1 Children and Families Bill Written evidence from the British Association for Adoption & Fostering Clause 1 - Fostering For Adoption Introduction - Best Practice in Promoting the Development of the Child Child development is deeply embedded in the relationships that the child establishes with their parents. These relationships quickly become highly selective over the first 6 months of the child s life. The continuity of those relationships should only be disrupted in the most extreme of circumstances although that is precisely what happens when a child is placed in local authority care. It must be a driving principle to minimize the time it takes to re-establish a parenting relationship for the child whether that is with the birth parents, other family members or alternative non-related carers. Ensuring the framework for doing so is timely and on the side of the child is the focus for many aspects of the Bill. Currently many children wait too long in temporary care where they develop significant parenting relationships with their temporary carers only for these to be disrupted sometimes after many months or years and sometimes where a number of these relationships have been disrupted. The consequences for the child and for their new carers are profound. The reasons for this are usually a combination of complexity of the issues to be resolved by the local authority and the court in respect of the originating reasons the child became looked after abuse and/or neglect. Where adoption is the proposed plan for the child, there are particular issues where the issues centre on the legal severance of the child from their birth family a state act of major significance. It is a central principle of the current law that only the court can authorise the action of a local authority to place a child for adoption without parental consent and that the local authority should not take any action that might anticipate the judgment of the court. This usually results in lengthy sequential planning for the child temporary foster care placement(s), court decision, family finding, placement and then adoption order. Reconciling the need for the child to be placed in a timely way and the resolution of the complex issues by the local authority and the court is challenging and it is the latter that has been given priority with the child being expected to carry the developmental burden this imposes. One solution to this complex issue has been the use of concurrent planning. Here the child is placed with foster carers who are also approved as suitable to adopt. The plan is to pursue the rehabilitation of the child back to the parents, with the foster carers fully supporting that plan. If that plan does not succeed and the court agrees the adoption plan, then the foster carers become the child s adopters without any disruption to the child. Concurrent planning has been in operation on a very small scale since the late 1990 s. Its potential has been recognised again more recently with a renewed interest in introducing it into common practice. However, it is important not to underestimate the expertise it takes to implement concurrent planning properly. A second solution has been explored where, because the circumstances of the birth parents are such that the local authority does not have an active rehabilitation plan, the child is placed with foster carers who are also approved as suitable to adopt. Where the court authorises the placement for adoption, the foster carers become the child s adopters. There are individual examples of such practice especially where the child is the second, third or more of the birth parents and their circumstances evidence no change. As with concurrent planning, it is important not to underestimate the expertise it takes on a system wide basis to implement foster for adoption properly.
2 The British Association for Adoption and Fostering have supported the government s proposals to develop both concurrent planning and foster for adoption as it is a strong and appropriate re-alignment of a system that has not sufficiently been on the side of the child. However, BAAF is concerned that clause 1 is not fit for purpose as currently drafted. In particular BAAF is concerned that the clause is confusing, if not misleading, in seeming to privilege fostering for adoption placements over all other placements options. It is not necessary for this to be so and our proposed amendments suggest a solution that would retain the proper exploration of all placement options and support the lawful and the effective development of foster for adoption placements. Option 1 Delete the clause The law as currently drafted supports the use of concurrent planning and foster for adopt type placements. As such it could be argued that primary legislation does not need any further amendment. However, there is no doubt that there are continuing issues about whether such placements breach Article 6 and 8 rights and whether they create a fait accompli where the court is faced with a placement that has already become established and indeed decided by the local authority in breach of the principles of the Adoption and Children Act 2002. The resolution of these difficulties rests more in the lawful and proper introduction of these placement options into local practice where stakeholders understand the objectives and principles of the scheme. The clause as proposed in the published Bill does not resolve these issues by itself and as noted above creates other serious problems. However we believe the proposed clause as written is not fit for purpose and an amendment that establishes an appropriate framework for foster to adopt type placements is necessary. Below we have suggested two possible options which would either replace or amend the clause. Option 2 Delete the clause and replace with the following clause The local authority has a duty to consider as a part of the permanency plan for C, placement with carers who could become the child s permanent carers where this is in C s best interests. This clause has the advantage of giving a specific direction of travel for the local authority in keeping the child s needs for a permanent placement firmly on the agenda. It also has the advantage of supporting all placement options as set out in Section 22C of the Children act 1989 and the legal options of Special Guardianship, Residence Orders, long term foster care and adoption. Indeed in Special Guardianship, it is the case that such carers may be approved under existing specific regulations as foster carers prior to the making of the Special Guardianship Order. It may be argued that a duty to consider is an option that may be too readily ignored in practice. However, secondary legislation and guidance can specify how this duty must be demonstrated even if the option is discounted as not in C s best interests. Option 3 Amendment to the clause as published Page 1, line 9 After adoption for C insert and are satisfied that a placement falling within paragraph (a) of subsection (6) would not be consistent with C s welfare Page 1, line 12 Delete (7) to (9) and insert (7)(c), (8)(a) and (9).
3 At second reading the Minister indicated that the Government does not intend to alter the local authority s duty to give priority to a kinship placement for a child just because it is considering adoption. Clause 1 as currently drafted, however, disapplies subsections (7) to (9) of s 22C of the Children Act 1989 when a local authority are considering adoption for a child. Subsection (7) (a) is the section which requires a local authority to give preference to a placement falling within paragraph (a) of subsection (6) i.e. with a person who is a relative, friend or other person connected with the child, and approved as a local authority foster carer. If this is disapplied, the local authority will no longer be required to regard such a placement as a priority, even at the point where adoption is only being considered i.e. possibly long before the time when a decision is made that adoption is the best outcome for a child. This suggested amendment would clarify that kinship placements should be looked at first, but would still ensure that local authorities considered the possibility of a fostering for adoption placement where appropriate. It would also require the local authority still to try to place the child with his or her sibling, if the local authority is looking after the sibling, (by leaving section 22C(8)(c) still effective) and it would remove the very puzzling provision inserted by the Bill by which s22c(8)(d) is negated when the local authority considers a fostering for adoption placement. S22C(8)(d) requires the local authority to ensure that, if the child is disabled, the accommodation they choose is suitable for the child s particular needs; it is not easy to understand why this requirement should not apply to a fostering for adoption placement as much as to any other. Summary The British Association for Adoption and Fostering fully support the further development of placement practice to ensure that in appropriate cases children are placed in a timely way with carers who are or could become their parents. The system as a whole needs to move more firmly towards recognising the position of the child and the fact that he or she must not carry the burden of adult or system inertia or hesitancy. But it must do so in a way that is fair and just and retains the confidence of society as a whole. The currently published clause does not do this but we believe that the three options proposed could in slightly different ways do exactly that. This document was prepared by: John Simmonds, Director of Policy, Research and Development at the British Association for Adoption and Fostering. For further information, please contact: Margaret Grant, Policy and Research Officer, email: margaret.grant@baaf.org.uk, tel: 0207 421 2649.
1 Children and Families Bill Written evidence from the British Association for Adoption & Fostering BAAF is the UK s leading charity and membership organisation for both local authorities and the voluntary sector. In 2011/12 we helped find families for over 700 children through our family finding services, we dealt with many thousands of enquiries from professionals and the public through our UK-wide general enquiries service and we sold over 45,000 books on adoption and fostering. BAAF is a multi-disciplinary organisation for those working in social care, legal and the health professions. Clause 2 - Repeal of requirement to give due consideration to ethnicity: England Introduction The evidence and arguments for the repeal of section 1(5) of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 have been extensively addressed in the pre-legislative scrutiny Report of the House of Lords adoption legislation scrutiny committee. In that report the House of Lords rejected the proposal to delete section 1(5) and recommended that the duty to giving due consideration to a child s racial origin, culture, religion and language remained significant but that if the clause suggested undue balance is given to these four factors, then incorporating the duty into section 1(4) would address the problem. The government have ignored this recommendation despite the weight of the evidence considered by the House of Lords Committee. The House of Lords report is comprehensive, detailed and proposes a workable solution; it is therefore with some reluctance that BAAF is presenting further written evidence in respect of clause 2. However, the proposed clause in the Bill as introduced is significant and does not provide any workable solution to the problems that do exist. There are a number of issues: 1. The emphasis in the government s argument is solely on ethnicity while the clause is concerned with racial origin, culture, religion and language. Ethnicity is not mentioned in the current clause and ethnicity is a concept that is different to the four that are identified. The proposal is therefore to delete something that is not in the current clause. 2. The current clause is expressed as the adoption agency having a duty to give due consideration to the issues named. Due consideration is an entirely proportionate phrase and cannot be construed as meaning overriding, exclusive or a determining consideration. There are no legal judgements handed down that clarify this phrase as it simply does not lend itself to complex interpretation in practice. The proposed deletion removes exactly what the status of these issues should be due consideration.
2 3. Giving due consideration to a child s racial origin, culture, religion and language is not exclusive to issues of matching but to every aspect of adoption. The current clause is focussed on the placement of the child for adoption but the point of matching is the start of a life-long process. Adoption agencies will be expected to specifically address those issues faced by the child and the adoptive family after placement as they establish various and unavoidable aspects of the child s identity and history. Where adoption support services are provided at any point in the child s life through to being an adult, due consideration will need to be given in a variety of ways to the child s racial origin, culture, religion and language. It is not an issue that in any way is limited to the point of matching but the government s explanatory notes do not acknowledge this at all. Racial origin, culture, religion and language become embedded into the fabric of adoptive family life whatever that might mean given the similarities and differences between the child and the adopters and how these change over time. It is widely recognised that adoptive families need to have the understanding and resources to manage these issues and insofar as it is possible, agencies must assure themselves at the point of matching that this is likely. The deletion of the clause signifies a deep misunderstanding of the nature of the issues to every adoptive family as they construct their lives together. 4. The evidence made available by the government to support the deletion of the clause is misleading. Children from minority ethnic groups who have adoption as the plan are typically children from mixed ethnicity backgrounds. This reflects the very significant growth in the minority ethnic population in the U.K. in general in recent years. These children defy any simple definition of their ethnicity, culture, religion and language and it is typically multi-dimensional. However, these children leave care through adoption at the same rate as do white children over recent years at about 14%-15%. The numbers of white children over recent years is approximately 2,700 and mixed ethnicity children, 350-400 each year. While the specific arrangements for matching the mixed ethnicity children are not known, there is no clear evidence that the current clause prevented these children from being matched appropriately and in a timely way. When the figures for Black and Asian children are considered a different picture emerges. The rate of adoption is 3% for Asian children and 4% for Black children. In terms of timescales Black children take on average about one year longer to be adopted than children of other ethnic groups. In terms of number this approximates to about 50 Asian children and 100 Black children per year. The government s argument for deleting the clause is based on these two groups and Black children in particular. While there is an important and serious issue to be addressed about the position of Asian and Black children, changing the law is extremely unlikely to be a solution and the argument on which it is based is misleading. Even if the government s expectation is that removing the clause would open the gates to Black and Asian children being more speedily placed with white adopters, for which the evidence does not exist, then the child s racial origin, culture, religion and language will still need to be given due consideration. 5. The government does accept that racial origin, culture, religion and language will still play a part in placement planning and agencies are not being banned from considering it. But the message in the deletion of subsection 1(5) is confusing and misleading and is unlikely to produce a solution to the problems that do exist. A solution in primary legislation is proposed by the House of Lords scrutiny committee in making appropriate amendments to subsection 1(4). If that amendment was enacted, this should ensure that due
3 consideration to a child s racial origin, culture, religion and language continue to be recognised as playing a proportionate part in what are life-changing decisions for the child and their adopters. Amendment Adoption and Children Act 2002 Subsection 1(4) (d) the child s age, sex, background and any of the child s characteristics including their racial origin, culture, religion or language which the court or agency considers relevant, This document was prepared by: John Simmonds, Director of Policy, Research and Development at the British Association for Adoption and Fostering. For further information, please contact: Margaret Grant, Policy and Research Officer, email: margaret.grant@baaf.org.uk, tel: 0207 421 2649
1 Children and Families Bill Written evidence from the British Association for Adoption & Fostering BAAF is the UK s leading charity and membership organisation for both local authorities and the voluntary sector. In 2011/12 we helped find families for over 700 children through our family finding services, we dealt with many thousands of enquiries from professionals and the public through our UK-wide general enquiries service and we sold over 45,000 books on adoption and fostering. BAAF is a multi-disciplinary organisation for those working in social care, legal and the health professions. Clause 3 - Recruitment, assessment and approval of prospective adopters Introduction The proposal to give the Secretary of State reserve powers to require a single, group of or all local authorities to make arrangements for other adoption agencies to perform one or more of their duties to recruit, assess or approve prospective adopters is a major and radical change to existing arrangements. It is accepted that that there is a serious mismatch in the number of adopters recruited and approved as suitable and the number of children who have adoption as the plan. This problem exists both in terms of absolute numbers with a year by year shortfall of 500-600 adopters with a further 2,000 adopters required for children who are currently waiting to be placed. There is also a shortfall of adopters who are suitable to adopt children with disabilities, older children, children from minority ethnic backgrounds and children in sibling groups. An analysis of current arrangements identifies a lack of incentive for local authorities to address a national recruitment crisis. Current structural arrangements plus economic factors tend to focus on each local authority addressing its own particular recruitment and assessment issues in relation to the children it has responsibility for or anticipates it will have responsibility for. This picture is mediated by long standing Consortia arrangements in most areas where issues of supply and demand are addressed across local authority boundaries and this often includes the voluntary adoption sector. However, these arrangements do vary and are variously effective. There have been a number of initiatives over the last year to address these serious issues. These include the introduction of adoption scorecards, the commissioning of adoption diagnostics for local authorities with a poor level of performance, a review of and proposals to streamline the adopter approval process, the adoption improvement grant. The unexpected introduction of Clause 3 into the Bill has also resulted in an urgent review by the Association of Directors of Children s Services, the Local Government Association and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE) to explore the actions that must be taken to address this national crisis. The sector as a whole recognises the importance of this and the voluntary adoption sector has made a very significant contribution to this in committing itself to increasing the number of adopters approved by its members. The clause itself has been experienced as a very big stick to wave over the sector, one that does not itself recognise the significant efforts and commitment of the sector to find urgent solutions. As a solution itself, it is extremely difficult to identify its positive contribution. At the core of recruitment, preparation, assessment and approval is a
2 social work workforce with the commitment, knowledge, and expertise to undertake the challenges of adoption work. Other attempts to change the structural arrangements for delivering social work have had very mixed results the piloting of independent social work practices is one example. The current arrangements embed one adoption function adopter recruitment and approval alongside other adoption functions children s care planning, matching and support and more generally other services for children such as foster care. High degrees of working together are essential to timely, effective and efficient service delivery. This is the challenge accepted by the sector as a whole. The wholesale disruption of this by inventing different organisational arrangements is an experiment that has a very weak evidence base as current crises in large public sector organisations demonstrate. Larger and different is not itself a self-evident solution. The de-moralising, confusing and disruptive effect along the way is only too clear to see. And ultimately this is an experiment with children s lives. BAAF believes solutions to the recruitment crisis is currently being actively pursued by the sector and Clause 3 is at best an irrelevant and at worst a damaging distraction Amendment Delete Clause 3 This document was prepared by: John Simmonds, Director of Policy, Research and Development at the British Association for Adoption and Fostering. For further information, please contact: Margaret Grant, Policy and Research Officer, email: margaret.grant@baaf.org.uk, tel: 0207 421 2649
1 Children and Families Bill Written evidence from the British Association for Adoption & Fostering BAAF is the UK s leading charity and membership organisation for both local authorities and the voluntary sector. In 2011/12 we helped find families for over 700 children through our family finding services, we dealt with many thousands of enquiries from professionals and the public through our UK-wide general enquiries service and we sold over 45,000 books on adoption and fostering. BAAF is a multi-disciplinary organisation for those working in the social care, legal and health professions. Clause 4 - Adoption support services: personal budgets Introduction The core place of support in adoption There has been long standing recognition that the placement for adoption and the making of an Adoption Order do not resolve once and for all the issues that led up to adoption becoming the plan. Adoption is a life long issue that impacts on the child, the child as an adult, the adoptive parents, adopted and non-adopted siblings and other birth family members. This is acknowledged in the Adoption and Children Act 2002 where the range of services the local authority is responsible for providing is specified in section 2(6) and then in Regulation 3 of the Adoption Support Agencies Regulations of 2005. Entitlement to an assessment for whom and for what service is detailed in the Adoption Statutory Guidance, Chapter 9, paragraph 7 and the framework set out in that paragraph is detailed and comprehensive. The prescribed services are identified as: 1. Services to enable discussion of matters relating to adoption 2. Assistance in relation to arrangements for contact 3. Therapeutic services 4. Services to ensure the continuation of adoptive relationship 5. Services to assist in cases of disruption 6. Counselling, advice and information 7. Financial support The assessment for adoption support services is set out in section 4 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002. Subsection 1 sets out the duty to undertake that assessment. Subsection 4 establishes that having undertaken that assessment, the local authority must decide whether to provide the assessed service(s). Subsection 4 is identified as providing an opt-out for local authorities and creating serious difficulties for those assessed in getting the support they need. It must be noted that while this gap between assessment and provision is enshrined in primary legalisation, secondary legislation does not accept or envisage such a simple opt out. For more detailed exploration of this issue see BAAF s written evidence set out in response to clause 5. The evidence set out in the government s policy analysis in support of this provision argues that good quality support during and after adoption is valued by parents and can have a real impact. It is difficult to argue with this although the evidence is rather thin. There are numerous issues in identifying what support is needed, when it is needed, what makes for good quality and what effectiveness might look like. Some of this results from the very large number of people who are affected by adoption at different points in their lives. This includes those
2 immediately affected the adopted child and the adoptive parents and that is how the policy statement is framed. But there are others including the birth parents, siblings placed elsewhere, birth children in the adopted family etc. etc. And these change over time. The child will become an adult and may quickly want birth records counselling and all that may follow from this, or they may delay this until later in adulthood or indeed never. Adoption creates a immediate family network but that network extends and includes a large number of people who may need to access support in addressing important issues that result from adoption over the course of their lives. While it is understandable that there should be significant emphasis on ensuring the adoptive family has access to the resources and services it needs to ensure the stability and quality of the placement, any policy development and legislative change must ensure that it continues to be applicable and effective for all those who are already identified in the existing legislative framework as falling within its scope. One of the key issues in the provision of effective support is the range of services that might be required. This includes the services provided to maintain contact whether this is intermediary services to support letterbox contact, services to maintain direct contact especially with siblings but that may include a range of other people, intermediary services for adopted adults and their birth parents, financial or practical support including house extensions and modifications, cars or respite care. Lastly there are questions of effectiveness. Although there are often strongly held views about effectiveness of provision, the evidence base is weak. Some of this results from the wide range of provision that falls within adoption support, some from limited understanding of the nature of the problems to be addressed and some from a limited understanding of what might help. There are rarely single causes to problems with a single solution but multiple causations that interact over time. Considerable investment has been made in recent years in the development of parenting programmes funded by government and these include those developed by the Oregon Social Learning Centre and implemented by the National Implementation Team at the Maudsley Hospital, Fostering Changes also developed at the Maudsley and Effective Adoptive Parenting at the Institute of Psychiatry. While the first two focussed initially on children in foster care, they have more recently been developed to include children in adoptive families. Effectiveness is core to each of these programmes. However, as substantial as the investment in these programmes have been, they are by no means the only available programmes and there are many others with a different emphasis and conceptual framework with comparable claims to effectiveness. Similar issues arise in relation to other forms of intervention whether it is therapy with children, therapy with the whole family or group work with adopted children or adoptive parents. There is not a coherent, well-established, evidence base of interventions or the provision of services in adoption support. That is not to say such services are not available, indeed there is and has been a considerable investment in the provision of such services but it is widely recognised that it is not enough given the challenge of adoption. In further development of policy in adoption support, it is essential that this does not rely on an over-simplistic analysis of the current problems The government s policy argument is that a significant part of the problem with adoption support is the lack of choice and control over the provision of adoption support services and feelings of stigma that adoptive parents feel when asking for help. Personal budgets are identified as a solution with the policy document arguing that Adding some control for adoptive parents, so that they feel less subject to decisions made by others, can only help to improve this situation. This is a weak and poorly formulated argument. In the written evidence submitted to clause 5, BAAF argues that the regulatory framework that determines how an assessment for adoption support is to be undertaken is based on individual interviews in most cases, a written report
3 which is then subject to consultation with the person on whom the report was written including the right to make representations within specified timescales. It is difficult to see that this is envisaged as anything other than participatory and co-operative especially when it is supplemented by the professional framework of the person undertaking the assessment. It would be assumed that within this assessment process, significant consideration would be given by the assessor to any anxiety the person being assessed might have of being blamed or held to account for the problem being assessed. If the existing framework is seen to be ineffective, and there is nothing to suggest that in itself it should be, then nothing in this clause seeks to change or improve it. It would also continue to be the basis for any new system that would result from the passing of clause 4 into legislation. It is commonly identified that the point at which the provision of support breaks down is following an assessment when there is no duty to provide the services identified in the assessment. There is a strong argument that the duty to assess must be accompanied by a duty to provide. That is certainly the case in relation to the provision of health services although that is usually subject to significant control by the assessing health professional and the controls that are exercised on them by their professional frameworks or commissioners of services or the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence. However, clause 4 does nothing to address the issue of the gap between assessment and provision as it will only come into force where the local authority had agreed to provide adoption support services following an assessment. The clause if anything is misleading in its attempt to address the most serious issue in adoption support the provision of support as a statutory duty with the accompanying availability of the resources to enable this. The effect of the clause is likely to be minimal and should not be read as a reassuring positive development to the problems that currently exist. Personal Budgets The development of a framework of personal budgets may have some merit to it that should be explored. It may be that those affected by adoption and requiring support do have a view about service providers beyond those that local authorities typically access or have service contracts with. There may a benefit to them of being able to exercise that choice resulting from the application of the process as set out in Clause 4. However, there are a number of important questions that need to be addressed: 1. What kinds of adopted related issues lend themselves to the provision of personal budgets? 2. What happens to contact arrangements over time if the adopter decides to use an allocated budget for contact to effectively stop contact? 3. What happens to the agency budget to provide regular groups for adopted children if a small number of adopters decide to use their part of the budget for an alternative form of individual provision? 4. What happens to an independent adoption support service provider if the local authority that contracts with that provider finds that adopters that would typically be referred, use their personal budget to access alternative services? Would that service provider survive? 5. What happens in complex cases where a number of services are required to coordinate the provision the local authority, the child s school, child and adolescent mental health services? 6. What happens if adopters focus on the child s difficulties in using their budget when it may be more effective for them to focus on their parenting skills? 7. What happens if adopter s access services which are not evidence based, unsafe or inappropriate in relation to the needs of the child? 8. What happens if adopters commission services and find that these services have not met their needs?
4 These and other questions need to be answered. They are fundamental to the design of core and critical services on which the future of adopted children, adopters and others are highly dependant. Personal budgets are an untested experiment on those people. There are undoubtedly significant issues to be addressed in the further development of effective and timely adoption support services but an experiment needs to be carefully constructed and fully evaluated if significant damage is not be caused along the way. If the clause is passed in its current form, it assumes the experiment has proved to be effective when it has not. It is therefore prosed that the powers to introduce personal budgets should only be come into law as a reserve power until the proposal has been fully evaluated. Amendment The Secretary of State may give directions requiring local authorities in England to make arrangements to implement personal budgets for the provision of adoption support as set out in Clause 4. Special Guardianship Children who are made subject to Special Guardianship are exactly the same group of children who have adoption as the plan. The development of special guardianship as family placement policy has always recognised that. The Adoption and Children Act 2002 amended the Children Act 1989 to introduce section 14F which sets out a parallel duty on local authorities to assess for special guardianship support. A parallel set of regulations and statutory guidance means that all the issues identified above can be found in relation to special guardianship support with appropriate modifications given the specific differences. It is not acceptable, as the Bill does in clause 4, to introduce a difference that separates adoption from special guardianship when the children are the same children. Amendment To introduce a clause into the Children and Families Bill that amends section 14 of the Children Act to include a reserve power for the Secretary of State requiring local authorities in England to make arrangements to implement personal budgets for the provision of special guardianship support in exactly the same way as the clause does for adoption. This document was prepared by: John Simmonds, Director of Policy, Research and Development at the British Association for Adoption and Fostering. For further information, please contact: Margaret Grant, Policy and Research Officer, email: margaret.grant@baaf.org.uk, tel: 0207 421 2649
1 Children and Families Bill Written evidence from the British Association for Adoption & Fostering Clause 5 - Adoption Support Services: Duty to Provide Information Introduction The core place of support in adoption There has been long standing recognition that the placement for adoption and the making of an Adoption Order do not conclude adoption and resolve once and for all the issues that led up to adoption becoming the plan. Adoption is a life long issue that impacts on the child, the child as an adult, the adoptive parents, adopted and non-adopted siblings and other birth family members. This is acknowledged in the Adoption and Children Act 2002 where the range of services the local authority is responsible for providing is specified in section 2(6) and then in Regulation 3 of the Adoption Support Agencies Regulations of 2005. Entitlement to an assessment for whom and for what service is detailed in the Adoption Statutory Guidance, Chapter 9, paragraph 7 and the framework set out in that paragraph is detailed and comprehensive. The prescribed services are identified as: 1. Services to enable discussion of matters relating to adoption 2. Assistance in relation to arrangements for contact 3. Therapeutic services 4. Services to ensure the continuation of adoptive relationship 5. Services to assist in cases of disruption 6. Counselling, advice and information 7. Financial support The assessment for adoption support services is set out in section 4 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002. Subsection 1 sets out the duty to undertake that assessment. Subsection 4 identifies that having undertaken that assessment, the local authority must decide whether to provide the assessed service(s). Subsection 4 is identified as providing an opt out for local authorities and creating serious difficulties for those assessed in getting the support they need. It must be noted that while this gap between assessment and provision is enshrined in primary legalisation, secondary legislation does not accept or envisage such a simple opt out. The process for assessment for adoption support is detailed and set out in in the Adoption Support Regulations, 2005. The procedure to be followed is identified in Regulation 14 and this includes those issues that need to be taken into consideration, a requirement to interview the person being assessed and the requirement to prepare a written assessment detailing the issues and conclusions. The statutory guidance identifies that that report should be made available to the person being assessed. Where required, consultation must take place with health or education services and coordinated with the local authority assessment. The process is expected to be transparent and participative and a detailed flow diagram is available in the adoption statutory guidance on page 200. The breakdown in the link between assessment and provision does not appear at this point however. Regulation 17 requires that the local authority prepare a statutory notice before it makes its decision as to whether to provide a service and allow to a specified timescale the opportunity for the assessed person to make representations. The
2 notice must contain 1. a statement as to the person s needs for adoption support services; 2. where the assessment relates to his need for financial support, the basis upon which financial support is determined; 3. whether the local authority propose to provide him with adoption support services; 4. the services (if any) that are proposed to be provided to him; 5. if financial support is to be paid to him, the proposed amount that would be payable Where the local authority propose to provide adoption support services and are required to prepare a plan under section 4(5) of the Adoption and Children Act 2002, the notice must be accompanied by a draft of that plan. The local authority is not allowed to make its decision as to whether to provide a service until the person assessed has made representations or the period in which they can do so has expired. When the local authority makes that decision, they are required under Regulation 18 to give notice to the person assessed including the reasons for their decision. Where the decision is to provide services, that notice must be accompanied by a plan and nominate the person who will monitor the effectiveness of that plan. While therefore the gap between duty to assess and provide is significant, the gap is not uncharted territory with a significant map of both principle and process. What is not known is why that statutory map does not seem to guide provision in a more effective manner. There may be a number of answers to that. 1. The map is not well understood or implemented by local authorities, social workers or other professionals responsible for implementing the framework. 2. Those who are eligible for an assessment do not understand their rights or how to use them, their right to participate and make representations, or have an explanation about the local authority decision-making process. 3. The need for support presents itself at a time of family crisis where attention is on the immediacy of the crisis rather than attention to engaging with a complex regulatory process. This may explain the absence of judicial reviews of compliance with the statutory framework. 4. Resources are under such strain that gatekeeping and thresholds are set at a very high level and very few assessments reach that threshold. 5. There is limited understanding about how to undertake a professional assessment of support needs. 6. The framework for understanding the needs of those affected by adoption is poorly developed, subject to dispute, fashion and lack of an evidence base. 7. The availability of support services is subject to a significant postcode lottery. 8. Poor coordination with and access to other significant services such as health and education where other
3 thresholds and processes apply. 9. The difficulties that arise with placements out of the local authority area both before and after the 3 year rule. Current Requirements to make information available to service users Regulation 5 of the Adoption Support Agencies Regulations 2005 currently sets out the requirement that the agency provides a written statement of purpose which includes as specified in Schedule 1: 1. The aims and objectives of the agency. 2. The name and address of the registered provider and, where applicable, the registered manager and the responsible individual. 3. Any conditions for the time being in force in relation to the registration under Part 2 of the 2000 Act of the registered provider and, if applicable, the registered manager. 4. The relevant qualifications and experience of the registered provider and, if applicable, the registered manager. 5. The number, relevant qualifications and experience of the staff working for the purposes of the agency. 6. A description of the organisational structure of the agency. 7. A description of the services offered by the agency. 8. The procedures for assessing the needs of those requesting adoption support services from the agency. 9. The system in place to monitor and evaluate the provision of services to ensure that the services provided by the agency are effective and the quality of those services is of an appropriate standard. 10. A summary of the complaints procedure. 11. The name, address and telephone number of the registration authority. Regulation 5(4), (5), (6) require the agency to prepare and make available an appropriate children s guide drawing on the specified issues in the Schedule. It is important to note that compliance with these regulations is subject to inspection by OFSTED. In addition to these requirements, adoption support is required to be coordinated in each local authority by an Adoption Support Services Advisor. The role is set out in Regulation 6 of the Adoption Support Regulations, 2005. The Adoption Statutory Guidance specifies the duties of this role in Chapter 9, paragraph 9 to: 1. give advice and information to people affected by adoption a single point of contact to provide information, signpost appropriate services and to advise on how those services may be accessed 2. give advice, information and assistance to other staff in the local authority on assessments of need for adoption support services, the availability of services locally and effective planning for service delivery in particular, supporting and facilitating intra- and inter-agency joint working where needed 3. give advice on good practice in adoption where needed 4. consult with, and give advice, information and assistance to other local authorities as appropriate,
4 for example, liaising between authorities where a family is moving between areas to try to ensure a smooth transition in the provision of support services. This role is key in ensuring the effective and coordinated provision of adoption support services. Clause 5 In the light of the current framework of the Adoption and Children Act, 2002 set out above, it is difficult to see that elevating the duty to provide information to primary legislation provides a significant advantage and will be transformative when it has not had that effect since the implementation of the 2002 Act. On the other hand, it is difficult to argue that it may not have some advantage to it. But the issue will be how those affected by adoption will get to know how to use that information in an effective way when there is currently poor understanding about why the existing detailed framework has been found not to bridge the gap between duty to assess and then provide. A list of possible reasons have been identified above and these need to be explored and understood for their respective contribution to the current problem. It is important not to rely on this clause as providing more than a very limited answer indeed to a serious problem when it is an answer that has been available since implementation of the current law from the end of 2005. Special Guardianship Children who are made subject to Special Guardianship are exactly the same group of children who have adoption as the plan. The development of special guardianship as family placement policy has always recognised that. The Adoption and Children Act 2002 amended the Children Act 1989 to introduce section 14F which sets out a parallel duty on local authorities to assess for special guardianship support. A parallel set of regulations and statutory guidance means that all the issues identified above can be found in relation to special guardianship support with appropriate modifications given the specific differences. It is not acceptable, as the Bill does in this clause, to introduce a difference that separates adoption from special guardianship when the children are the same children. Amendment To introduce a clause into the Children and Families Bill that amends section 14 of the Children Act to include a duty to provide information on special guardianship support and its statutory framework in exactly the same way as the clause does for adoption. This document was prepared by: John Simmonds, Director of Policy, Research and Development at the British Association for Adoption and Fostering. For further information, please contact: Margaret Grant, Policy and Research Officer, email: margaret.grant@baaf.org.uk, tel: 0207 421 2649