Transcript Research meets child welfare policy and practice

Adoption reform in England:
Messages from local authorities
on changes in processes and
timescales
Katie Hollingworth & Emily R. Munro
Thomas Coram Research Unit
The views expressed in this presentation are the authors’ own and
do not necessarily
reflect those of the Department for Education.
Overview
• Background to adoption policy and recent reforms
in England
• Research aims, objectives and methods
• Key messages from the research
• Areas for future research
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Adoptions (2011/12)
• 3470 adoptions – 5% of the looked after population
• Equal gender split
• 2% of adoptions when child was under 1 year, 74% 1-4
years, 21% 5-9 years, 2% 10-15 years
• 85% White British, 10% Mixed ethnicity, 5% other BME
• Av time entry to care and decision child should be adopted,
11 months
• Av time between decision for adoption and matching, 10
months
• Total average time between entry into care and adoption 2 years 7 months
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Policy context
• Adoption and Children Act 2002
• Small increase in rate of adoptions
• Wide variation in adoption rates and timescales for
placement across Local Authorities
• An Action Plan for Adoption: Tackling delay (2012)
‘accelerate the whole adoption process so that more
children would benefit from adoption and more rapidly’
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Adoption reforms
• National Gateway for Adoption
 Central source of advice and information for prospective adopters;
signposting to adoption agencies; inform national and local recruitment
strategies
• Six month adopter approval process
 To address the shortage of adopters and reduce delays in the system
• Adoption passport and post-adoption support
 ‘Support guide for adopters’ to better inform adopters about the range of
supports they are entitled to; piloting of personal budgets for adoption
support
• A 26 week timescale for the conclusion of care proceedings
 To curtail delay and drift in court processes and CP system
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Research aims and objectives
• Examine the barriers and challenges to reducing delays in the
adoption process;
• Gain an understanding of how the adoption reforms had influenced
adoption managers’ and social workers’ practices over time;
• Examine adoption managers’ and social workers’ perspectives on
strengths and limitations of the adoption reforms;
• Explore similarities and differences in local authority responses to
the adoption reform agenda.
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Methodology
• Examination of quantitative data from Local Authority
annual ‘adoption scorecards’
Identification of sample of 20 Local Authorities for
qualitative phase of the study
• Three waves of qualitative data collection
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Wave 1: October 2012, wave 2: March 2013 and wave 3:
March 2014)
Telephone interviews with Local authority adoption
managers at each wave
Focus groups with four adoption teams in waves one and
three
Qualitative data
Wave
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Telephone interviews
Focus groups with
with Adoption managers adoption teams
1
15
4
2
12
Not applicable
3
14
4
Total
41
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Key messages from waves 1 and 2
National Gateway for Adoption
• General support for the principle of a National Gateway
• Uncertainty about whether it would solve on-going challenge of
recruiting enough adopters to meet demand
• Issue of the mismatch between adopters’ wishes and
expectations and the profile of children awaiting adoption
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Key messages from waves 1 and 2
Six month adopter approval process
• Social workers and managers recognised the importance of timely
decision making and avoiding unnecessary delay
• Need for flexibility and ‘treating each child and each family
individually’
• Important to allow adopters sufficient time to reflect during the
preparation process
• Challenge of meeting new timescales whilst ensuring quality of
assessments
• Potential adopters should be able to opt out of completing the
10 process in prescribed timescales
“I think there comes a point when the process actually becomes too
short and you have to sacrifice some kind of quality and whilst they
say their aspiration is that we reduce without affecting quality there
are certain things that you can't rush”. (Adoption manager)
“People don’t necessarily want to go at the pace that the
Government thinks they want to…we've given people choices about
how long it takes to do this. We've said 'We've got the structure
here, if you want to go fast we can accommodate you, if you don't
want to go fast that's ok'. And we've been absolutely staggered, it’s
something like 40% of people want to go fast and about 60% don't”.
(Adoption manager)
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Key messages from waves 1 and 2
Adoption passport and post-adoption support
• Complex needs of children placed for adoption and the importance
of timely access to high quality post-adoption support services
• Wide variations in service provision and access to services across
the country, particularly CAMHS
• General support for greater transparency around adopters’
entitlements with the caveat that this needs to come with adequate
funding for pre and post adoption support
• The challenges of providing and maintaining support services under
this reform
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Key messages from waves 1 and 2
26 week timescale for the conclusion of care proceedings
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Varying perspectives on the feasibility and sustainability of this reform
Some improvements seen in communication between LA and courts
Reduces scope for delays at court
Issue of low status of social workers in courts
The drive for speed but not at the expense of quality
“The challenge is the couples where they’re not quite ready
and we don’t want to push them, sort of rush them, because
if they’re not quite ready the implication is disruption if you place
someone too early”. (Adoption manager)
Conclusions
• General support for the principles behind the reforms
• Adoption teams were committed to reforming the adoption
system and minimising detrimental delays in the process
• Cautioned against focusing on speed of completion of core
adoption processes at the expense of quality
• The challenge of ensuring that adopters still have sufficient
time and space to make life changing decisions and to be
fully prepared under the new timescales
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Conclusions
• Some uncertainty about whether the reforms would deliver
the intended results
• Ongoing challenge of finding sufficient families with the
skills, attributes and inclination to parent older children and
those with complex needs
• Providing adequate pre- and post-adoption support to meet
the needs of children and families in the context of rising
adoption rates and budget cuts
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Further research:
• Adoption teams are still adapting to the reforms, follow up
research is needed
• Research on the benefits of adoption support and the
impact on pre- and post- order disruptions
• Research to get views and experiences of adopters
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Contacts
Katie Hollingworth, Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of
Education, University of London [email protected]
Emily R. Munro, Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of
Education, University of London [email protected]
 Munro, E., Meeto, V. and Hollingworth, K. (2013) Adoption reform:
Messages from local authorities on changes in processes and
timescales. Findings from wave 2. London: Childhood Wellbeing
Research Centre.
 Crafter, S., Quy, K., Munro, E.R., Meetoo, V. and Hollingworth, K.
(awaiting publication) Adoption reform: Messages from local authorities
on changes in processes and timescales. Final report.
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