Linking support with family-finding could bring multiple benefits.
A group of UK adoption organisations believe more children could be matched, and matched sooner, if adopters were certain that sufficient and child-specific support was available.
When it is decided that it is in a child’s best interests, a successful adoption saves over half a million pounds in foster care costs (based on a 7 year old child remaining in care until 18). Just 5% of this, put aside for immediately accessible, specialist support, could help find an adopter for a child who would otherwise remain in care
It would help those children to stay, and thrive, in adoptive placements.
A promise of this small share, paid only if a match is found, could bring better outcomes for children while helping the public purse.
How could this work?
Evidence suggests that adopters may, perhaps sensibly, decline matches involving complex needs when they fear the right support won’t be available. Building on the standard core offer, some of this essential, longer-term support would be guaranteed up-front by paying into a central fund to be drawn down when needed.
This would be shown on a child’s matching profile.
Some of the funding could be used for child-specific adopter training and preparation. A match may be long-distance, but the extra work could be done by an agency local to the family.
The rest of the funding would remain instantly available for when support is needed. Again, this could be provided by any appropriate agency in the family’s area.
Since there is no application process for the funding, and no delay, the support it is likely to be more effective.
And if more support is needed for longer, there will be time for this to be applied for.
We believe this could have a large, long-term impact. Our aim is to make a case for, and to help enable, a funded pilot with a selection of children.
If you are an adopter, prospective adopter, or adoption practioner, your input could really help.
What long-term problems could be addressed?
1. Access to support
A third of adoptive families face severe challenges, or are at crisis point.
While the state has a duty to provide support for children in care, adoptive families are not automatically entitled to specialist support.
In England, adopters can apply to the Adoption and Special Guardian Support Fund (ASGSF), which provides an average of £4k to families needing support. However, where there are significant needs, applying for this can be too slow to prevent families reaching crisis point.
Money is always a barrier to the right support. However, if local authorities promised support linked to matching, there would be potentially huge savings.
And if central funding was used it would take pressure off the ASGSF, by helping what are likely to be the same families with faster and more effective help.
2. Not enough of the ‘right’ adopters
Over 500 children fail to find an adoptive placement each year, often due to more complex needs.
Some agencies provide the extra training and support that these placements would need, but this is specific to their adopters. Those adopters might be in the wrong place, or simply not the right match.
Other adopters may not be willing to take the risk of a challenging placement if they fear support might not be available when needed.
If enough money was invested up-front for additional training and support, some of the many families already waiting could become the ‘right’ family for a child who would otherwise remain in care.
The improved prospects of both matching and support could only help with the recruitment of more adopters.
3. Matching delay
At any time, around 200 children may have been waiting over a year for an adoptive match.
This length of wait can mean a child is less likely to flourish in a new placement, and could cost £50k in additional foster care.
If some of this was promised for support up-front, a match might be found sooner, helping everyone.
Further reading
The Adoption Barometer is an annual stocktake, from Adoption UK, of the impact of policy and practice in adoption and related issues on the lives of adoptees and adoptive families. The 2024 Adoption Barometer describes the challenges faced by adoptive familes in accessing support, and you can read the full report here
The Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies (CVAA) published an analysis in 2022 which it had commissioned to explore the value created by adoption to those who are adopted, their families and the wider society. This found that for every child adopted, the value created for children, families and society is at least £1.3million, with a saving of over £1million pounds, on average, for a local authority. The full report can be found here
Adoption England has published a strategy for 2024-27. This talks of a concerning national picture regarding insufficient adopters to meet the needs of children waiting, and highlights some of the reasons for an increase in adopters withdrawing from the process:
… prospective adopters lack confidence in their suitability, capacity, and capability to be ‘good enough’ adopters; there is a lack of trust in the process … variability in support being provided and a fear that that the right support will not be available at the right time.
Some adopters have been waiting for the right match for some time and have withdrawn from the process, becoming disheartened after expressing interest in several children.
The DfE published an evaluation of regional adoption agencies in England in 2022. This included:
…there could be more support for adopters who would like to adopt children who wait the longest; often, these adopters did not receive the support and guidance they needed to adopt children who wait the longest and when adopters were interested in adopting siblings, they were frequently matching with a single infant child.
RAAs acknowledged families still experienced delays in receiving targeted and specialist support … for most RAAs the ASF was the primary mechanism for the delivery of these services.
Link Maker (then Adoption Link) conducted a survey of prospective adopters in 2015 to explore whether the promise of support was likely to find more adoptive placements for ‘harder to place’ children. 404 families responded, and a summary of the findings can be found here
A Fair Share? 