Agenda item

Please introduce yourself and describe the main roles and responsibilities that your post involves.

(1)          Coram has worked in partnership with Kent since February 2012, to improve its Adoption service. I had expected to undertake the improvement work for six months but I am still here three years later!  It has been a rewarding experience and I have learned much since being here. Coram is based in London and we are used to going to and working with small local authorities, but Kent is vast, and working in such a large authority has been a very useful learning experience.

(2)          I manage the adoption service, which has 60 - 65 staff, and I take a lead in improvement work. Coram was commissioned after the County Council received an ‘inadequate’ rating for its children in care services in 2011. It was initially a 2-year contract but this has been extended and now finishes in February 2016.

(3)          The Coram/KCC partnership will shortly move to a different arrangement, as a voluntary adoption agency (VAA), from July 2015. This will be called ‘Coram Kent Voluntary Adoption Agency’.  This voluntary agency will be separate from the County Council, although the Council will retain its responsibility and accountability for its corporate parenting role for children in its care. The driver for this move to apply to be a VAA was Kent’s vision, and the VAA will be able to access funding from the Government that the County Council as a local authority cannot access. This way of working is innovative but Kent’s will not be the first model of a VAA to be established. A VAA in Cambridge has recently been rated ‘good’ by Ofsted.

(4)          Coram has a good track record in adoption in terms of delivering the best outcomes.

Is there a problem with, and can you tell the committee about, children with special educational needs (SEN) who are seeking adoption?

(5)          Children having SEN is always a challenge but we have a good track record of placing them.  For example, one child with SEN, health issues and disabilities has taken 13 months to place but has now been placed, so we know that persistence pays off. We have to hang on to the belief that we will find a family for such children. The adoption service needs to have the confidence of the local authority and Ofsted. It’s not just a case of numbers – how many placements made in how much time; some children will take longer to place. Other children with similar combinations of issues have taken over a year to place; a deaf child who was eventually placed with a deaf adopter after over a year has had big benefits from the placement and has made progress with language development.

Is there a long waiting list of children needing adoption?

(6)          No. You have to look at a waiting list in the context of improving the journey for such children.

(7)          In 2011/12, the year in which the County Council was given its improvement notice:

            68 children were placed for adoption

            69 children were adopted

            67 new adopters were approved

            In 2012/13,

            143 children were placed for adoption

            105 children were adopted

            87 new adopters were approved

            In 2013/14,

            170 children were placed for adoption

            145 children were adopted

            167new adopters were approved

            We are proud that this was the highest number of placements in the           UK in that year.

            In 2014/15, so far we are hoping for

            143 children to be placed for adoption

            180 children to be adopted

            135 new adopters to be approved

            These figures tell an excellent story.

(8)          Kent County Council has had two key challenges during its improvement journey:-

(9)          Firstly, in September 2014, a key legal judgement was published that affected all adoptions in the UK.  This was that any authority seeking formal legal agreement to an adoption would need to produce more robust paperwork to support an application before a placement order could be granted.

            The number of children being granted placement has reduced as   follows:

            In 2013 – 190

            In 2014 – 164

            In 2015, so far – projected 82

This means that we are left with 58 adopters who have been approved and are waiting for a child, and only 14 children waiting for adoption. Most of these children have disabilities or are siblings, both of which are hard-to-place groups. We are undertaking a major piece of work this year to support adopters who are waiting for a child.  Adopters can make a DVD to promote themselves to children who are seeking adoption, in the same way that children have been able for some time to make a DVD of themselves to show to adopters.  These DVDs are made with the support of the British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF). In addition, we are holding events at which approved adopters can view the profiles of children awaiting adoption.

(10)       Secondly, some placements have been delayed due to challenges by a child’s birth parents.  Such a challenge can lead to a delay of six to nine months while the challenge progresses through the High Court.

Why has Kent placed more children than other authorities? Is it because we have a large number of UASC?

(11)       No. Most UASC do not meet the criteria for adoption as they are older.  Most adoption placements are of children under the age of 10.

So are the children going for adoption all Kent’s own children?

(12)       Yes. Kent had the highest number of children in care of any of the authorities of comparable size; Birmingham, Lincolnshire and Hampshire.

Are girls or boys the easiest to place for adoption?

(13)       Nationally, girls are easier to place.

What could the Select Committee recommend that would improve the adoption process?

(14)       There are two parts of the process which need improvement:-

(15)       Firstly, a ‘life story’ book that is prepared for adopters, to tell them the back story of the child they are adopting, and, secondly, a ‘later life’ letter, which is prepared for the child, to help them understand, when they are older, why they came into care. Both of these are prepared by the child’s social workers. Some adopters complain that they either do not get the ‘life story’ book or that what they are given is poorly prepared or of poor quality (for instance, children’s names have been misspelt).  We owe it to the children to do these things well. Adoption and children’s social workers are working together to continue to improve this area of work. to help them prepare better material. In the past, we have monitored that the documents are given when they should be but we have not monitored the quality of what is given.

(16)       Secondly, all children who come through the adoption process have some challenges to be addressed; for example, a baby coming into care who suffers the effects of a mother’s drugs and/or alcohol misuse during pregnancy. Good multi-agency post-adoption services will support adopters to cope with the issues their adopted child has experienced and can prevent the child returning to care in the future. These support services are in place now but need further development. Previously, these services have had a poor reputation and adopters had lost confidence in them. Post-adoption support starts only after a formal adoption order has been granted, and there is a long period of time while the child is in an adoption placement prior to the granting of the formal order, during which the child still has looked after status and the prospective adopters cannot access full support services.  During this period, access to services such as CAMHS support needs to be available to adopters and children in a timely way. I think we could support both better during this time, either by further improving the CAMHS service that is available to them. The current CAMHS model requires further exploration as to how adopters and children can be supported. I think the relationship between schools, adoptive parents and adopted children has improved in recent years but can improve further. Schools are now taking adopted children more seriously than they used to but we need to continue to monitor and ensure that they give sufficient priority to adopted children when allocating school places.

(17)       The Chairman, on behalf of the Committee, thanked Yashi very much for giving her time today to help the Select Committee with its information gathering.