Summary:
In response to the Department for Education consultation on adoption and special guardianship support, we consulted with our members to inform our submission. Our response highlighted some positive aspects of proposed reforms, but emphasised that support systems must become more coordinated, trauma-informed, accessible and family-centred. We fed back the messages from our members about current support often being inadequate. We are grateful to members for responding and provide a summary of messages below.
Key Messages
Our response argues that adoptive and kinship families frequently face a fragmented system with inconsistent local provision, long delays, limited funding and varying levels of professional understanding of trauma and adoption-related needs. Our members told us that families often struggle to navigate services alone.
We stressed that most adoptive families will need support at some stage and that asking for help should be normalised rather than viewed as exceptional.
We highlighted several core principles for effective support:
- Whole-family support: Children’s wellbeing is inseparable from the wellbeing and capacity of caregivers.
- Trauma-informed practice: Professionals across education, health and social care should understand the impact of early trauma and work collaboratively with families.
- Early and flexible intervention: Support should be accessible before families reach crisis point.
- Peer and community support: Lived-experience support reduces isolation, builds confidence and complements professional services.
- Joined-up systems: Families need coordinated support across education, health and social care rather than navigating services independently.
Views on Government Proposals
We raises the following points on behalf of our members:
- Baseline support and training: Welcomed, but training alone is insufficient. Families also need practical, relational and flexible support.
- Peer support: Supported as a vital part of the support ecosystem, but not a replacement for professional help. We called for sustainable funding for small charities delivering peer support.
- Support during key life stages: proactive help should be offered during predictable transition points such as adolescence and secondary school transitions.
- Improved planning and assessments: Support plans and assessments should be holistic, co-produced with families and lead directly to meaningful help rather than repeated bureaucracy. Members reported current plans leading to no practical help.
- Evidence standards for therapies: Evidence-informed practice is supported, but we warned against excluding innovative or community-based approaches that families find effective.
- Devolving funding locally: Local flexibility is welcomed only if accompanied by national standards to avoid a “postcode lottery”.
- Value for money: Our response argues that success should be measured through long-term outcomes and family stability, not short-term cost savings.
Overall Conclusion
Our response calls for a coherent support system where peer, community and professional services work together. The charity argues that timely, relational and responsive support improves outcomes for children while also preventing family breakdown and reducing long-term costs. Our response concludes that adoption and kinship support should be viewed as an ongoing and expected part of family life, with services designed around partnership with families rather than crisis response alone.
