DONCASTER CHILDRENS SERVICES TRUST
ADOPTION AGENCY
Annual Report April 2016- March 2017
Purpose of the report
This annual report meets the requirements of the Adoption Agency National Minimum Standards which sit within the framework provided by the Care Standards Act 2000.
National Minimum Standard 25.6 states that 'the executive side of the local authority, the voluntary adoption agency’s/Adoption Support Agency’s provider/trustees, board members or management committee members:
(a)receive written reports on the management, outcomes and financial state
of the agency every 6 months;
(b)monitor the management and outcomes of the services in order to satisfy themselves that the agency is effective and is achieving good outcomes for children and/or service users;
(c)satisfy themselves that the agency is complying with the conditions of registration'
The report will inform Elected Members, Senior Managers and decision makers about the key outcomes in service provision, identify any issues of concern and outline plans for improvement to the quality of service provision. The report may also be of interest to service users, staff and colleagues from other agencies. The report provides information about the activity and outcomes achieved in this period by the service.
The annual report informs Elected Members about:-
•National developments in adoption
•Activity, performance and developments in the Adoption Agency April 2016- March 2017.
•Future plans for the Adoption Agency in the next six months
National Developments and Regulatory Changes
In June 2015 the Department for Education (DfE) set out its proposals to move to regional adoption agencies. Their paper ‘Regionalising Adoption’ was published. The DfE believes that regional agencies will ‘speed up matching and markedly improve the life chances of neglected and damaged children; improve adopter recruitment and adoption support and reduce costs’. They envisage that a new model will ‘address some of the enduring challenges in the adoption system’.
In response to this the Yorkshire and Humber consortium put together an expression of interest to the DfE which included all the local authorities and VAA’s in the area. The proposal is to establish 3 sub–regional agencies, to be supported by the regional hub, who will work in different ways according to their own specific characteristics. This expression of interest was accepted and the consortium received government funding to begin the development stage of the process. Further funding was granted in year two as one of five key ‘demonstrator’ projects in the country.
DCST were chosen to be the lead agency for the south sub-region which includes Barnsley, Sheffield and Rotherham. Many of the proposed changes are however to be welcomed as there appears to be a genuine drive to improve services across the region and there could be significant gains for children and families, particularly in terms of recruitment of adopters, matching children to prospective adopters and in the realm of adoption support. However, we need to be mindful of the need to retain local services in all of these functions.
The Adoption Support Fund was established in April 2015 which has been particularly helpful to children and families where the need for intensive therapeutic services has been identified through a post adoption support assessment. This budget is held by the DfE and the Trust’s Adoption Team has been able to apply for individual commissioned support for children and families according to their specific needs. Specific detail is covered further in the paragraph ‘Adoption Support’. So far, there has been a commitment from the government to fund this service until 2020. Moreover, the Yorkshire and Humber region has recently been chosen to pilot a regional adoption support fund which will provide a shadow budget which is to be developed over the next two years.
Inspection
The Adoption Agency is required by regulation to be inspected by Ofsted. The service has been not been inspected within 2016/17
The previous inspection in August 2015 rated the service as ‘good’ and identified 6 areas for improvement all of which have been actioned.
Staffing
There have been some changes in the structure of the Adoption team since the last annual report in April 2016. One social care assistant (SCA) left the team in August 2016 as she was promoted to another role within the Trust and this vacancy was filled by an experienced SCA from the Intensive Family Support service in January 2017.
We were also successful in filling the last social work vacancy in the team with an experienced worker from within the Referral and Response service who joined the team in late September 2016. With these exceptions, staffing and management has remained stable within the adoption team.
In terms of administrative support there has also been significant change with a new manager and some new staffing. The team currently has 4 full time administrators, 1 part-time administrator, one vacant part-time post and one modern apprentice. This administrative team is shared with the Fostering Service.
Recruitment
With respect to recruitment it appears that a combination of a real commitment to recruitment by the whole Adoption Team, some good local marketing as well as the high profile the Government has set in relation to adoption has meant that the profile of Adoption locally has risen. However, the National profile of people who wish to adopt has decreased over the past year and it is felt that this has been as a result of the national message about the high number of approved adopters who have been struggling to find a placement. Doncaster took the lead role in the Being Family campaign in 2015/16 although this will be replaced by a new consortium/regional adoption agency approach (One Adoption) to recruitment for Yorkshire and Humber into 2017.
Moreover, there continues to be a decrease in the number of children under 3yrs requiring an adoptive placement, hence, the agency has needed to be mindful of the number of applications from prospective adopters for this age group within
the Doncaster area, unless they are prepared to consider Fostering For Adoption or live outside of the borough. The focus has been on recruiting those who are able to consider sibling groups, children aged 4 and above, for those children who have complex needs and those who will consider ‘foster to adopt’.
Enquiries and Recruitment of Prospective Adopters
The agency had a total of 78 enquiries during this period, regular open evenings and information sessions have been held and from these 18 initial visits were undertaken.
The Adoption Team had 13 applicants approved during this period. 8 of these prospective adopters are waiting for an appropriate match.
All of these assessments were undertaken by Social Workers within the Adoption Team. The Adoption Panel commented that these are thorough and analytical. Although we approved fewer adopters this year many of those adopters were matched to children who were waiting for an adoptive placement in both Doncaster and across the region. All assessments were completed within acceptable timescales, although Stage 1 of the process has taken longer than the suggested timescales due to delays in receiving medical reports back from the Agency Medical Advisor. This issue has now been addressed as the agency medical advice for adults has been commissioned out by the health service to a local G.P. practice.
As of March 30th 2017 11 assessments were already in progress, 5 in Stage 1 of the process and 6 in Stage 2, which includes 3 foster carers who wish to adopt the child/ren in their care.
Prospective Adopter Training
All prospective adopters complete on-line e learning modules designed by Kate Cairns Associates (KCA) in stage 1 of the assessment process. This is commissioned by the consortium and has recently been amended to reflect a less academic standard that took into account prospective adopter comments that it did not meet their needs at that stage in the process. This continues to be reviewed on an on-going basis. If it does not meet adopter expectations then the team may move to the First4Adoption on line training.
Two Preparing to Adopt’ training course (for 4 full days) have been held in this period; in July and October 2016. 12 people attended the course on both occasions. Prospective adopters usually complete this course in Stage 2 of the process though if the course is not full then some do attend in Stage 1. Adopters, adults who have been adopted and a young person who has been adopted run the training alongside social worker’s from within the team. Positive comments were noted in the feedback from all prospective adopters
Those foster carers who applied to be assessed for children in their care attended a ‘preparation training course’ regarding adoption issues in November 2016. Once again the feedback from participants was very positive.
Social workers from within the team also provided workshops for adopters on ‘Managing Children’s Behaviour - it’s not all about adoption’, ‘Moving Children In’ and a workshop for those ‘Related by Adoption’ over the year. All of these workshops proved to be useful and feedback from adopters and their relatives was positive.
The team has also provided workshops for foster carers throughout the year around adoption issues which have proven to be well attended and valued by carers.
Partnership agencies
Doncaster continues to contract via the consortium with Yorkshire Adoption Agency to advise and assess any prospective adopters who wish to adopt a child from another country. We have not been notified that anyone has been approved to adopt a child from another country within Doncaster during this time period.
Doncaster also has a service level agreement in place with PAC-UK who undertake responsibility for providing on-going support to birth parents and their families where a child has been placed for adoption. They also provide services for adult adoptees. Feedback from service users suggests that this is a good service and one which is provided in a timely manner.
Children with a plan for adoption
At the time of writing this report, the Agency is actively family finding for 9 children, however it is important to remember that this is a constantly changing figure with children being matched and moved on to adoptive families and other children having a plan of adoption agreed (and family finding commencing). In fact out of those 9 children 6 are due to be matched in April and May 2017.
The number of children who have been referred for family finding over the past year has reduced (25, including 1 sibling group of 2) compared to the previous year (38, including 7 sibling groups of 2) which reflects the national picture.
Fortnightly ‘placement order planning meetings’ (POP meetings) are held for children who ‘should be placed for adoption’ for the Agency Decision Maker to consider whether adoption is in the child’s best interest. In the specified time
period 15 meetings have been held, 25 children considered; including 2 sibling groups of 2 children and 1 sibling group of 3 children.
There have also been 6 children who have had an agency decision made about ‘should be placed for adoption’ outside of this meeting as they have been placed on a fostering to adopt basis.
Matches for children
Over the past year Doncaster has found matches with adoptive families for 25 children. These included 2 sibling groups of 2 children; 5 children aged three years or over and 6 children in a Fostering to Adopt placement. This is a significant decrease compared to 2015-16 when the team matched 39 children and reflects the national picture which has seen a reduction in the number of children coming through the care system with a plan for adoption.
We have placed children with Doncaster adopters as well as those who are from other local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies. We continue to actively seek placements for children with voluntary agencies and have been fortunate to receive funding from the DfE to place 12 of those children.
This success rate clearly demonstrates the skill, experience and commitment of the Agency in terms of achieving such positive outcomes for children.
There have been no adoption disruptions of Doncaster children during this time period which reflects the consistent drive to provide appropriate matches for them. However, it is unfortunate that there have been 3 disruptions for our prospective adopters who had children placed from other local authorities.
The team also participated in National Adoption Exchange days, coordinated by the National Adoption Register where children and adopters can be profiled and appropriate matches pursued. The team participated in 5 events over the year; London in May, Leeds in July, Manchester in October, Walsall in December and Manchester in March. Prospective adopters were identified at some these events for Doncaster children.
Social workers from the team also attended two family finding events run by Barnado’s (Yorkshire), although these were less successful in terms of matching.
Adoption Orders made
During this period, adoption orders were made in respect of 37 children. Additionally, as of April 2017 a further 24 children were placed in adoptive placements where an order had not yet been made.
Adoption Support
Referrals for post adoption support assessments have continued to increase this year (35 as opposed to 30 the previous year) and all of these have been allocated within the team for further support and services. Moreover, 10 of these have been for children placed by the team, some within Doncaster and a large number outside of the borough. This reflects the fact that we are able to place older children and those with more complex needs but with that comes the need for increased support and specialist therapeutic provision.
During the year we have continued to offer a range of effective adoption support services and these services have been quite extensive. There has been some innovative use of applications for funding from various sources which has helped to increase the provision of services, particularly in relation to the teen group and a group for adopters. Moreover, we have had two adoptive families who have made donations to this group, one having completed a charity event in aid of the group and one who raised money from friends and family members during a celebration event when they adopted a child.
The adopters’ peer support group was established in 2015 and this has proved to be quite popular. Groups have met on a monthly basis and it is hoped that as the number of adoptive families increase the group will develop further. There have been a number of outside speakers participate in this group from the CAMHS
service and the Aiming High Parent Partnership Service to social workers within the team undertaking Lego Therapy and presenting discussions topics on sibling contact, letterbox and play. There was also a workshop for adopters run over 2 sessions which considered the Safe Base model with an experienced trainer from Coram/BAAF. There have also been sessions led by the group itself where adopters have discussed issues they wish to bring to the group for continued support.
The team held a summer event at Cusworth Hall in July which was well attended by adoptive families and their children. There were a range of arts and crafts
activities as well as a magician who everyone enjoyed. Feedback from children and adopters once again was very positive. The Christmas party was well attended by adopters and children and this is always the highlight of the year and
an event not to be missed by the team. Feedback from adopters and children was very positive.
The ‘Play and Chat’ group continues to be very popular and captures those in the very early stages of placement. This is held on a monthly basis at a local indoor play venue and is now very well attended as this group now meets after school so primary school aged children have the opportunity to attend.
The teen group has been developed further and a number of young people are now regular attenders. They enjoy the group so much that they asked for this to be extended further to include monthly meetings; they enjoy various activities and the opportunity to socialise with other adopted peers..
Strengths of the adoption support service include consultation with adopters and with children and young people to help shape and develop the service. This continues and is seen as vitally important especially given the regionalisation agenda.
We are fortunate in having an experienced and very competent Social Care Assistant (Letterbox) who has developed and maintained an ‘Access Database’’ that processes contacts from birth families to and from adopted children that is very efficient and robust. Through this, the Agency offers an active letterbox