Bi-annual up-date on activity of Portsmouth Adoption Agency. Stephen Kitchman, Head of Children s Social Care & Safeguarding
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1 Agenda item: Title of meeting: Subject: ren & Education Portfolio Decision Meeting Bi-annual up-date on activity of Portsmouth Adoption Agency Date of meeting: 06 March 2014 Report by: Written by: Wards affected: Stephen Kitchman, Head of ren s Social Care & Safeguarding Jackie Clark, Adoption Manager All 1. Requested by 1.1. It is required by Standard 25.6 of the Adoption National Minimum Standards 2011 for Local Authority Adoption Services that the executive receives a six-monthly written report outlining the management and performance of the agency. 2. Purpose 2.1. The last report was prepared in July This report will update the Lead Member on Portsmouth Adoption Agency s response to the government s recent Adoption Reform Programme introduced in 2012 implemented from April Adoption Reform Programme 3.1. Since March 2012, when the Adoption Expert Working Group published its report, there has been unprecedented reform activity including the introduction of Adoption Scorecards, new Regulation and Guidance impacting on Adoption Panel functions, assessment process for adopters and national process for the Adoption Helpline and the implementation of the "First 4 Adoption" National Gateway. 4. Report on Portsmouth Adoption Panel Activity for period 01/04/ /01/ In accordance with the Adoption Agencies Regulations 2012 and in order to improve the timeliness of achieving adoption for Looked After ren, the child s proposed plan for adoption is no longer required to be presented to the Adoption Panel (since 1 September 2012) Plans are now considered by the Agency Decision Maker outside of panel and account has to be taken of the changes to court timetabling for care proceedings, in that courts are required to conclude care proceedings within twenty-six weeks.
2 4.2. The amended function for Adoption Panels is to consider the applications by those wishing to become adopters and the matches of children for whom adoption is the plan and prospective adoptive families This report details the Adoption Panel and the Adoption Agency activity for the period 1 April January During this period there have been twenty Adoption Panels to date. This illustrates Adoption Panel activity is increasing for the 2013/2014 period as there were fifteen panels for the same period in 2012/2013, when Adoption Panel functions were greater, as previously noted Since April 2013 to date there have been forty-one children recommended as needing permanence via adoption. Again, this illustrates an increase from the previous year activity when the Agency Decision Maker recommended adoption for thirty children in the same time span Of the forty-one children with a plan of adoption, there were nine pairs of siblings with age ranges 3 months - 6 years and two sibling groups of three with an age range of 11months - 4years. There were seventeen single children with age range 0-5 years. There have been three of the total cohort of children who had their plans changed to one of permanence via Special Guardianship Orders due to family members or family friends being approved during care proceedings The number of children having a recommended plan of adoption is likely to level out during the forthcoming year due to the increasing number of children being permanently placed with relatives or family friends through the legal security of Special Guardianship Orders. This follows recent case law 'Re BS' in July 2013 whereby adoption must be considered as an absolute last resort and the local authority must consider that children may be cared for within their extended family, with agency support before recommending adoption There has been an increase in the number of children being matched with prospective adopters since April 2013 with a total number of twenty-nine thus far. Within this cohort, there are six sets of sibling pairs with an age range of 0-6 years. There were seventeen single children with an age range of 9 months - rising 3years Of the total cohort of twenty-nine children, five children (including 1 sibling pair) were matched for adoption with their foster carers and two children (sibling pair) matched for adoption with relatives approved by Portsmouth Adoption Agency Within this cohort, eighteen children (including four sibling pairs), have been matched with Portsmouth Adoption Agency approved prospective adopters. Of the remaining cohort, six children (including one sibling pair), were placed with South Coast Consortium approved prospective adopters, four with other local authorities placed and one placed with a voluntary agency approved prospective
3 adoptive family. Those children placed with non- Portsmouth approved adoptive placements and Consortium families post 1 st September 2013, incur a fee of 27,000. Therefore for this year Portsmouth is currently paying a total of 81,000 for those placements. Two thirds is paid at the time of placement and the final third once the adoption order is granted Of the number of children being matched and placed with prospective adoptive families, twenty have been secured by adoption orders and there are nine applications for adoption orders currently pending in court There have been no disruption of adoption placements and the number of children with adoption plans and those being matched with prospective adopters have continued to increase since 2011 (please see table 1 below) Portsmouth Adoption Agency has continued to consistently recruit prospective adopters from within and outside Portsmouth city boundaries. The majority of Portsmouth children need adoptive families outside of Portsmouth but those prospective adopters living within the city are matched with children from within the South Coast Consortium and further afield. The government introduced a universal fee of 27,000 per single placement from 1 April 2013, which was introduced within South Coast Consortium from 1 September Portsmouth approved adopters who have been matched with other agency children have generated income of 108,000 to Portsmouth City Council against a target of 150,000. However, the cost of purchasing adopters ( 81,000) has to offset this Since 1 April 2013 Portsmouth Adoption Panel have heard 31 prospective adoptive family applications, all were subsequently approved by the Agency Decision Maker. Two families have subsequently withdrawn from the adoption process One family have asked for their application to be deferred due to changes in their circumstances Fifteen of those families have been matched with Portsmouth children Four have been matched with children from the South Coast Consortium Three have been matched with children from other local authorities (Brighton, Bolton and Bournemouth) At present there are ten Portsmouth approved adopters awaiting matching, four of whom live within the city, five are currently being considered for matching (one for Portsmouth children), and the other five are being considered by other agencies.
4 4.15. However with the increase in the number of children with an adoption plan, Portsmouth Agency remains focussed on prioritising the recruitment of adoptive families outside of the city in order to place Portsmouth children with them and to keep the costs of alternative agency fees to a minimum Given the complex needs of many of the children needing adoption, the children s names are placed on the Adoption Register for England and Wales and family finding extends beyond the South Coast Consortium There has been a steady increase in the number of enquiries and applications to become prospective adoptive families to Portsmouth Adoption Service. Since 1 April 2013 to date, there have been 78 enquiries. For the period April 2012 to March 2013 there was a total of 114 enquiries for information, compared to 89 between and 87 between In accordance with the Adoption Reform, from 1 July 2013, the assessment of prospective adopters was revised to incorporate a two stage process that is to be completed within a total of six months. Therefore in order to accommodate the increased workload of implementing a two stage process, responding to the increase of applications to become adopters and complying to the strict assessment timescales, the Adoption Team has increased its staffing level. There have been two additional full time equivalent social workers, enabling the team to provide fortnightly Information sessions for all enquirers, fortnightly Stage One induction sessions and rolling bi-monthly preparation groups ( a statutory requirement for adoption assessments) for those in Stage Two. Each of those groups accommodates a maximum of eight prospective adoptive families. The majority of the group comprise applicants living outside the city (as discussed above). There will however always be at least one prospective family living within the city; which will be then available for other agencies to purchase. There are separate preparation groups for foster carers who are identified as suitable to be prospective adoptive families for the children placed with them. At present there are three foster families in the process of assessment. In addition to these changes as incorporated in the Adoption Agency's action plan, a change in permanence planning was implemented. The Protection and Court Teams undertake the care proceedings in respect of Looked After ren, and the ren Looked After Team undertake the children's permanence plans, thus enabling a clearer and more efficient focus on progressing children's plans through to adoption. The indicators for the current annual cohort of Portsmouth children moving to adoptive placements demonstrate an improvement in meeting timescales Membership of Portsmouth Adoption Panel has remained predominantly stable for the past year. In line with the Adoption Regulations 2011, Portsmouth maintains a central list of panel members with a quoracy of five, including the Panel chair or vice-chair and one social work member. Portsmouth Adoption
5 Panel comprises a membership with an extensive knowledge, experience and commitment to adoption and there have been no panels cancelled due to lack of quoracy. As discussed earlier in the report the number of panel meetings have increased over the course of the year to meet the increasing demands and activity Social workers and applicants who attend the Adoption Panel are asked for their feedback so that the practice of Panel can constantly be improved. In general, those attending have been positive about their experience and speak highly of the sensitive but professional manner in which the Adoption Panel is conducted. The Panel meetings continue to be held at the Adoption & Support Services Centre in Hester Road Table 1 gives an overview of Adoption activity from January From To No of children adopted in court No of children s plans for adoption agreed No of children placed with adoptive family for adoption No of prospective adoptive families approved (Jan 31) Table 1 5. Annual Report on Post Adoption Activity for period 01/04/13-31/01/ There have been 51 referrals for access to birth records by adopted adults and intermediary services for both adopted adults and birth relatives. This work is managed by a part time social worker within the adoption team. Unlike many other authorities, this service is operated without a waiting list and service users are offered an appointment within a maximum of six weeks. The worker currently has a caseload of 38 people. On average each case is open for 6months, although some may take 3 years or more to resolve. Referral numbers tend to be consistent throughout the year but can increase when there is media interest/coverage on the subject of adoption. The service user feedback on this service is consistently positive, which is a reflection of the skills of the social worker who undertakes this work Portsmouth also offers support to birth parents through adoption counselling. Birth parents may request birth counselling at any time following the decision for an adoption plan for their child/children. The feedback for this service has been positive. There is also a birth parent support group which convenes at three
6 monthly intervals, facilitated by an adoption social worker. The membership of this group has remained constant, and the feedback is very positive. 6. Support to adoptive families and Special Guardians 6.1. Support is offered in accordance with the Adoption Support Services Regulations 2005 and the Special Guardianship Support Services Regulations All children placed by Portsmouth have an adoption support plan agreed by all parties at the point of placement. This includes details of agreed financial assistance, any therapeutic work that is planned, details of what support (either individual or group) is available from both the placing and receiving agencies and any other support that is required to maintain the placement. For every child placed by Portsmouth City Council (whether this is with a Portsmouth approved adoptive family or one approved by another local authority), the adoption support plan is reviewed at each looked after child statutory review prior to the making of the adoption order and at least annually for the first three years after the making of the adoption order. There are currently sixty-three Portsmouth adoption placements being supported by the Adoption Team If the child is placed outside Portsmouth, after three years support (apart from financial and any support needed regarding on going contact with birth family members) reverts to the local authority where the child lives. The support for special guardians is very similar The complexity of the children we place for adoption places an increasing demand on the adoption support workers in the team. As more information is available about the impact of chronic neglect, alcohol and drug misuse, and domestic violence on the developing foetus and of trauma on the developing brain of young children, adoptive parents are increasingly being asked to provide therapeutic re-parenting to the children we place. This cannot be done without skilled adoption support both in the early days of placement and throughout a child s life. The Adoption Team support workers also prepare Life Story books where a child is placed for adoption. This is a complex area of work and if it is to provide a useful tool for the adoptive parents to use with their children in order to enable them to understand their background, requires a high level of skill and knowledge Since 2009 the adoption support workers hold responsibility for the support of special guardianship arrangements where the issues can involve complex family dynamics and special guardians who have received little preparation for whom they are caring. There are currently ninety-five special guardian families being supported by the workers. The range of support can be from supporting contact arrangements to supporting families on the verge of safeguarding issues There is a need to build on the current support available to adopters and special guardians and the department is seeking to develop direct access to and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) for post adoption support. Apart
7 from the two Adoption Support Workers, adopters and special guardians have access to our educational psychologist who is available one half day per month. The service is also in the process of securing increased Adoption Agency Medical Advisor time to ensure prospective adopters have access to any specialist medical information/guidance they need in relation to children to be placed with them. The adoption team is currently developing its adoption support service to include a specialist qualified social worker in order to meet the changing and growing needs of adoptive parents and special guardians There are monthly support groups for approved adopters and specialist speakers are invited to these groups on occasions. Adopters and special guardians also have the opportunity to access Portsmouth's foster carer training as they wish/need. The team provides a newsletter three times a year for adopters in the area, whether they are approved by Portsmouth Adoption Service or not. There are also annual social events held during the summer for adoptive families, so that adults and children can meet up The Adoption Team continues to facilitate post adoption contact, primarily through the Post Adoption Information Exchange. Birth families and adoptive families maintain post-box contact via an exchange of letters/cards by formal agreement from the making of an adoption order until the child becomes eighteen. 7. Challenges for the year ahead 7.1. Since the introduction of the Adoption Reform Programme in March 2012, and the government's Action Plan, Portsmouth Adoption Agency has implemented a permanence/adoption action plan in order to address delay for those children needing adoptive families The government also introduced the Adoption Scorecard for each local authority and the new framework for Ofsted Inspections which focus far more on the quality and timeliness for children in the adoption system. Portsmouth implemented a Permanence Panel from February 1st 2013 that sits fortnightly to consider all plans for children that have been Looked After from 28 days. This meeting is chaired by the Head of Service and panel members include managers from across the childcare service. The purpose of Permanence Panel is to identify and monitor Looked After ren's care plans to ensure they have a permanence plan in place before the second statutory review and identify any issues that may prohibit prompt planning. Since Permanence Panel has been in place, there has been significant improvement in the timescales within which Looked After children have adoption plans recommended. There is also improvement in progressing matching as demonstrated through the increase in Adoption Panel activity.
8 7.3. However the challenge for Portsmouth as a unitary authority is the high proportion of children identified with complex needs, i.e. chromosome deletions and foetal alcohol issues and other developmental delay. It may take longer for those children to be secured with an adoptive family The new adoption scorecards for local authorities have already been published. They measure the average time it takes from entering care to a child moving in with his or her adoptive family. Another key measure is the average time it takes for a local authority to match a child to an adoptive family once the court has formally decided that adoption is the best option. Over the last three years, which is the period covered by the scorecard, there have been a number of children adopted from this local authority where the length of time has been longer than the national average but the outcome for those children has been wholly positive This includes children placed with foster carers who then took some time to reach the conclusion that they wanted to move forward to adoption and who needed reassurance of the support package (particularly financial) that would be available to them. It also includes a family group of three children for whom adoption was not always seen as possible due to their early life experiences but who are now adopted. Appendix1 demonstrates the reducing timescales for children being adopted In January 2013 the DfE issued Adoption Agencies with the clear expectation for local authorities to increase their potential for placing children with adoptive families. Portsmouth and Southampton jointly commissioned British Association of Adoption and Fostering to undertake a scoping exercise to identify areas where the two unitary authorities could work more collaboratively to improve the adoption service for children and adopters within their locality. This piece of work has fed into a broader exploration with the South Coast Consortium to ascertain the merits of expanding the consortium to include Hampshire, Surrey, and Oxfordshire Incorporated in the Government's strategy to achieve more timely adoption for Looked After children, is the need for local authorities to extend the search for prospective adopters for a child. Portsmouth Adoption Agency already refers children to the Adoption Register for England and Wales if a suitable family cannot be identified from our own resources or from the South Coast Adoption Consortium. There are three Voluntary Adoption Agencies which are part of the Consortium thus offering the potential of a wider choice of prospective adopters. Members of the Adoption Team regularly attend adoption family finding exchange days organised across the country by the Adoption Register for England and Wales, where children and approved adopters are featured. Portsmouth also participated in an 'Adoption Activity Day' ( A family finding initiative introduced to the UK by BAAF in 2012) in September 2013 with other local authorities in the South of England, whereby approved adopters and children awaiting to be matched with adoptive families have the opportunity to socialise with each other
9 in order to promote matching. Nine Portsmouth children (including one set of three siblings, one set of twins) attended this event and five prospective adoptive families. Although none of the Portsmouth children went on to be successfully matched with any prospective adopters from the Activity day, the foster carers of two children attending subsequently applied to be assessed as prospective adopters for the children in their care. Two sets of Portsmouth adopters attending the Activity Day were subsequently matched with children from other local authorities attending the Activity Day. Portsmouth will be participating in a further Adoption Activity Day in June The Government's Adoption Reform urges that children for whom adoption is the plan are placed with their adoptive families as early as possible. Local authorities are urged to consider the model of Fostering for adoption which is where prospective adopters are also approved as foster carers and work with the local authority to either rehabilitate the child to their birth family or, if that cannot be achieved, adopt the child. This model means that the risks of disruption are taken by the adults not the child. It is a model that has been used by some authorities usually for babies born where there is a poor prognosis that the birth parents will be able to care for the child Portsmouth Adoption Agency provided training for its staff regarding Concurrency Planning and Fostering for Adoption in June 2013 and will work with partner agencies and the courts to identify those children appropriate for such placement plans The new adopters' assessment process and report was introduced in 1st July 2013 and is in response to the government's identified need for a speedier process of approving prospective adopters. The new assessment process is designed to be completed in two stages over six months Stage one of the assessment process is adopter led and it is during the first two months that applicants are expected to complete an e learning programme, chronology, Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) and statutory checks, medicals, health and safety, pet and financial assessments. Subject to all these factors being satisfactory, the applicants will then proceed to the analytical stage of assessment with the social worker. The challenge for the service will be to ensure the quality of the assessment process is not compromised and that prospective adopters are given sufficient time to reflect on their learning throughout the process. In order to attract more people to consider adoption, the Government plan also introduced First4Adoption, National Gateway, which will complement adoption agencies by providing a central point of contact for anyone interested in adoption It is acknowledged by the National Working Group that, if the aim is to increase the number of adoptions of children from the care system, there has to be some guarantee of a minimum level of adoption support services. Currently adoptive
10 families have a right to request an assessment of their adoption support needs but the local authority does not have a duty to meet the needs that are identified. The Government recognises the need for increased adoption support. The challenge for this authority will be to meet the potential financial cost of increased adoption support and to negotiate with key stakeholders such as schools and CAMHS for timely and appropriate support to adoptive families. During the new assessment process it is anticipated that prospective adopters are likely to be asking for support packages as the Government have introduced the concept of an Adoption Passport for prospective adopters to access support services. With the introduction of the departmental Adoption Action Plan and Permanence Panel, the Head of Service regularly reviews progress in line with the National Adoption Scorecard and issues are addressed promptly. Signed by (Head of Service) Appendices: Appendix 1 - Report on Portsmouth City Council Adoption Panel April January 2013 Background list of documents: Section 100D of the Local Government Act 1972 The following documents disclose facts or matters, which have been relied upon to a material extent by the author in preparing this report: Title of document Location Signed.. Date.. Approval to the recommendation(s) The recommendation(s) set out above were approved / approved as amended / deferred / rejected* by the Lead Member for ren s Services. (*delete as appropriate) Signed.. Date..
11 Appendix 1 A1 - BLA Date to Placed For Adoption - Rolling 3 years PCC (01/01/ /12/2013) /1 10/1 10/1 10/1 10/1 11/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1212/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1313/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/ / / / /2014 A1 Days Eng. Avg.* Stat. Neigh. Avg.** * Eng Average from Mar 2013 ** Stan. Neighbour Average from Mar LA level 2013 data is due soon
12 A2 - Placement Order to Matched Date - Rolling 3 years PCC (01/01/ /12/2013) /1 10/1 10/1 10/1 10/1 11/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1211/1212/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1312/1313/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/1413/ / / / /2014 A2 Days Eng. Avg.* Stat. Neigh. Avg.** * Eng Average from Mar 2013 ** Stan. Neighbour Average from Mar LA level 2013 data is due soon
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