Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund expires with no news on future

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”.