Agenda item
Adoption Service 6-Month Report (October 2016 - March 2017)
The purpose of this report is to provide information to the Council’s Corporate Parenting Committee about the general management of the adoption service and how it is achieving good outcomes for children. This report details the activity of Brent’s adoption service from Oct 1st 2016– March 31st 2017.
Minutes:
Onder Beter (Head of LAC and Permanency) presented the Brent Adoption Service Report for the period 1 October 2016 to 31 March 2017 which provided information on the general management of the adoption service. Members received an overview of Brent’s improving performance against the national Adoption Score Card, a breakdown of the numbers of children in the adoption process and details of adopter recruitment. Information was also provided on the number of families receiving post adoption support and the type of support provided, ranging financial support, lifestory work and strategies for managing difficult behaviour. Members heard that the government cap of £5k per child for the adoption support fund had meant that support plans had had to be modified quite significantly. In concluding his presentation Onder Beter explained the practices in place to support continued service improvement, including robust processes to allow early identification of issues, collaborative working amongst social work teams and the permanence tracking mechanism which helped to prevent delays for children.
In the subsequent discussion Councillor Warren expressed disappointment with the report as he felt that parts had not been adequately updated and questioned why reference to joint commissioning with west London councils had been removed. Members queried why two approved adoptive households had been put on hold and sought further details about post-adoption support including complexity of support needed, average costs per child before the government’s £5k cap and numbers of adoptive placement breakdown. Clarity was sought regarding the membership of the Adoption Panel and further information requested regarding how ethnicity was considered in identifying matches between prospective adopter and looked after child.
In response, Gail Tolley (Strategic Director of Children and Young People) advised that members’ comments would be taken on board for future reports and reminded the committee that Onder Beter had only recently joined the council.
Nigel Chapman (Operational Director Integration and Improved Outcomes) explained that reference to joint commissioning with West London Councils had been removed from the current report as this had not been renewed due to the impending regionalisation of adoption. Onder Beter explained that the two approved adoptive households had been put on hold at the request of the prospective adopters due to personal reasons. Nigel Chapman further advised that the post adoption support fund made available by the government had previously had no limit and local authorities had therefore provided support packages with high levels of support. There was currently a limited number of providers for post-adoption support and it was hoped that through regionalisation it would be possible to encourage a pool of commissioned providers which would provide services at cost-price. Following the introduction of the cap it had been necessary to manage the expectations of prospective adopters. There was no nationally collected data for adoption breakdowns after the first three years of placement but any incidence of an adoptive placement breakdown would be reported to the committee. National research on adoption undertaken by the University of Bristol had identified that adoptive placements were the most stable when compared with the number of breakdowns in placements made under Special Guardianship Orders or Residential Orders. Onder Beter highlighted that early planning for looked after children and robust matching, including consideration of all the issues that could affect a placement in later years helped to prevent the likelihood of adoptive placement breakdowns. It was confirmed that prospective adopters could request to be considered for children of particular heritage only.
Onder Beter informed the committee that the membership of the Adoption Panel included those with personal experience of adoption, including the adoptive mother of a child.
RESOLVED: that the report be noted.
Councillor Warren recorded his dissent to the report as he believed that parts of the report lacked credibility.
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