Agenda item

To provide Brent Corporate Parenting Committee with information on the activity and progress of Adopt London West for the period 1 April 2021 – 30 September 2021.

The Committee received a report from Debbie Gabriel (Head of Service, Adopt London West) updating them on the performance of Adopt London West over the review period. Debbie Gabriel highlighted the following key points in relation to the report:

• Sections 5 and 6 of the report detailed the improved performance for placing children after court authorisation, which had improved by 31 days. She felt this demonstrated the strong partnership between Brent social workers and Adopt London West.
• 11 children in Brent had plans for adoption. 6 had been placed in their adoptive families, and 1 child had been matched and would be with their adoptive family by the end of the month. There were 4 children going through court proceedings.
• The government had made early permanence for children a priority and allocated additional funding to improve that area of practice. There was one child in Brent placed in early permanence which meant they could join their adoptive family much earlier.
• There had been capacity issues for adopter recruitment, therefore the Board for Adopt London West had approved a fixed term temporary post to add additional management capacity and improve that position.
• In regards to adoption and special guardianship support, the education support group had been promoted as an area of good practice. This group met termly and was facilitated by an educational psychologist. A podcast had been recorded to help adopters think about the challenges of applying for a secondary school and the transition to high school.

The Committee thanked Debbie Gabriel for her introduction to the report, and noted that a Special Guardian had joined the meeting this evening to talk about her experience. The Chair welcomed the carer to the meeting and invited her to comment.

The carer informed the Committee that since becoming a Special Guardian carer she had linked with Adopt London West for support, and had a really positive experience. She engaged with different groups and carers who had been able to support each other along their journeys. She hoped to develop the service further through a peer support network with more community based activities for Special Guardians, which would be carer led within their own communities. One example of a community based event was a recent Fun Day, which was the first time the children had been able to interact with each other. She felt this enabled children to see other representation of themselves in the different family units. There was also a newly developed special guardian reference group, which the carer fed in to in order to influence government response to adoption nationally.

The Chair thanked the special guardian for her comments and invited comments and questions from the Committee, with the following points raised:

The Committee agreed that the special guardian was trailblazing in this area and helping to ensure all the support that could be given was in place. In terms of the role of the Committee, the members queried what carers would want them to do through monitoring and holding the service to account. The carer advised the Committee that it was important to understand that the journey for special guardians was different to adoptive carers, but was the same level of permanency for the child. Access to entitlement was not the same, and she was lobbying nationally for universal support no matter the legal order of the carer, highlighting it should be based on a child’s needs. Support offered to special guardians was not currently regulated and she felt that this should be looked into, as it made it difficult for special guardians to approach services. In terms of improvement, she felt this could be done through utilising communities, forums and panels for special guardians to feed back their experience, which could make a difference at a local level. The carer invited councillors to meet special guardian carers through support groups.

The Committee expressed gratitude to all special guardian carers, highlighting that the more equitable support that could be offered the more people might come forward as special guardians. They wanted to recognise and value special guardians, and noted that the previous week had been Kinship Carer Week.

The Committee moved to speak about recruitment, including the national recruitment campaign launched by central government ‘#youcanadopt’. Debbie Gabriel advised that the campaign was really welcome, but from experience it was highlighted that adopters needed certain skills, characteristics, understanding and insight. The children being placed needed to be able to maintain a level of relationship with their birth families. Ideally the service would look to be able to support children to be with their birth families and if that was not possible to place them within a kinship arrangement as that was better for children’s resilience, emotional wellbeing and mental health. If that was not possible then adoption was the right pathway, but the right adopters were needed in order to be able to understand the children’s loss and identity.

Adopt London West had launched a Black Adopters Project, recognising that the experience of Black adopters was not what it should be and that Black children often waited longer for adoption. Debbie Gabriel agreed to bring back to the Committee an update on the Black Adopters Project, particularly in relation to Brent, for the next report.

RESOLVED:

i)              To note the report.