3.10.7 Adoption Support Services

RELEVANT GUIDANCE

Guidance on Assessing the Support Needs of Adoptive Families (2008)

What is Adoption Support
Minimum Adoption Support Standards
Why Offer Adoption Support
When to Consider Adoption Support
Which Local Authority Should Carry Out the Assessment?
Process of Assessment for Adoption Support
The Adoption Support Plan
Financial Support

1. What is Adoption Support

Adoption Support is the contemporary way of referring to post adoption work. It includes any support likely to be required for an adoptive placement to endure through to adulthood and is applicable to both existing and new situations.

Local authorities must now make arrangements, as part of their adoption service, for the provision of a range of adoption support services.

Assessments carried out by social workers for the provision of adoption support will attend to all stakeholders’ needs concerning health, education, emotional and behavioural development, identity, family and social relationships, social presentation, self-care skills, contact arrangements, and financial and practical considerations.

These considerations also apply to Adoption Support Plans (see Section 7, The Adoption Support Plan).

Local authorities must act reasonably when deciding whether to provide support services following an assessment, and may arrange for the required services to be provided by appropriate voluntary organisations.

2. Minimum Adoption Support Standards

Counselling, advice, and information;
Modernised financial support;
Support groups for adopted children, adopters and birth families;
Assistance, including mediation, with contact arrangements between adopted children and members of their birth families or others with whom they share a significant relationship;
Services to ensure continuance of adoptive relationships;
Services to address therapeutic needs of adoptive child;
Training for adoptive parents;
In rare instances, respite care;
Assistance to adoptive parents and children where a placement disrupts or is at risk of disruption;
Assistance with cross boundary issues;
Intermediary Services.

3. Why Offer Adoption Support

To ensure that more people are able to adopt 'looked after children' and that the placement remains stable and meets the needs of the child;
To afford all stakeholders - children, birth families and adoptive families - the help they require to overcome the difficulties that can arise during the adoption process;
To ensure that we achieve local and national targets in relation to numbers of children from the 'looked after population' who are adopted.

4. When to Consider Adoption Support

Adoption Support must be considered at the earliest opportunity where permanency is being planned.

Practitioners should consider support at the following stages of care planning:

When the Adoption and Permanency Panel consider whether the child should be placed for adoption – as part of the Child’s Permanence Report.

See Placements for Adoption Procedure;
When considering the placement of a child with particular prospective adopters;
At a child’s reviews following the adoptive placement

See Adoption Reviews Procedure;
When requested by an adoptive parent, an adoptive child, a child of an adoptive parent or a birth parent.

The requirement to assess in response to a request is limited to the entitlement to services of the person making the request. So, for example, in relation to a birth parent or relative of the adoptive child, the assessment need only address the needs for support in relation to assistance with contact arrangements or their participation in groups.

5. Which Local Authority Should Carry out the Assessment?

The table below details whose responsibility it is to undertake an assessment of adoption support and in what circumstances.

Circumstance	Responsibility for Assessment
Child is looked after by the local authority	The local authority by whom the child is looked after must assess a person entitled to be assessed
Child has been placed for adoption by the local authority	The local authority which has placed the child for adoption must assess a person entitled to be assessed
Child adopted following placement by a local authority and living in the borough Child adopted following placement by Richmond and living outside the borough	The local authority which placed the child for adoption must assess a person entitled to be assessed for up to 3 years after the adoption order, when the responsibility transfers to the local authority where the person making the request lives
In all other cases (i.e. non-agency cases except step parent adoptions where there is no requirement to assess)	The Local Authority where requester lives must assess

Practitioners should conduct assessments by following the guidance set out in, and using the Assessment Framework and that the Initial and Core Assessment recording forms (Exemplar Records for the Integrated Children's System) should be used.

6. Process for Adoption Support

Click here to view the Adoption Support Flowchart.

7. The Adoption Support Plan

An Adoption Support Plan should set out clearly:

The objectives of the plan and the key services to be provided;
The timescales for achieving the plan;
Those responsible for implementing the plan and the respective roles of others; what should be provided, when and by whom;
The criteria that will be used to evaluate the success of the plan;
The procedures that will be put in place to review the services to be provided and the plan.

In preparing the plan, the agency should carry out consultation with the appropriate person as outlined in the guidance.

The Adoption Support Plan (BAAF form) must then be completed to include the proposed financial support (see section 8, Financial Support) and agreed by the Agency Adoption Decision Maker.

Where the Adoption Support Plan is drawn up for the proposed placement of a looked after child with prospective adopters, the Adoption Support Plan will then be submitted to the Adoption and Permanency Panel when the Adoption Placement Report is presented. See Placements for Adoption Procedure.

A copy of the plan should go to all those involved in implementing it, and to the recipients of services (or appropriate adult).

A plan is not needed where services are being provided on a one-off basis - the relevant information should be covered in the notification letter.

8. Financial Support

Financial Support for Adopters

The scheme for financial support to adopters (reviewed in March 2010 ) provides for the following:

The use of lump sums;
Payment of adoption allowances to support the care of children in adoptive placements;
Additional flexibility for foster carers who adopt children already placed with them;
Clear eligibility criteria to guide decisions concerning the payment of adoption allowances.

Financial support is intended to supplement existing means of support available to adoptive parents and the child or children being adopted. For information about statutory pay and leave for adopters please go to the Directgov website.

Payment to adoptive parents by Richmond Adoption Agency maybe made in the following ways:

Regular payments (basic financial support), which will be set as detailed below. Eligibility for these payments will be means tested and payments will be agreed for a set period. Eligibility within this period will be reviewed annually by London Borough of Richmond;
Lump sum payments (settling in costs, special needs and adaptations), which will cover items or adaptations that are required as a consequence of assessment of each child's individuals needs. Payment may be in instalments and will end at a time specified by the borough;
Payments in special circumstances (for a child with additional needs or when foster carers adopt a child for whom they are already caring.) Payment may be in installments and will end at a time specified by the borough.

Adoptive parents may be entitled to all or part of the above payments and this will be determined by an assessment carried out by the social worker who will consult with the Adoption and Permanency Team Manager in order to determine the level of financial and adoption support required.

The Adoption Support Regulations and Guidance state that the circumstances in which provision of financial support may be paid are as follows:

Where it is necessary to ensure that the adoptive parents can look after the child if placed with them;
Where the child needs special care which requires a greater expenditure of resources by reason of illness, disability, emotional or behavioural difficulties or the continuing consequences of past abuse or neglect and the child's condition is serious and long-term;
Where it is necessary for the local authority to make any special arrangements to facilitate the placement or the adoption by reason of the age or ethnic origin of the child or the desirability of the child being placed with siblings or with a child with whom he has previously shared a home;
Where such support is to meet the recurring costs of travel for visits for the child to members of the birth family/significant others;
Where the local authority considers it appropriate to contribute towards expenditure on legal costs, including Court fees (in cases where the adoption is supported by the local authority), or expenses associated with the child's introduction to adoptive parents or expenditure on accommodating the child (e.g. adaptations to the home, furniture, clothing or transport).

Level of Financial Support

The level of financial support is set to ensure that:
- The needs of adopted children can be met, and;
- The maximum numbers of looked after children can benefit from adoption.
There is no rising scale of financial support i.e. financial support is set and will only increase in line with inflation;
The level of financial support payable for adopters where financial support has been agreed will be calculated in line with the benefits system;
The level of financial support will be set at twice the level of income support for dependent children;
All financial support will be reviewed on an annual basis at the end of the financial year. Adoptive parents must complete and supply the authority with a statement of their circumstances that will be reviewed annually. This statement asks adoptive parents to specify the following:
- Their financial circumstances;
- The financial needs and resources of the child or children;
- Their home address and whether or not the child or children live at home with them;
- If there has been any changes to their own or the child/children's circumstances.

Should adoptive parents fail to provide a statement, a reminder will be sent giving the adopters 28 days to comply. In the event of the adopters' continued failure to comply, the authority may suspend payment of the financial support provided.

Eligibility

The purpose of financial support is to meet the needs of the child being placed. The Adoption Support Regulations and Guidance is clear, however, that the financial resources available to the adoptive family and child should be taken into account;
It is felt that means testing on the basis of outgoings and income only can be unfair, and may not always take into account an adopted child's additional needs;
London Borough of Richmond will operate a means test based on receipt of Child Tax Credit or Income Support. Those families in receipt of Child Tax Credit or Income Support will receive the full financial support payable. This will be dependent on the family providing evidence of receipt of such;
Families not in receipt of Child Tax Credit or Income Support will only be considered for adoption allowance if it is clear that the children's needs cannot be met without this financial support.

Discussion on payment of financial support to adopters must take place within Permanency Planning Meetings.

The Adoption Support Plan (see Section 7, The Adoption Support Plan) must then be completed to include the proposed financial support with information about the duration that this will be available and agreed by the Agency Adoption Decision Maker Where the financial support relates to the proposed placement of a looked after child with particular prospective adopters, the Plan will then be submitted to the Adoption and Permanency Panel when the Adoption Placement Report is being considered. See Placements for Adoption Procedure.

In the event that adoptive parents seek financial support that was not part of the original Adoption Support Plan written information itemising why this is needed to meet the needs of the adopted child must be sent to the Adoption and Permanency Team Manager. This financial support will only be agreed if there is clear evidence that the child has additional needs that require the payment of an allowance.

If it is decided that financial support should be given to adoptive parents, payment may be subject to conditions and a date specified by which the condition is to be met, for example, the authority may specify that equipment for which financial support has been given to meet identified need of a child be installed by a certain date and that all receipts for said equipment be made available for inspection.

Prior to making financial support available to prospective or adoptive parents, they will be required to inform the adoption service:

Of changes to their home address;
If the child (for any reason) no longer lives with them;
If there are any changes to their financial situation.

Where information is given orally, adoptive parents must confirm this in writing within 7 days.

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