The Government is developing and implementing an ambitious reform programme to ensure that more children, for whom adoption is the best option, can be placed more quickly with permanent loving families to ensure they have the best possible chances in life.
Local authorities and local authority social workers are at the heart of implementing this reform programme. Many councils are already taking significant steps to improve the quality and timeliness of the services they offer. The Government is now providing additional funding (£8 million in total) in 2012/13 to help councils to implement the reform programme to improve adoption practice and adoption services in their areas.
In particular, the funding is available for activities to reduce the time it takes between children first entering care and being adopted – seeing children moving into stable homes as early as possible; to improve the quality of associated decision making; and to increase the numbers of adopters being recruited and approved (including the impact of effective adoption support).
Examples of the kind of activities local authorities might wish to use the funding for include:
- Diagnostic work to identify skills gaps or systems weaknesses which are hindering improvements in adoption outcomes;
- System redesign to remove delay, duplication and unnecessary bureaucracy from adoption processes;
- Design and implementation of robust case management arrangements based on effective management information to reduce drift and delay;
- Development of social worker capability in permanency planning, assessment, court work and family finding, including the use of concurrent planning and ‘fostering for adoption’; and
- Peer review, challenge and support and other sector-led improvement activities, including the development of consortia and other collaborative approaches to improving adoption practice.
