Adoption Support Fund to be extended, Vicky Ford confirms

The government’s Adoption Support Fund (ASF) will be extended until 2022 in a decision welcomed by the sector.

Children’s minister Vicky Ford confirmed the funding will be extended past March this year, following a question submitted by former children’s minister Tim Loughton.

Ford said: “Funding for the Adoption Support Fund will be continuing for the next financial year of 2021-22.”

However, calls have been made to reinstate emergency funding, offered to adoptive parents last year, during the current national lockdown.

Adoption UK, the country’s leading charity for adoptive families, said that the announcement “means thousands of adoptive families will continue to be offered a range of therapeutic support aimed at helping their children overcome past trauma”.

Since its introduction in 2015, the government has invested more than £200m in the ASF, including £45m in the current financial year. Sixty-one thousand families have benefitted from the fund.

Dr Sue Armstrong Brown, chief executive of Adoption UK, said: “This is another 12 months oxygen for adoptive and kinship families who need help to live with the impacts of early childhood trauma. We are delighted that the government has listened to families and saved the fund for another year.”

But Adoption UK warned that long-term support for adoptive families is crucial. 

Three-quarters of adoptive children have faced serious neglect or abuse in their early years, which can have a lasting impact on their health, development and relationships, the charity said.

One adoptive parent, Kathryn, told Adoption UK: “We deal with extreme violence in the home on a regular basis because of my child’s trauma, but the ASF gave us the capacity to keep going. We don’t know where we’d be without it.”

Nine in 10 adoptive families said that the fund is helpful, and a third said that it had helped them avoid family breakdown.

As a result of the pandemic, the government launched an additional emergency fund for adoptive families. It received over 450 applications, and £6.5m was approved to support adopters. However, the emergency fund ended in December.

Research by Adoption UK found that a third of adoptive parents have experienced an increase in violence and aggression since the beginning of the pandemic.

Armstrong Brown said: “In these challenging and uncertain times, vulnerable families need help more than ever.”

The charity has called for the emergency fund to be reinstated until March 2021, in addition to a 10-year commitment to the ASF.

Armstrong Brown said: “The Adoption Support Fund has been life-changing. The end of the ASF is unthinkable – families need certainty about the future of this vital source of support, and it’s essential that the Government commit to stabilising the ASF over the long-term.”