3.10.8 Adoption Support Services

RELEVANT GUIDANCE

Guidance on Assessing the Support Needs of Adoptive Families (2008)

AMENDMENT

This chapter was amended in December 2011 to reflect the Adoption National Minimum Standards 2011 and the 2011 amendments to the Adoption & Children Act 2002. Section 6, Services Accessed by an Assessment and Section 7, The Adoption Support Plan has been amended to include reference to assistance with cross boundary issues. Section 8, Financial Support now includes reference to giving information about employees' rights to leave and pay.

Governing Principles
Eligibility for Adoption Support
When to Consider Adoption Support
Who Should Carry out the Assessment?
Assessment for Adoption Support
Services Accessed by an Assessment
The Adoption Support Plan
Financial Support
The Adoption Support Services Adviser
Required Protocols

1. Governing Principles

The Adoption Support Services Regulations 2005 place new duties on local authorities to carry out assessments of need for adoption support services and, having carried out the assessment, to decide whether to provide any service. (The guide, as usual is reasonableness). The requirement to make a decision does not presume an automatic provision of that service.

Southwark's Adoption Support Service:

Recognises that adopters need greater support to sustain permanent placements and prevent disruptions and irretrievable family breakdowns than is currently offered;
Promotes adoption sensitive mainstream services from Children's Services, Education, Housing, Community Health Services and Youth Offending Teams. Adoption services should not be seen in isolation from mainstream services but the specific family dynamic of an adoptive family requires proper consideration;
Encourages improved outcomes for children through accelerated pathways to specialised services.

2. Eligibility for Adoption Support

Those eligible for this service are children who have been or may be adopted, parents and guardians of such children and persons who have adopted or may adopt a child together with members of their family, other then step parents.

3. When to Consider Adoption Support

An assessment will be made when:

Considering a placement of a Looked After Child with particular prospective adopters;
Reviewing the placement for adoption of a Looked After child within the first 4 weeks of placement;
At six-monthly intervals until 3 years after the Adoption Order is made;
Thereafter when requested by an eligible person.

4. Who Should Carry out the Assessment?

The assessment will be carried out:

In respect of a Looked After Child - by the local authority having legal authority for the child;
In respect of a child adopted following placement by a local authority - the Placing Authority up until 3 years following the Adoption Order;
In all other cases - the authority where the requester of the assessment lives.

5. Assessment for Adoption Support

Assessments will follow the Guidance of the Assessment Framework. This provides a comprehensive analysis of a child's needs, together with their family's areas of strength and vulnerability to provide for those needs.

Following an assessment, the local authority decides whether or not to provide services. There is no automatic entitlement to services.

If services are to be provided there will be a clear Adoption Support Plan - see Section 7, The Adoption Support Plan below.

6. Services Accessed by an Assessment

1.	Services currently provided: Facilitating contact, including mediation, between children and with birth families - direct and indirectly; Facilitating reunions of children and birth relatives - see Intermediary Services Procedure; Counselling for birth parents and referring on as appropriate; Responding to adopted persons' requests to access files - see Access to Birth Records and Adoption Case Records Procedure; Letterbox contact; Assistance, including through specialist agencies (see below), to adoptive parents and children to support the adoptive placement and enable it to continue; Support groups for adoptive parents and for adopted children to discuss matters relating to adoption; Assistance to adoptive parents and children where a placement disrupts or is at risk of disrupting; Counselling - including through specialist agencies (see below), advice and information; Assistance with cross boundary issues.
2.	Referral to a specialist agency or resource These services will include: Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services; Behaviour Management support; Southwark's Children with Disabilities Team/domiciliary support packages; Educational advice; Health advice; Counselling; Support groups for birth family members to discuss matters relating to adoption; Respite Care; Advice as to community groups and voluntary organisations.
3.	Case records and contact (including letterbox) arrangements will always remain the responsibility of Southwark.
4.	Financial support - see Section 8, Financial Support below.

7. The Adoption Support Plan

An Adoption Support Plan should set out clearly:

The objectives of the plan and the key services to be provided;
The timescales for achieving the plan;
What should be provided, when and by whom;
The criteria that will be used to evaluate the services provided;
The procedures that will be put in place to review the plan.

The Adoption Support Plan will require the approval of the Designated Manager (Adoption Support).

A copy of the plan should go to all those involved in implementing it, and to the recipients of services (or Appropriate Adult).

The plan should state, where appropriate, that prospective adopters should be assisted with any cross-boundary issues that may arise.

8. Financial Support

This can be assessed as necessary but there is no automatic entitlement. Adoption Allowances will no longer apply although existing allowances will automatically transfer under the new regulations;
Authorities can now respond to financial needs in order to secure a placement by paying a lump sum or ongoing regular payments;
Support can be paid to non-agency adopters such as inter-country adopters, who have given notice to apply for an Adoption Order or who have adopted a child;
Step parents are not eligible for financial support;
In determining eligibility for financial support after the adoption order is made and as part of an annual review, any new income coming into a household must be taken into consideration and any new benefits accruing (e.g. tax credits);
Financial support paid to adoptive families will be exempt from tax and will be disregarded when calculating eligibility for tax credits and benefits.

The circumstances in which financial support may be paid are as follows:

To ensure that the adoptive parents can look after the child;

Where a decision is made that a prospective adopter is suitable for a particular child and the adoption would not be practicable without the provision of financial support;
To ensure that adoptive parents can continue to look after a child;

Where an Adoption Order has been made but the long-term success of the adoption is in doubt without the provision of financial support;
To meet the special needs of the child;

Where the child needs special care which requires greater expenditure of resources by reason of illness, disability, emotional or behavioural difficulties or the continuing consequences of Neglect - and the child's condition is serious or long-term;
To facilitate the placement of 'harder to place' children;

Where a child requires special arrangements to facilitate his or her adoptive placement on account of his or her age, sex or ethnic origin;
To enable siblings and other children to be placed together;

Where it is desirable that the child should be placed with the same prospective adopters as his or her sibling(s) or another child with whom s/he has previously lived and developed close ties, or to join siblings in an adoptive placement;
To meet recurring costs in respect of travel for visits for the child to members of the birth family or significant others;
To contribute towards expenditure on legal costs, including Court fees (in cases where the local authority supports the adoption), or expenses associated with the child's introduction to the adoptive parents or expenditure on accommodating the child (for example, adaptations to the home, furniture, clothing or transport).

Financial Assessment

A financial assessment will be carried out with the aim of assisting the local authority to determine the additional cost to the adopters of caring for the child.

As part of the financial assessment:

All families will be advised as to entitlement to employees' rights to leave and pay, benefits and tax credits. They will be responsible for their own benefits application;
All local authorities are required to undertake an assessment of all income and outgoings to a family. This will include benefits and tax credits;
Consideration will be given to the child's needs and resources and the adopter's circumstances;
The financial calculation for assistance will reflect that applied to all carers where a carer holds or intends to hold Parental Responsibility for a child.

Examples of Financial packages

Subject to the eligibility and financial criteria, financial assistance can take different forms at different times dependent on the circumstances of the family, e.g. lump sum payment - practical support, specific time limited payment, a series of one-off payments or commitment or regular payment, subject to formal annual review

Any reduction in a reviewed allowance prior to 2003 would be based on changes in circumstances and would not be due to the new Regulations.

A full financial assessment will not be required for settling in costs or small one-off payments, e.g. holidays, specific pieces of equipment.

Payments towards expenditure on legal costs, including Court fees or expenses associated with the child's introduction to the adoptive parents must not be subject to financial assessment.

Tax Implications

Financial support paid to adoptive families will be disregarded for the purpose of determining eligibility to tax credits. It will also be disregarded as income for the following calculations:

Income Support, Job Seekers Allowance, Housing Benefit, Council Tax and Income Tax

Established Relationships

Where a child is in an established relationship with a foster carer and the only obstacle to adoption is that of finance, Southwark's Conversion Policy is applicable.

The recognised date when the foster placement ends and the adoptive placement begins will be from the matching decision - see Placement for Adoption Procedure. Child Benefit can be claimed from that date by the now prospective adopters. Child Benefit will be treated as income for local authority assessment purposes.

The Adoption Placement Report, which is presented to the Adoption Panel when a match is being considered between a child and an adopter, must include information about the financial support proposed. See Placement for Adoption Procedure.

9. The Adoption Support Services Adviser

This post is required by the Adoption and Children Act 2002 (amended 2011). For operational purposes this will be a Senior Practitioner post based in the Adoption and Permanency Team.

Core Responsibilities of the Adoption Support Services Adviser are:

To develop an Adoption Support Service by giving advice and information to people affected by adoption - a single point of contact to provide information, signpost appropriate services and advise on how those services may be accessed;
To be a single point of contact for facilitating adoption support packages in cross authority placements;
To assist understanding with Children's Services Teams that arrangements are in place to support every adoption placement before and after an Adoption Order is made;
To respond quickly and constructively to problems that may arise with these arrangements;
To promote and maintain necessary working referral agreements between agencies in education, health, CAMHS etc;
To maintain current knowledge of changes in guidance and regulations, advising colleagues and other professionals;
To respond, complete and process requests for assessments of need along with the Adoption Support Social Worker;
To manage the Adoption Support Social Worker.

For strategic development purposes, over-arching responsibility for multi-agency involvement, response and joint working lies with the Head of Children's Services.

10. Required Protocols

The adoption support service is a signposting, and referral and assessment service. In conjunction with other social workers in the Adoption and Permanence Team, a casework service may also be provided in some cases.

10.1 Child Protection

Where child protection concerns arise in the course of an assessment or from another agency delivering a service following assessment, then a referral to Referral and Assessment will be made in the usual manner. The role of the Adoption Support Service Adviser will then be to act in an advisory capacity, participating in any subsequent meetings and contributing information as to available post-adoption services, which may assist any eventual Child Protection Plan.

10.2 Respite Care

At present, respite care is mainly accessed for children with disabilities and referrals are made to the family Link Worker via the Children with Disabilities Team. Such respite provision is used on a regular, agreed basis.

Where such a service is required from the local authority and the child is eligible for this service then a referral will be made to the Children with Disabilities Team in the usual way.

Where a child does not meet the current threshold for disability but circumstances are such that accommodation is sought from the Local Authority and respite provision cannot be obtained from within the family network, then referral will be made to the relevant Referral and Assessment Team.

The Adoption Support Service Adviser will make available any current written assessment of need to the team and be available to act in an advisory capacity, participating in any subsequent meetings, contributing information as to available post-adoption services, which may assist any Child in Need Plan.

10.3 Education

Where assistance is requested with respect to educational provision, reference will be made to a designated educational resource with special responsibilities for adoptive families, for advice and guidance on local provision. Such advice will be required to inform the nature of the local authority's response.

10.4 Health

Where assistance is sought on health related matters, reference will be made to a designated Health Adviser for adoptive families to obtain the required advice and guidance on local provision, assisting as necessary in obtaining any specialist advice and information.

10.5 Emotional Health and Well-being

Where assistance is required with services to assist in managing behaviour, therapeutic intervention or any kind of psychological intervention, reference will be made in the first instance to a designated psychological health professional for advice or Initial Assessment. Any request to financially assist in maintaining existing therapeutic services cannot be considered without reference to this person.

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