Issue - meetings

This report will inform members of the progress made in the performance of the Adoption Service in placing children for adoption and special guardianship since the publication of the Adoption Scorecard and the Adoption Diagnostic Review in Summer 2012.

 The Director for Children’s service began her introduction to this item by praising the adoption and Permanence team for their significant effort to  improve the efficiency of each stage of the Adoption decision making process which had culminated in  the reduction of over 100 days from the day that the child is taken into care  and the date  in which they  are placed for adoption Furthermore,  there was a significant increase in the number of children  in the process /planning stage from 69 awaiting approval at December in 2011 to 93 in December 2012 awaiting approval. Following the publication of the Adoption scorecard and the Adoption Diagnostic in July 2012 there were a number of recommendations made for improvement across all social work professionals involved in the adoption process. There was also additional support commissioned to undertake a review to assess and identify improvements to be made to the adoption service and adoption process.  The recommendations form this review included:

·        A review of the roles and structures  in the service

·        A plan to reorganise social workers into specific roles, such as family finding, assessment of prospective adopters and front end workers to process all enquiries

·        The development of workflow  processes to speed  up placement for adoption  strengthened  performance management

·        Strengthened scrutiny profile of adoption at a senior level.

 It had been anticipated that performance would decline before there was improvements but this had not been the case and the service were congratulated on how they took forward the recommendations of the review which had seen an increase in the number of foster parents who became adopters, a two fold increase in the number of special guardianships being taken forward.

The Committee were pleased to note the progress made and spoke about the need to provide more support for friends/family members who were willing to take on the special guardianship role as they seemed to get less  well off, in this respect , than foster carers or adopters.  For example, they would likely need support for day to day challenges when they begin to care for a child or young person that has been in care. In response  it was noted that ,  there was a choice available to do more for special guardians that lived in the borough. For example the council could help with getting access: to  children’s centre, youth workers, leisure passes. The  Director for Children’s services agreed that there was a challenge to the service to look at programme of support for special guardians and make this role more attractive to encourage more take up.  It was also worth exploring  providing the same type of therapeutic support to special guardians as provided to adopters.  The Committee, agreed that a report come forward on the how the service can update support for special guardianship role.