipson, children’s minister Janet Daby and local MPs, its director, Karen Garner, said: “This means that 105 families are now in limbo, fearing the devastating impact that a sudden loss of support will have on their children’s progress, wellbeing and stability.

“This uncertainty is unsettling for everyone—the families who do not yet know if they will have access to funding beyond March, the children who we need to prepare to avoid an abrupt end to their therapy, and the therapists who dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to supporting these young people.”

She called for an “immediate and clear update on the status of this funding”, warning that “families cannot wait any longer”.

ASGSF support ‘a lifeline’

Adoption UK has also issued an open letter to Phillipson, which delivered a similar message.

Chief executive Emily Frith said the charity was receiving an increasing number of calls and emails from families worried about their children’s futures should therapy cease.

She quoted one family as describing the fund as a “lifeline” in supporting their adopted daughter, with their placement on the verge of breakdown.

“If the ASGSF was to discontinue it would have very serious repercussions for our family – and in the end would cost the government thousands of pounds more when we can no longer look after her at home,” the family said.

Urging Phillipson to confirm future ASGSF funding “without further delay”, Frith added: “There is a significant economic imperative in investing in therapeutic support as well as a moral one. There should be no doubt the cost to the Treasury will be far greater if the number of adoptive families facing crises continues to rise.”

MPs raising questions about fund’s future

The concerns come with MPs increasingly raising the issue in Parliament.

In a response to a parliamentary question from fellow Labour MP Rachael Maskell, issued on 29 January 2025, children’s minister Janet Daby said a decision on the fund would be made “as soon as possible”.

“The department will shortly be finalising business planning decisions on how its budget will be allocated for the next financial year,” she said at the time. “All decisions regarding the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) are being made as part of these discussions. An announcement will be made as soon as possible.”

On 6 March, in a written response to three MPs’ questions about whether the fund should be made permanent or renewed, Daby referred them to the answer she gave on 29 January. On 7 March, she reiterated the statement from 29 January in response to a question from Liberal Democrat MP Freddie van Mierlo and referred his fellow Lib Dem Manuela Perteghella to her previous answer.

Research into ASGSF’s impact

Daby gave a fuller response, last week, to a question from Lib Dem MP Cameron Thomas on the DfE’s assessment of the impact of the ASGSF so far, along with whether funding would continue beyond March 2025.

Daby cited a DfE commissioned study from 2018-21, which found that most parents or guardians felt the support received through the fund had been helpful or very helpful and were positive about the extent to which positive changes had been sustained six months after services finished.

She added that the department had started collecting data on outcomes from ASGSF-funded therapies at the end of 2023, which would “give an overall picture of their impact and adequacy”.

However, in relation to future funding, Daby reiterated the line she gave on 29 January.

Sector bodies have voiced concerns about the future of the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF), with the government having failed to confirm funding beyond March 2025.

Under the ASGSF, currently worth £48m a year, councils and regional adoption agencies (RAA) apply for funding for therapeutic support for adopted children, those placed with a family awaiting adoption or those who have left care under a special guardianship order (SGO) or child arrangements order (CAO).

If applications are approved, families may receive up to £2,500 per child for a specialist assessment and £5,000 per child for therapy annually, limits that can be exceeded in exceptional circumstances.

Funding lasts for up to a year, with councils and RAAs having to reapply to continue services for families. In 2023-24, almost 19,495 funding applications from RAAs and councils were approved, mostly for therapies.

Delay ‘very tough on families’

As things stand, the Department for Education, via delivery partner Mott MacDonald, will approve applications for services that start before the end of March 2025 – and extend for up to a further year – but not beyond.

“The delay in confirming funding for the ASGSF for the next financial year is very tough on families,” said charity Adoption UK’s director of public affairs and communications, Alison Woodhead.

“Thousands of children could be facing a sudden break in support, which is likely to mean many backwards steps in the difficult journeys they are on to understand and recover from their experience of trauma and loss.”

Funding ‘cliff edge’ leaves ‘uncertain future’

Woodhead referred to the fact that previous extensions to the ASGSF – for 2021-22 and 2022-25 – had been announced towards the end of the previous financial year.

She added: “This cliff edge in support every Treasury spending round can also impact the trust a child has worked hard to develop with their therapist. Waits for ASGSF funded support are already lengthy, but families waiting to start therapy are now facing an even more uncertain future.”

The concerns echo those voiced by the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies (CVAA) in a report published in October last year.

This warned that the uncertainty around the ASGSF was “causing much anxiety for families parenting children with complex needs” and widening gaps between children’s treatment sessions, which it described as “destabilising and wasteful”.

The same message was relayed by Ofsted in a report last year based on inspections of six RAAs. It said that uncertainty over the future funding of the scheme had prevented adopters from making long-term plans for their children’s needs.

Announcement on funding due shortly – minister

In a response to a parliamentary question, issued last week, children’s minister Janet Daby said a decision on the fund was due shortly.

“The department will shortly be finalising business planning decisions on how its budget will be allocated for the next financial year.

“All decisions regarding the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) are being made as part of these discussions. An announcement will be made as soon as possible.”

‘Vital’ importance of therapies in helping children make sense of past

Children’s charity and adoption agency Coram, which hosts London-based RAA Ambitious for Adoption, stressed the “vital” importance of therapeutic services that understand the needs of children who have “faced sudden losses, being separated from their birth parents and their homes and have had additional abusive experiences within these relationships”.

Dr Anna Harris, clinical psychologist and head of Coram’s creative therapies team, said: “Often, the pain they’ve experienced is stored in their bodies and minds in ways we don’t always see. This can show up in emotional reactions, behaviors, and relationship struggles, even if they don’t have the words to explain what they are going through.

“These services provide the right support to help children make sense of their past experiences, and more importantly, help them find hope for their future.”

However, the fund has also faced criticisms.

Criticisms of support fund

Practitioners have described the administrative process as a “burden”, according to report on adoption support commissioning published by RAA support body Adoption England in November 2024.

This included completing a complicated and time-consuming application process, finding and vetting providers, handling invoices and overseeing contracts and the quality of services, the report said.

The paper also reported criticisms of the fact that funding could not be extended beyond a year, even when therapy was ongoing, and said eligibility criteria were “restrictive and inflexible to the emerging and evolving needs of children and young people”.

The report urged the DfE and Adoption England to review eligibility criteria, the application process and interventions accessible through the fund.

ASGSF ‘needs radical reform’

Meanwhile, the charity Kinship, while calling on the DfE to confirm funding beyond March 2025, said that the ASGSF needed “radical reform”.

From 2019-24, 84% of approved applications were to fund support for children in domestic adoption placements, with just 14% for those on SGOs, despite more children leaving care via the latter route during this time. In 2023-24, just 37 of approved applications (0.2%) were for children under a CAO.

“The most recent figures on applications show that although applications for kinship families are increasing, they remain considerably lower than for adoptive families,” said Kinship chief executive Lucy Peake.

“As a minimum, government should ensure all local authorities and RAAs record the split of awarded funding between SGO/CAO and adoptive families. Research into the therapeutic support offered by the fund to kinship families should proceed at pace to inform future delivery and development, and the government should confirm the future of the fund beyond March 2025.

“In addition, local authorities should ensure professionals working with kinship families have sufficient knowledge and capacity to support effective applications for eligible kinship families, and should ensure any delivery providers understand the specific needs and experiences of kinship families and how they differ to adoptive families.”

Social work practice changes are needed to engineer a shift towards much greater direct contact between adopted children and their birth families, experts have said.

The call came in a report that urged an overhaul of the current “outdated” approach to post-adoption contact in order to enable more face-to-face time between children and their birth relatives.

Despite evidence of the benefits of face-to-face post-adoption contact for children’s sense of identity, it is the exception not the rule in England and Wales, said the report, which was commissioned by family courts president Sir Andrew McFarlane.

Instead, most children only had indirect, “letterbox contact”, in which adoptive parents and birth families exchange information by letter once or twice a year, said the public law working group adoption sub-group.

In calling for a shift to much more direct contact, the group – which included representation from local government, Cafcass, the law, academia and the adoption sector – recommended significant practice changes for both adoption and child protection social workers.

But while the report was broadly welcomed by sector leaders, concerns were raised about there being a lack of support to underpin safe and effective contact.

Legal framework for post-adoption contact

Under the Adoption and Children Act 2002, the courts are required to consider whether anyone should have post-adoption contact with a child before making an adoption order (section 46(6)). They may also make orders requiring or prohibiting contact, including with the child’s birth family (section 51A).

However, the report said case law and anecdotal reports suggested section 51A orders were rarely used.

Also, while the courts may make orders for contact when a child is placed for adoption (section 26), Sir Andrew said that these were also rare, in a speech last year.

Problems with letterbox contact

The adoption sub-group said that, as a result, letterbox contact was the predominant form of post-adoption contact, despite the fact that it could prove problematic.

“A high number of arrangements stall as a result of one (or both) parties failing to maintain the arrangement,” said the report.

“This leaves many adoptees without any effective contact from birth families.”

Face-to-face contact ‘helps adoptees’ sense of identity’

At the same time, the research base was supportive of face-to-face contact, said the sub-group.

The report found “strong indications” that face-to-face contact helped adoptees “develop a sense of identity, accept the reasons why they were adopted and move forward with their lives”.

There was also “considerable evidence” that openness around the circumstances of the adoptee’s birth family was beneficial to the child, while the report also highlighted the “enduring sense of loss” that could occur from separating siblings.

However, it added that ensuring contact was safe was “pivotal to positive outcomes”.

Promoting direct contact when safe and in best interests

The report’s key recommendation was for a “tailormade approach” to contact for each child, which “promotes face-to-face contact with important individuals in that child’s life if it can be safely achieved and is in the child’s best interests”.

“It is recognised that this will not be safe for all adopted children, but the current system whereby face-to-face contact is the exception rather than the rule is outdated,” it added.

To support its preferred approach, issues around contact should be considered prior to any proceedings for the child, the report said.

Proposals for child protection practice

It said child protection social workers should identify relationships that are, or may be, important to the child during family group conferences or pre-proceedings, building on the existing process of identifying alternative carers.

It said this would provide “an early understanding of the child’s network and of who may be able to offer a positive perspective should direct post adoption contact be considered appropriate at the end of proceedings“.

These relationships should be set out in an “ecomap” – a visual tool setting out the network around the child – which should be prepared alongside the mandatory genogram for the social work evidence template, filed as part of court applications.

Early liaison with adoption social workers urged

The sub-group said there should be “specific guidance as to the prospective roles of child protection social workers and adoption social workers including a clear expectation of when they will begin liaising“.

The report backed child protection practitioners liaising with a named adoption social worker as soon as adoption was contemplated, to enable “an early exchange of information, a consultation around proposed contact plans and a smooth transition should a placement order be made”.

This would give the adoption social worker a clear understanding of the child’s networks.

Practice during care and placement proceedings

During proceedings for care and placement orders, social workers should further investigate which family members would be best placed to have contact with the child after adoption and carry out an assessment of anyone identified.

Practitioners should consider all possible forms of contact and balance the welfare benefits for the child against any safeguarding issues. They should then make a recommendation to the court in the final social work statement filed in care and placement order proceedings.

The social worker’s evidence should consider practical issues, such as frequency, duration and location, in the case of face-to-face contact, and the use of digital platforms, in the case of letterbox contact.

Alongside the provisional recommendations for contact, practitioners should draw up a draft contact support plan for the court’s consideration before the making of a placement order. This would form part of the child’s adoption support plan that would be subsequently drawn up with the prospective adoptive parents.

Addressing concerns of prospective adopters

A key barrier to contact between adopted children and birth families has been the prospect of opposition from adoptive parents.

The report did not propose that contact be ordered routinely “in the face of opposition from adoptive parents”, in line with case law.

However, it suggested opposition was “much less likely where adoptive parents are given a thorough understanding of the child’s needs right at the start and are given the right support”.

It said documents shared with prospective adopters about the birth family should be “balanced”, highlighting the positives as well as the negatives of their parenting, along with any mitigating factors.

Consideration should be given, in every case, to a meeting between the adopters and members of the birth family.

Bringing forward life story work

The report also said adopters would benefit from having life story books, including reference to all those people who have been identified as important to the child, available at the earliest possible opportunity.

While regulations in England specify that these should be available within 10 days of an adoption order being made, the report said it should be produced by the time of the order.

It said practitioners should agree on who should produce the book and set a timetable for doing so at the placement order stage.

Key ongoing role for adoption social workers

Should contact be recommended, adoption social workers should have an ongoing role working with the families to monitor how well it is going, offering periodic reviews of contact plans.

“They may need to re-evaluate the birth family’s ability to participate in contact or the adoptive family’s ability to support it, on an on-going basis,” the report said.

“They will need to formulate the ‘rules’ around contact and manage expectations.”

Sir Andrew welcomed the report’s recommendations, though stressed that arrangements around contact “must be determined by the needs of the individual child”.

Recommendations ‘reflect existing work by adoption sector’

Adoption England, the body that supports regional adoption agencies (RAAs), said the recommendations were in tune with work already underway by the sector to “improve how adopted children stay in touch with their birth families in a supported, safe and meaningful way”.

One of the outcomes from its 2024-27 strategy is that adopted people “maintain relationships with people important to them and have a good understanding of the reasons why they were adopted”.

This includes testing the use of digital contact platforms and some RAAs piloting Lifelong Links, a programme developed by the Family Rights Group (FRG) to support children in care to have lasting relationships.

Adoption England’s national strategic lead, Sarah Johal, said: “We also understand some of the complexities and challenges around this, so this is a journey, but we are making good progress supporting professionals, adoptive parents and birth families, with the safety and wellbeing of the child at the centre of our approach.”

Current position is ‘archaic’

For the FRG, chief executive Cathy Ashley said the current position was “archaic” and that the adoption sub-group’s recommendations were “a hugely important step in modernising adoption processes in England and Wales”.

“The permanent separation between adopted children and their birth family, often leaves children with unanswered questions and a sense of loss, that can last a lifetime,” she added.

“All too often we hear from birth parents who are told to keep the annual letterbox contact letters that they are permitted to send to their children ‘factual and light’, and that they cannot even tell the children that they love them.”

Support for contact ‘at best patchy, at worst non-existent’

Adoption UK said that more adopted children should have opportunities for contact with their birth family because of the benefits “safe and well managed contact” can bring in helping them “understand their life story and stay connected to important people in their lives”.

However, the charity’s chief executive, Emily Frith, warned: “Contact has to be meaningful and safe for the child and if it’s not well managed it can be harmful for them, both in childhood and into adulthood. At the moment, support for managing relationships between birth family and adoptive families is at best patchy, at worst non-existent.

She added: “There is an urgent need for radical change in support for contact – including funding for specialist support workers to help everyone involved.”

‘Careful balance needed between benefits and risks’

The Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) gave the proposals a cautious response.

“Enabling contact between a child and their birth family must be carefully managed and incorporating different methods of communication is part of that,” said Helen Lincoln, chair of its families, communities and young people policy committee.

“Digital contact pilots are currently being led by adoption leaders, but a careful balance must be struck between both the benefits and risks for the child.”

Government ‘to carefully consider findings’

Meanwhile, a Department for Education spokesperson said: “We know that adoption has a profound impact on everyone involved, and it’s vital that the child’s best interests are protected and remain at the heart of the process.

“This report offers an important review of the system, and we will carefully consider its findings and recommendations.”

Social workers have created a map of adoption support services for birth families in England to help them overcome the challenge of finding provision when their children are being, have been or may be adopted.

The interactive online service, launched last week by the Family Rights Group (FRG), enables birth parents or relatives to search for, and find the details of, advice, support or counselling services in their areas.

It has been funded by Adoption England, the umbrella body for the country’s regional adoption agencies.

The charity’s social work team spent the past year gathering data on available services and then worked with the FRG’s parent panel and web developers on designing a map that was easy for families to use.

Birth families ‘struggle to access support’

“Too often, birth families affected by adoption struggle to access the support they need,” said the FRG’s principal social work adviser, Pam Ledward.

“Wherever families are in the process – before, during, and after adoption proceedings – Family Rights Group’s specialist national advice service hears heart-breaking examples of families left to navigate that process alone.”

She said available support varied from area to area, despite its significance for families involved in court proceedings.

“For example, therapeutic support is often cited in family court proceedings as a necessity if a parent whose child has been adopted is to safely keep subsequent children at home. Unfortunately, such support may either not be available, or the parent may not know how or where to access it.”

Ledward added that the interactive would “for the first time” provide a resource families across England could draw upon “at this critical time”.

Range of available services

The FRG said the map included detail of:

• General or legal advice and information about adoption;
• Advocacy support to help birth family members get their views across when dealing with children’s services and other agencies;
• Counselling or therapeutic support;
• Support groups for birth family members affected by adoption;
• Advice and information about contributing to a child’s life story work;
• Support with contact with an adopted child, including letterbox contact;
• Support to access adoption records and information held by children’s services or other adoption agencies;
• Information and support about reconnecting with an adult relative who was adopted as a child.

Map ‘useful for practitioners’

Adoption England’s national adoption strategic lead, Sarah Johal, said the “essential” resource would also be of value to social workers.

“This map will also be useful for professionals working with families to help understand the support provision available in their region and local area,” she added

“At a time when birth family members may not know who or where to turn to for help and support, this map is certain to change lives.”

The adoption system is “institutionally racist”, sector leaders have warned, in a strategy designed to tackle ethnic inequalities facing children and prospective adopters and a lack of diversity in the workforce.

In its strategy for 2024-27, Adoption England, the national body supporting regional adoption agencies (RAAs), said it wanted to “end the racial disparity” that meant black children waited significantly longer than average to be adopted.

Key to this was increasing the number of black people approved to adopt and increasing the diversity of the adoption workforce, it added.

Adoption inequalities for black children

Black children are overrepresented in England’s care system, making up 7% of the total, compared with 5.5% of the child population.

However, they are significantly underrepresented in adoption, accounting for just 2% of those adopted in the year to March 2023 (source: Department for Education), while those placed for adoption wait significantly longer than average to be adopted.

Black children who had not been placed with a family had waited an average of 18 months since the grant of their placement order – 11 months longer than the average for white children – and 32 months since entering care, a full year longer than white children, according to the latest data, said Adoption England.

Need to recruit more black adopters

In a 2022 report, Ending Racial Disparity in Adoption, the now dissolved Adoption and Special Guardianship Leadership Board (ASGLB), said tackling the problem required RAAs and voluntary adoption agencies (VAAs) recruiting more black adopters, rebuilding trust with black communities and better resourcing interracial adoption.

According to a report last year published by the Black Adoption Project, there was a much smaller pool of potential adopters of the same ethnic background for black and mixed-race children across all regions than for Asian or white children, because of the former groups’ overrepresentation in the care system.

This meant agencies had to over-recruit black adopters to ensure there were sufficient potential matches for black children, said the project, which is a partnership between four London RAAs and equality, diversity and inclusion firm Laurelle Brown Training and Consultancy.

‘Multiple hurdles’ to adopting

However, people from black and mixed black ethnic groups accounted for just 2.7% of prospective adopters approved in England from 2018-19 to 2020-21, compared with the 6.4% of children placed for adoption from 2016-17 to 2020-21 who were from these backgrounds.

And while the number of black and ethnic minority approved adopters rose from 450 in 2019-20 to 698 in 2022-23, numbers had fallen back since, said Adoption England.

Its 2024-27 strategy said there were “multiple hurdles” facing black people considering adoption, with last year’s Black Adoption Project report saying black-only households were 5-6 times more likely than white-only households to leave the process without having adopted a child.

Financial barriers facing black households

Black people who contributed to the research cited “financial barriers and inequalities, a lengthy and challenging adoption process, a lack of post-adoption support (including culturally informed support), and the impact of racism and racial bias negatively affect their experiences and outcomes”.

For example, with 54% of black households reporting an income of less than £600 a week in 2020-21 – the highest of all ethnic groups – they were likely to be disproportionately affected by adopter assessments considering available space in the home and stability of income, said the report.

Focus group participants in the Black Adoption Project research also reported a lack of adoption promotion material specifically targeted at black communities.

Tackling discrimination in decision making

Among five outcomes in the Adoption England strategy are for adopters from diverse communities to be recruited, prepared and supported to meet children’s needs.

It said this should involve both RAAs and Adoption England’s national teams addressing bias and discrimination in processes and decision making to encourage recruitment of adopters that reflect the diversity of children needing adoption.

In an interview with Community Care, national adoption strategic lead Sarah Johal said Adoption England was funding the Black Adoption Project in testing approaches to improving the recruitment of black adopters.

Need to rebuild trust with black communities

“There’s a big thing on rebuilding that trust with black communities, looking at some of the barriers that people experience when they come forward to adopt and how they’re supported through the process as we know the drop-off rate is quite high.”

One issue highlighted in the ASGLB report was an apparent under-representation of black social workers in adoption teams.

This was in the context of research finding that black people open to, or in the process of adoption or fostering, are more likely to prefer to be assessed by a practitioner from the same ethnic background than white adults (60% v 46%).

In its strategy, Adoption England said it wanted RAAs to increase the diversity of both adoption panels and their workforces and that it would itself promote opportunities to develop greater diversity and
better cultural competence among adoption staff.

Adoption workforce ‘predominantly white’

Across local authority children’s services in England, 25% of social workers are from black, Asian and ethnic minority groups (excluding white minorities), compared with 18% representation in the general population of England and Wales.

However, an Adoption England spokesperson said: “From consultation with RAAs across the country, it’s clear that the workforce is predominantly white women.  We have been supporting leadership initiatives to support global majority leaders in the adoption workforce and to increase the diversity of adoption panels but more needs to be done.”

Separately, Adoption England has jointly funded the development of a practice framework for decision making on transracial adoptions, which was launched last week.

Practice framework on transracial adoption

Produced by University of Sussex academics, led by Tam Cane, the anti-racist framework for decision-making and transitioning children from minoritised racial and ethnic groups into transracial adoptive families is based on nine principles, including:

• Recognising that transracial adoption can lead to trauma, with a lack of support to help the child develop a cohesive and positive sense of identity potentially contributing to confusion and identity struggles.
• Taking an anti-racist approach to practice, which involves “actively opposing discrimination, bias and stereotypes, and striving to eliminate systemic barriers that perpetuate racial inequalities”.
• Being culturally responsive, by prioritising “the preservation of a child’s cultural heritage and the need to embrace, celebrate and engage with the child’s cultural links over time”.
• Collaborating with and including birth parents in sourcing information about the child’s racial and ethnic identity and understanding the potential challenges and benefits of transracial adoption.
• Providing culturally sensitive pre- and post-adoption support.

Launching the report, Adoption England said the framework was seen as “a ground-breaking publication that underscores the unwavering commitment to improving positive identity outcomes for children in transracial adoption”.

By Kirsty Hammonds, Coram

In my role as child placement consultant in Coram’s activity days team, I come across many siblings who will not be able to live together permanently.

This may be due to older siblings already having been adopted or even being deemed too old to be adopted and therefore remaining in long-term foster care. Also, some children are part of very large siblings groups, where it is just not possible for them to all to stay living together.

A report from the Children’s Commissioner for England last year found that 37% of children in care had been separated from at least one sibling in their initial placement. This is despite a 2017 literature review by Oxford University’s Rees Centre for Research in Fostering and Education indicating that outcomes for children placed with siblings in foster care were mostly better than for those placed apart from siblings.

Sibling contact is associated with positive wellbeing outcomes for children including identity formation, a sense of belonging and overall mental health, as well as long-term possibilities for a supportive relationship throughout a child’s life, and children themselves often express a strong desire to stay connected to their siblings.

Barriers to sibling contact

However, there are a number of challenges that can impede sibling contact.

The logistics of co-ordinating visits between siblings who may live in different locations with potentially conflicting schedules is complicated. The social care sector is facing resource constraints around staffing, funding and transport, which can affect its ability to prioritise and facilitate sibling contact.

Parents and carers can feel overwhelmed at the task of facilitating sibling relationships without the support of professionals. Complex family dynamics may require careful planning, assessment and supervision.

Children’s dissatisfaction with current arrangements

There is also a lack of existing services offering support or facilitation for sibling relationships, while research indicates that young people may be dissatisfied with the provision that does exist in terms of quality, frequency and degree of supervision by social workers.

The 2022 Coram Voice report, Staying Connected, found that 22% of 8- to 10-year-olds and 31% of 11- to 18-year-olds felt that they saw their siblings too little. Children reported they did not want to meet their siblings in ‘drab’ contact centres and wished to be able to do normal activities with their brothers and sisters.

As a team, we were determined to find a solution to help overcome these barriers. We considered how we could adapt our longstanding ‘activity days’, which provide an informal setting for children in care to meet prospective adopters and foster carers, to a service for siblings.

‘Sibling time’

We developed the concept of ‘sibling time’, a fun, supportive, therapeutic and safe environment for children who are looked after or adopted to have the opportunity to come together and connect with their siblings.

We received funding from the Hadley Trust to develop a pilot event in Leicestershire. After careful planning with the local authority and information sessions with the parents and carers of the children and young people invited, this took place in August 2023.

The three-hour session was facilitated by nine professionals, including staff from Coram’s activity days team, social workers and play specialists. The focus of the session was child-led free play with supported activities.

Ten young people attended the event, and there were some very emotional moments during the session.

Emotional reunions

Seeing two sisters being reunited with their brother whom they had not seen for five years gave us all goose bumps. Within minutes it was like no time had gone past and they were enjoying each other’s company, playing, interacting and having fun.

An older teen was there to spend time with their baby brother who was adopted. Again, it felt a privilege to be part of their time together, watching the older sibling get down and play with their baby brother, support him throughout the afternoon and help give him his lunch.

All the children were supported in their siblings groups by staff members and each sibling group had the chance to go in our fun ‘photo booth’ to have a picture altogether. We then printed and framed these on the day so that all the children left with a photo memory of the afternoon.

Parents and carers stayed close by, but had the opportunity to undertake some training in another room, around various topics such as supporting sibling contact and life story work, and get to know each other as well.

Positive evaluation

The Coram Impact and Evaluation team undertook an evaluation of the pilot and the findings were overwhelmingly positive.

Very positive interactions between the siblings were observed. The parents and carers interviewed felt that well-supported and carefully facilitated contact helped to build relationships between the parents and carers of siblings and the siblings themselves.

Professionals’ reflections echoed what parent and carers had told us. They talked about the importance of sibling contact for adopted or fostered children, and the lack of existing facilitation or support.

One social worker noted: “In an area where there isn’t a Coram, or the local authority don’t do that, it is literally up to the individual parents. If they, decide to meet up with the other adoptive family, brilliant. If they don’t, it’s not happening.”

Apprehensions among children and parents

There were also common apprehensions about taking part. One child interviewed said they were “excited” but perhaps a ‘little bit nervous as well’ about taking part in sibling time.

Parents were “concerned about resurrecting feelings between siblings, how they would manage difficult questions, and the after-effects of attending an event like that” and professionals noted there were safeguarding issues for some children.

But due to the carefully curated setting and preparation, parents and carers felt like their children were not negatively affected by the event.

Shifting social work culture

It was so positive to see the memories the children and young people made together.

Our hope is to offer this service nationwide and help shift social work culture towards a greater awareness of the benefits of sibling relationships.

We need to listen to children and do all we can to support and encourage relationships between brothers and sisters, so that no child grows up not knowing their siblings.

There will be an online information session on the sibling time service on 19 April from 10am-11.30am. To register, please contact: adoption.activitydays@coram.org.uk