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Children and Families Act 2014: A failure of implementation Contents

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Chapter 2: Adoption

45.The Act made a number of changes to the adoption landscape, primarily aimed at ensuring adoptive homes could be found for all those children who needed them and increasing speed of adoptions. The then Children and Families Minister said: “Our adoption reforms will help the 6,000 children who need loving homes to be adopted.”20 The number of adoptions rose sharply from 3,100 in 2011 to a peak of 5,360 in 2015. However, they have been falling steadily since. In 2021 2,870 children under local authority care were adopted (see Figure 2). The average time between entry into care and adoption has also been rising. In 2021 the average time between entry into care and adoption was 2 years and 2 months, up from 1 year and 11 months in 2018.21 At the same time, the number of children looked after has risen steadily. Between 2011 and 2021, the number of children looked after rose by 23%, from 65,510 to 80,850.22 The average age of children in care has also risen, with children entering the care system with more complex needs.23

Figure 2: Number of children looked after during the year who were adopted

Source: DfE, ‘Children looked after in England including adoptions’: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoptions [accessed 28 November 2022]

46.A child in care is only adopted when it is not possible for them to be safely returned to their birth parents and no-one in the extended family can provide permanent care. In considering whether to make an adoption order, the court’s paramount consideration has to be the child’s welfare throughout his or her life. An adoption order enables the child to become a full and legal member of an adoptive family. Adopters become the child’s legal parent with the same rights and responsibilities as if the child was born to them. An adoption order is intended to be permanent, and it is extremely rare for an order to be set aside once made.

47.In England, between 2,500-3,000 children are adopted from care each year: about 3% of the total care population.24 Most of these children (76%) first became looked after because of parental abuse and neglect.25 Adoption is the most stable of all placement types, with approximately 3% of those adopted returning to care over a 12-year period, thus providing a family for life for most children.26 However, the effects of children’s pre-adoption adversities and maltreatment can be long lasting and support for young people and their families might be needed throughout the lifespan.

Fostering for adoption

48.The Act aimed to encourage local authorities to reduce the number of moves young children have in care by placing children with prospective adopters more swiftly. Section 2 requires a local authority to consider placing the child with ‘Fostering for adoption’ carers who would become the child’s adopters if a placement order is later made or the parent gives consent.

Box 2: Early permanence placements: Fostering to adopt and concurrent planning

A fostering for adoption placement is a type of early permanence placement, whereby the aim is to place a child in care with an adoptive family at the earliest opportunity. The other type of early permanence placement is concurrent planning. In concurrent planning, there are no suitable family members available, but the local authority is still working to see if the child can be reunified with their birth parents. Meanwhile, the child is placed with prospective adopters who are approved as both foster carers and adopters. If reunification is not possible, adoption can then proceed if a placement order is made, or parental consent given. In concurrent planning there is no single plan for adoption, but the carers are expected to become the adoptive parents if that becomes the plan. By contrast, in fostering for adoption, the local authority has decided reunification is not possible and the child is placed with carers who are dually approved as both foster carers and adopters, and who can also be approved as temporary foster carers for a named child. In fostering for adoption, the local authority is expecting the carer(s) to become the adoptive parent(s) but the court has yet to confirm that adoption should be the plan for the child and make a placement order.

Source: First4Adoption, ‘Early permanence for young children’: https://www.first4adoption.org.uk/who-can-adopt-a-child/early-permanence/ [accessed 26 October 2022]

49.Witnesses were unanimous about the benefits of fostering to adopt placements, highlighting how they are child-focused and can reduce the number of moves a child undergoes before they find a permanent placement, increasing stability and reducing uncertainty.27 Home for Good, a charitable organisation, told us: “The importance of enabling a continuity of relationships for children and young people cannot be overstated”.28

50.However, the number of fostering to adopt placements remains low. In 2021, 470 children were in an early permanence placement (0.6% of looked-after children) compared to 250 on 31 March 2015 (0.4%).29 Government figures are only provided for the aggregate number of early permanence placements, making it challenging to determine the impact of the Act on fostering to adopt placements specifically. The Department for Education said it has not carried out any research on the outcomes for children in early permanence placements, but it has commissioned research on those leaving care through adoptions and special guardianship orders (SGOs), which will include those adopted via fostering to adopt placements.30

51.Fostering to adopt placements present unique challenges. They do not guarantee that an adoption will occur. This requires potential adopters to manage a great degree of uncertainty in the placement, necessitating careful recruitment, preparation and support of adopters.31 Mandy Davies, Assistant Service Director at Parents and Children Together, told us that the growing length of court cases was increasing uncertainty for carers.32

52.Fostering to adopt placements often involve greater contact with birth families while care and placement orders are being sought. This may require more support from social workers and raise safeguarding concerns,33 but contact can reduce later opposition to the care and placement order.34 Jo Mitchell, National Service Lead at PAC UK, said that recruitment of the right adopters, combined with “upskilling social workers and resourcing them with the right knowledge” was key to making fostering to adopt successful.35

53.In addition to the complexity of these placements, witnesses also suggested that legal uncertainty may account for the low number of fostering to adopt placements. The requirement to consider fostering to adopt applies to local authorities but not courts.36 While the decision to make a fostering placement, and by extension a fostering to adopt placement, is solely for the local authority, some courts are thought to view fostering to adopt as pre-empting their decision on where the child should be placed permanently.37 This has led to regional variation in the number of placements.38

54.Steve Crocker, President of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, told us that, following a period of scepticism, fostering to adopt is increasingly being viewed positively by the courts and local authorities.39 Dr Carol Homden, Chief Executive of Coram, felt it was unfortunate that the number of placements had not increased since 2014, and said: “greater priority should be placed upon it in the examination of the figures and the focus on it in the courts”.40 As part of its Adoption Strategy, the Government has committed to supporting Regional Adoption Agencies (RAAs) to expand early permanence services to all RAAs with the aim of increasing the number of early permanence placements.41

55.Early permanence placements, including fostering to adopt placements, can bring many benefits for the children involved, but require careful preparation and support for the prospective adopters. The Act’s requirement to consider fostering to adopt placements has had minimal impact, in part because it was not matched with the support necessary for adoption agencies and local authorities to implement the change. Inconsistent approaches by the courts in approving fostering to adopt placements have also hampered uptake.

56.We welcome the Government’s commitment in the Adoption Strategy to increasing the number of early permanence placements where appropriate. The Government should publish an assessment of the impact of the funds spent on increasing early permanence placements, as well as publishing a longer-term strategy for promoting early permanence.

Race, ethnicity and adoption

57.There is no singular experience of racial and ethnic disparities in the care system and with adoption. However, generally, children from minority ethnic backgrounds are over-represented in the care population and wait longer to be adopted than white children. Figure 3 shows a breakdown of the percentage of looked after children, looked after children who were adopted during the year, and the under-18 population, by ethnicity:

Figure 3: The percentage of looked after children, looked-after children who were adopted during the year and under-18 population

Source: HM Government, ‘Adopted and looked-after children’ (16 December 2021): https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/health/social-care/adopted-and-looked-after-children/latest [accessed 28 November 2022]

58.Section 3 of the Act removed the statutory requirement to give due consideration to a child’s religion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background in matching considerations in England. This was intended to reduce the time between entry into care and adoption and increase the likelihood of a child being adopted. Under the adoption welfare checklist, the court or adoption agency must still consider the child’s background and characteristics which are considered relevant when making a decision relating to the adoption of the child. The Government has not carried out any research into the impact of the repeal. However, it says that although Black and minority ethnic children are now being placed for adoption on average 8 months earlier than in 2013–14, they remain one of the groups who wait the longest to be matched with a new adoptive family.42

59.Despite the removal of the requirement, a report from the APPG for Adoption and Permanence noted that children from ethnic minority groups wait three months longer than white children to be adopted. They also noted evidence from social workers who said that practice has not followed the legal change, and strict adherence to ethnic and cultural matching can often remain.43

60.Evidence we received supports the idea that the repeal has had a limited impact. Alexandra Conroy Harris, Legal Consultant at CoramBAAF, felt that the repeal had not made a difference due to the continuing requirement to consider the child’s background and characteristics in making a decision about adoption.44 CoramBAAF’s Black and Minority Ethnic Perspective Advisory Committee wrote that: “There is no evidence available to support that this change has had any positive impact on the waiting times for black and minority ethnic children.”45 Home for Good told us:

“ … it has become evident that this legislative shift has not necessarily impacted practice on the ground. For many social workers, finding a strong ethnic match remains a priority as a result of the increased attention over the last few years given to the importance of race and ethnicity as part of identity formation.”46

61.Some witnesses felt that the removal of the requirement could reflect an underappreciation of the importance of race and ethnicity to adopted children. CoramBAAF’s Black and Minority Ethnic Perspective Advisory Committee raised concerns that:

“Arguing that the less explicit ‘background and characteristic’ will suffice in ensuring ‘due consideration’ is given to addressing all aspects of the needs of black and minority ethnic children, shows a lack of understanding of institutional racism, cultural humility and listening to the lived experiences of transracial adoptees.”47

Nagalro, a professional association for social work practitioners, wrote that

“Black children are in effect being treated differently from their white counterparts, who are almost certain to be placed with adoptive parents who reflect their cultural, religious and linguistic needs. The impact of the deletion … is that Black children are more likely to be placed with families who do not reflect their heritage and who are not able to meet their cultural, religious and linguistic needs.”48

However, some witness felt that race, culture and religion had previously been treated as ‘trump cards’ when seeking an appropriate placement, and that those characteristics were still sufficiently accounted for by the welfare checklist.49

62.Reaching out to and engaging those who are willing and able to adopt a child from a minority ethnic background is a fundamental step to reducing waiting times. Witnesses told us that one cause of these increased waiting times was a lack of minority ethnic adopters or adopters willing to take on a transracial adoptive placement.50 One reason given for this was the intersection between ethnicity, poverty and marital status as a barrier, with Professor Elsbeth Neil from the University of East Anglia saying: “ethnic minority families who are coming forward and saying ‘We would like to adopt a child’ may have less financial resource or be less likely to be married.”51 Ade Larigo, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Agency Connection, told us that, while the legislation does not require prospective adopters to have an additional bedroom, this has become a de-facto requirement, acting as a barrier to many families from ethnic minority groups.52 Witnesses also pointed to historical distrust of social services as a reason for lower numbers of minority ethnicity adopters.53

63.We also heard that the experience of navigating the adoption system as someone from a minority ethnic background can be challenging. In our engagement session with adopters, we were told that some social workers would benefit from more training in cultural issues when working with prospective adoptive parents from ethnic minority backgrounds.54 One contributor to our inquiry called for social workers to have a greater understanding of ethnic minorities and other religions and cultures. 55 Lorraine Agu called for social workers and adoption panel members to have training that examines practitioner bias and the impact on their practice.56

64.While there is a need for more adopters prepared to adopt children from minority ethnicities, transracial adoptive placements can bring unique challenges. Professor Elsbeth Neil said: “Children in transracial placements can have real difficulties with their ethnic identity.”57 Joanne Alper, Director of Adoption Plus, explained that encouraging more transracial adoptions is complicated:

“Although it was previously thought of as a way to encourage more adoptions, we have learned more about issues of identity over recent years, listened more to the experience of young people who have been transracially adopted, and become more aware that it is a much more complicated area than thinking about it purely in terms of legislation.”58

65.CoramBAAF’s Black and Minority Ethnic Perspective Advisory Committee noted: “Adult adoptees who have experience of being transracially adopted, often tell us that this has come at a cost to their sense of belonging and of knowing where they fit in in the world.”59 Al Coates, Founder of the Adoption and Fostering Podcast and adoptive parent, highlighted that adopters are not assessed or prepared to be transracial adopters.60 Yoni Ejo, CEO of Diversity Adopt, suggested that the repeal of the requirement to consider race had made social workers and adopters “reticent to talk about race”, which had resulted in transracial adopters being insufficiently prepared.61

66.Witnesses also told us about a lack of diversity in the adoption workforce more broadly, and on adoption panels specifically (see Box 3). Sarah Johal, National Adoption Strategic Lead for the Regional Adoption Agencies, said: “generally, the panel is all-white and mainly female, which is reflected in the adoption workforce … It is an ongoing issue.”62 Ade Larigo suggested that one cause for the lack of diversity on adoption panels was agencies defaulting to asking those within their own networks and failing to do active recruitment, while Yoni told us that a failure to adequately pay panel members led to more affluent or retired applicants, further contributing to lack of diversity.63 Mr Coates highlighted that the leadership of adoption agencies is predominantly white.64

Box 3: Adoption panels

Adoption Panels make recommendations to adoption agencies on: Whether a child should be placed for adoption, where there is parental consent and there is no application for a placement order; The suitability of prospective adopters; and, Whether a child should be placed for adoption with a specific prospective adopter. The Adoption Panel can also advise on other issues such as the contact arrangements for the child and the proposed adoption support. There is no fixed membership of the Panel. A list is maintained of people considered to be suitable to be members of the Panel. This list should include: Adoption social workers with at least 3 years’ relevant post qualifying experience in childcare social work, including direct experience in adoption; Medical Adviser(s); and Other persons whom the agency considers suitable including specialists in education; race and culture; child and adolescent mental health services; and those with personal experience of adoption.

Source: Trafford Council, ‘Adoption Panel’: https://www.proceduresonline.com/trafford/cs/chapters/p_adop_panel.html [accessed 22 November 2022]

67.When questioned about the increased waiting times for ethnic minority children, Kelly Tolhurst, then Minister of State at the Department for Education, told us “To give you a very straight answer, I do not know all of the reasons why that is the case, but it is work that we are undertaking and concerned about.”65 The Minister was unable to point to any specific reasons or initiatives being undertaken to address the problem. 66

68.It is not clear that the change of law, removing the requirement to consider ethnicity, has changed practice. Ethnic minority children still wait too long to be adopted; a disparity which is unacceptable. There remains a shortage of prospective adopters who are prepared to adopt children from minority ethnic groups and those who do are insufficiently supported. The adoption workforce, and adoption panels, are insufficiently diverse. Failure to undertake active recruitment and inadequate pay are serious contributors to a lack of diversity in adoption panels.

69.To help drive whole system change at all levels, we recommend that the Government create a task force dedicated to addressing ethnic and racial disparities in the adoption system. Membership should include those with appropriate skills, expertise and experience, including regional and voluntary adoption agencies, community groups and those with experience of the adoption system. It should address issues of race and ethnicity in the adoption system. This should focus on issues including increasing diversity in the workforce and on adoption panels, support for transracial adopters, training for those working with minority ethnicity adopters and adoptees and recruiting and supporting minority ethnicity adopters. The task force should be outcome focused and directly accountable to the Secretary of State for Education, and should have specific, targeted and measurable outputs.

The matching register

70.Section 7 allowed for the making of the Adoption and Children Act Register (Search and Inspection) Regulations 2017, which extended direct access to the Adoption and Children Act Register to prospective adopters. The Register was an online nationwide database of children waiting for adoption and approved adopters. All adoption agencies were required to refer unmatched children no later than 90 days after their adoption plan was approved with the aim of bringing children and adopters together even if they didn’t live in the same local authority. In August 2018 the Government announced its decision not to re-procure the database. The contract for its running ended on 31 March 2019 and the duty to refer children to the register was revoked. The Government stated that 93% of adoption agencies made use of alternative, paid registers and many had raised difficulties with the State-provided register. According to the Government, in 2017/18 the register contributed 7.4% of matches.67

71.All adoption agencies now use Link Maker, a service run by a social enterprise which requires local authorities to purchase a licence. On Link Maker, agencies can choose to share the profiles of children in need of an adoptive family and allow prospective adopters to review those profiles. Witnesses told us that Link Maker was a useful tool for adopters, and that feedback had been positive.68

72.However, our witnesses raised serious concerns about services or benefits of the Register which were lost with the move to Link Maker. There is also no longer a requirement for adoption agencies to place children on an equivalent register, such as Link Maker. Home For Good said that this was “potentially causing children who are likely to wait a long time for adoption to wait even longer, as Regional Adoption Agencies and Voluntary Adoption Agencies seek to find adopters from within their regions and may thus delay placing a child’s profile on Link Maker.”69 Joanne Alper told us:

“In the past, there was a more aspirational, national approach to trying to match children, because all families in England and Wales could see all the children who needed families and you could move fairly quickly. Now, there is more of a regional focus, which may slow down matching.”70

Mandy Davies echoed this, saying: “regional adoption agencies can just keep the children in their agencies and not share them with the rest of the people on Link Maker.”71

73.Due to restrictions on involvement in adoption support by commercial entities, Link Maker does not provide any social work support for matching.72 Dr Carol Homden was critical of this, telling us:

“The removal of the requirement for a registration has removed from the child the entitlement to be seen by any and all who might be able to provide support to that placement beyond boundaries and within a defined timescale. In my view, that is entirely negative for the child.”

74.She added: “It has also removed the accompanying service for children, which was a professionally supervised service that enabled the proactive recommendation of links beyond boundaries and the challenge of practice presumptions or failure to follow up those links.”73

75.Sarah Johal reiterated this, warning: “the fact that there is no practitioner support alongside it is problematic”.74

76.Research by Coram-I suggested that “with the loss of the Register as many as 200 children a year could end up remaining in care rather than being adopted, and local authorities would spend around an extra £7.3m per year on supporting those children. To cover its annual cost, the Register needs to help find adoptive families for just two children.”75

77.The move away from the national matching register to commercial service providers has led to some improvement in usability for adopters. However, the loss of compulsory referrals and practitioner support for matching has undermined the ability of children to be seen by all those who may be able to provide them a permanent home. This is an unnecessary barrier to finding loving, secure homes for children, and one the Government failed to account for. The Government should re-instate the statutory register on its original terms, working with commercial service providers to build a more functional platform which combines the usability of existing services with the matching support and referral requirements of the statutory register.

Post-adoption support

78.Adoption placements can be challenging and require additional support, often owing to the trauma experienced by children in their early years and additional challenges in building a sense of self.

79.Under section 5 of the Act, local authorities would have been responsible for providing a personal budget for adoption support services. However, this section of the Act was never brought into force. The Government said that “following discussions with the Department’s Adopter Reference Group it was decided not to bring this section into force. Adopters were concerned they would not have the expertise to decide what therapy would be needed to support their child and how to buy this from a wide range of providers”.76 The Government stated that no feedback had been sought from adopters prior to the Act’s passage.77

80.In 2015, the Government created the Adoption Support Fund (ASF). The ASF provides funds to local authorities and regional adoption agencies to pay for essential therapeutic services for the children of eligible adoptive and special guardianship order (SGO) families.78 Families must be assessed by a local authority or RAA, who apply to the fund on their behalf.79

81.Witnesses broadly praised the fund but lamented that the system was overly bureaucratic and complicated, 80 with Al Coates telling us that families found they had to “fight at every juncture to get effective and meaningful support”.81 During our engagement session with mental health practitioners, participants felt that support systems for children who have been adopted are often very slow moving, with long waiting lists for post-adoption trauma support.82 Professor Elsbeth Neil suggested that some adoptive parents are not aware of their entitlement to support.83 She also highlighted that adoptive parents are only entitled to an assessment of need, and are not entitled to any actual level of post-adoption support.84

82.We heard that support should be more targeted at early intervention, where it can be more effective, rather than being provided only at the point of serious risk of harm or risk of placement breakdown. Naomi Angell, Consultant at Osbornes Law and children’s lawyer with a specialism in adoption, told us:

“I see families with their children—often teenagers—who are really challenging. They need support desperately and they have to fight every step of the way, when their energy should be given to bringing up these really challenging teenagers. It is often only at the point of breakdown that they get that support, and it is too late by then.”85

During our engagement session with adopters, they stressed the importance of early intervention, telling us that problems—and especially underlying trauma of adopted children—are too often left untreated until they result in serious harm.86

83.Prior to 2022, funding for the ASF was only guaranteed for the following financial year. In 2022, the Government announced that funding would be secured until 2025. Witnesses were critical of the previous practice of one-year funding announcements, which the Local Government Association said limited opportunities “to plan for provision and ensure children and families receive the support they need”.87

84.We are concerned by the lack of post-adoption support—particularly that which is targeted at early intervention, addressing problems before they threaten the stability of placements. The Adoption Support Fund is a welcome development, but its narrow parameters, short term funding and excessively complex and bureaucratic application process hamper its effectiveness. The Government should consider the expansion of the Adoption Support Fund, allowing it to be used for more than therapy and ensuring it is also focused on early intervention. We welcome the most recent multi-year settlement and encourage the Government to commit to continuing to guarantee sufficient and appropriate funding several years into the future.

Contact

85.Contact between an adopted child and their birth family can help them to develop their sense of self.88 However, witnesses stressed that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to contact arrangements, and that all parties involved need careful support to manage what can be a challenging undertaking.89 Currently, the majority of contact is done via ‘Letterbox’ contact, whereby letters are shared once or twice a year between adoptive parents and a child’s birth family.

86.Section 9 makes provisions for refusing and requiring post-adoption contact. It created a statutory framework for post-adoption contact, allowing the court to issue an order either providing or prohibiting contact with specific individuals including blood relatives or relatives through marriage or civil partnership. Under the Act, the court must consider the extent to which allowing such contact would disrupt the child’s new life and result in harm, the applicant’s connection to the child, and any representations made to the court by the child or the adoptive family.

87.Contributors to our inquiry agreed that getting the arrangements for contact right was critical to the success of an adoptive placement. Al Coates warned: “contact is the issue that will define whether adoption is still with us in 20 or 30 years.” He added: “We need a flexible, intuitive, meaningful, risk averse but appropriately safe system that allows for meaningful support for lifelong contact with safe members of birth families.”90

88.However, we heard that the current system for contact is too rigid. Naomi Angell told us that currently “orders made for contact are not appropriate. They take a snapshot of a point in time, and it is hard to force an order on adopters who really do not want that rigidity”91 Professor Elsbeth Neil called for “more individualised contact planning”.92

89.Social media has significantly changed the situation, with birth families and adopted children able to find each other more easily.93 Jo Mitchell noted that young people are tracing and meeting with their birth parents via social media, without the knowledge of their adoptive parents.94 Professor Neil suggested that this rise in social media contact is driven by unmet needs arising from the insufficiency and irregularity of letterbox contact.95

90.During our discussion with adoptive parents, many saw the benefits of contact with birth parents and siblings but said that letters often went unanswered. There was enthusiasm for moving contact from letters to an online portal. However, there was concern about the “shambles” contact was becoming, with teenagers able secretly to reconnect with birth parents via social media.96

91.We also met birth parents, many of whom similarly felt the current contact system was insufficient. They argued that reforming it should be the top priority in this area. There was a consensus that letterbox contact should be replaced by digital communication, including other media such as photographs and voice recordings.97

92.The post-legislative memorandum supplied by the Government indicates that it has not made any assessment of the provisions relating to contact. However, it did note that it was “also aware that unwarranted contact with adoptive children has increased in recent years by birth relatives using social media.”98 The then Minister expressed a view that the Act’s provisions on contact has provided clarity, but acknowledged that letterbox contact can be variable and that the Government needs to “get with 2022 and come up with policies that support people”.99

93.Contact, where safe, appropriate and properly managed, can be valuable for an adoptive child, their new family and their birth family, including siblings and other relatives. However, contact orders and support can vary, and the current system of letterbox contact is outdated. The failure to modernise contact threatens to undermine the adoption system. We urge the Government to support adoption agencies in developing and rolling-out a safe and appropriate national digital system for contact as a priority. This system should allow for faster and more intuitive contact, while ensuring contact remains moderated and safe for all.

Kinship care

94.Kinship care refers to the circumstances whereby a child lives with a relative or friend who isn’t their birth parent(s). This can be done formally, through a special guardianship order (SGO), child arrangement order or informally without a legal order. The Act did not address SGOs and focused its changes on the adoption system. However, the number of children leaving care through an SGO has been steadily rising, and overtook the number of adoptions in 2019.

Figure 4: The number of children looked after during a year leaving via an adoption order or special guardianship order

Source: CoramBAAF, ‘Statistics on Special Guardianship’: https://corambaaf.org.uk/practice-areas/kinship-care/special-guardianship/statistics-special-guardianship [accessed 28 November 2022]

95.We heard that not enshrining the rights of kinship carers in legislation was a failure of the Act.100 Kinship carers tend to be older, in poorer health, living in poverty and deprivation, living in insecure accommodation, and in low paid employment or unemployed, meaning their support needs can be greater.101

96.Kinship carers who are caring for a child under an SGO and who were previously looked after became entitled to support via the Adoption Support Fund in 2016. However, those we spoke to felt that this support is poorly signposted and take up rates remain low as a result. Professor Elsbeth Neil told us “It is great that they can now access the adoption support fund, but the evidence is that they are not accessing in it anything like the numbers that adoptive families are. A relatively small proportion of people accessing the adoption support fund are special guardians.”102 On our visit to a family court, we heard about how a lack of support for kinship carers could be contributing to the breakdown of special guardianship placements.103

97.Many kinship carers do so outside of a legal order (i.e. without an SGO), meaning they aren’t entitled to the same supports as adopters or special guardians. Local authorities have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in their area who are ‘in need’ by providing a range of family support services. This can include financial support, but it is typically restricted to those in particularly difficult circumstances.104 As a result, in England, allowances for kinship carers are discretionary and levels of support vary between and within local authority areas.105 There is a large amount of variability in the prevalence of kinship care across local authorities in England, with rates of kinship care placements ranging from 4% to 39%.106

98.Kinship carers can also face unique challenges in managing relationships with birth families as many of them, by definition, have close relationships with the child’s birth family. One kinship carer told us:

“Too many families are left struggling with contact arrangements, volatile birth parents, being taken back to court repeatedly to try and overturn the SGO or ask for more contact. Special guardians receive little or no support and are often locked in battle with birth parents for years after the SGO is awarded, leaving special guardians exhausted and traumatised and kinship children without therapy due to ongoing contact and leaving the family little time for family time and to build connections with each other.”

Dr Lucy Peake, CEO of Kinship, noted that “there is a huge challenge for many kinship carers in managing ongoing contact and relationships within the family” and flagged that many carers needed “some help and advice about how to manage it (contact)”.107

99.The charity Kinship found that two-thirds of kinship carers who needed support with contact did not receive it, and called for all kinship carers, birth parents and children to be offered support to manage contact to ensure good long-term relationships.108 The carers’ relationships with birth parents can also impact on care proceedings in the courts. Naomi Angell told us that potential kinship carers “often stand back when the birth parents are being assessed, because they do not want to interfere or to think that they are not supporting the birth parents, so they can step forward really quite late in the process”, impacting the timeline of cases.109 Kinship noted: “Often, kinship carers are only identified towards the end of proceedings and assessments are rushed” and called for work to be completed pre-proceedings to identify and assess potential kinship carers.110

100.The then Minister agreed with us that support for kinship carers is critical and acknowledged the differing support needs of kinship carers. She promised that the Government is exploring improved support, including financial support, for kinship carers but did not provide any further information on what this support might entail.111

101.The lack of consideration given to kinship care when the Act was passed is a clear failure, made only more critical with the rise of Special Guardianship Orders in the intervening years. We are concerned by the lack of support provided to kinship carers, whose situations are often, if anything, more challenging than those of adopters. While the extension of the Adoption Support Fund to kinship carers with a Special Guardianship Order is welcome, take-up remains low. Support for kinship carers providing care outside of an SGO is discretionary and varies significantly between local authorities, leading to an unjust distribution of support. The Government should undertake a promotional campaign to increase take-up of the fund by those parenting under a Special Guardianship Order, beginning with renaming the fund to reflect that it is not limited to adopters.

102.Owing to their relationship with the child’s birth parents, many kinship carers do not come to the attention of children’s services and the courts as potential carers until too late in the process, in an effort to avoid ‘competition’ with birth parents. This can lead to unnecessary delays and rushed assessments, which are not in the best interests of the child. We recommend that possible kinship carers should be identified and assessed alongside other options during pre-proceedings. This should be done in a manner which does not presume any particular outcome, with this made clear to all involved.

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