Agenda item

This report covers the third full year of operation of the regional Adopt London North (ALN) from April 2022 to March 2023. 

The report provides a summary of the work over the last year, examples of changes and improvements ALN are making and an insight into the challenges resulting from the current level of demand.

Ms Lydia Samuel, Head of Service, Adopt London North, presented the report. 

The meeting heard that:

·      There was no current level of concern about the level of referrals from Haringey. When considering the number of family finding referrals, the percentage of referrals that resulted in a match provided an indication of how many of those children were likely to end up going on to have a care plan for adoption.

·      The purpose of Adopt London beginning to provide the training for social workers was because it became apparent that, across the boroughs, the adoption expertise had largely come into the regional adoption agency. Therefore, some of the expertise to provide training and guidance had largely been lost from the local authority. This was why it would be beneficial to coordinate the training centrally. The training would be provided regularly enough so that all of the social workers that needed attend it could do so. Monitoring was done with quality assurance in relation to how often it needed to run. It would be interesting to look over time at whether the quality of the work improved. It would be possible to observe this easily because reports would be submitted to the Adoption Panel and Quality Assurance.

·      In relation to the Black Adoption Programme, one of the things examined was the proportion of Black children within the adoption system and the project was aimed at Black and Mixed Black ethnicity children rather than the global majority children. It was well-known that within adoption, Asian children could particularly be placed for adoption very quickly. There was a surplus of Asian adopters and very few Asian children that place for adoption. In the past, when research was done into global majority children as a whole, it had been the case that, in many ways, the extent of the disparities for Black children had been masked. The figures in the report showed that over the five-year period of the analysis that was done, 35% of children within the Adopt London North boroughs were Black or Mixed Black ethnicity children. This compared to an average of 26% across Adopt London, which was significant.

·      In relation to children in care, Black children were over represented in the care system. There was a report detailing all the research on Black Adoption projects. This could be presented to the Committee.

·      It was rare for adoptive families to receive an adoption allowance. There was provision for adoption allowances where those were needed and they were similar to special guardianship allowances. In most cases, they were attached to the needs of the child. For example, if somebody adopted a sibling group or a disabled child, it was up to the local authority to approve adoption allowance for those families. Families were also able to re-approach Adopt London later on if their situation changed and they came under financial hardship and had to be supported with an allowance. However, the vast majority of families did not have an allowance and did not need one.

·      Social media had been helpful. Some of the recruitment methods had changed significantly since the organisation had become a regional agency as there was little competition and most people who were interested in adoption do an internet search or look on social media to find Adopt London very quickly. Work was also being done with local authority media teams to specifically look at campaigns at the specific parts of the year to local residents. This helped residents to understand that Adopt London was Haringey’s adoption agency. In relation to Black adopters, the work that had been done in the project showed methods that were successful with other prospective adopters were not successful with Black adopters to the same degree. One of the pilots that Adopt London had applied for funding was to have a community led arrangement where the organisation would have people who had relationships in local community groups to learn about the needs of adoption and Black children and be given tools and resources to go back into their community space and promote adoption. Work was also being done to make sure that if there was an increase of black adopters, the organisation was ready to deal with the demand. 

·      In relation to governance arrangements, the Governance Board had been very strong and there had been a benefit from the continuity in that group. There had been governance challenges in the last year, including renegotiated funding arrangements and which meant that the DCSS became involved across the boroughs and successful resolutions had been reached. The relationships generally across this area and the other areas of work that was done jointly across had been beneficial The Assurance Board looked at the operational work. Having different layers of governance had been useful.

·      Discussions had been held with the London Improvement Innovation Alliance, who coordinated the need members meeting regarding how a presentation could be made to all of the lead members in London together about the project. A briefing had been offered for all the directors across London to attend all at once and ask questions.

RESOLVED:

That the presentation be noted.