To:
The Chief Executive
County Councils
Metropolitan District Councils
Shire Unitary Councils
London Borough Councils
Common Council of the City of London
Council of the Isles of Scilly
England
The Director of Social Services
Chief Executives of Voluntary Adoption Agencies
21 December 2001
ADOPTION SUMMARY
1. Today the Minister of State for Health, Jacqui Smith announced a new
target focusing on the timescales for adoption which will form part of
the Department of Health's Public Service Agreement (PSA) target on
adoption.
2. This new target is supported by and complements recent announcements
including:
The timetable
for the full implementation of the National Adoption Standards for
England
The launch of a
new adopter recruitment toolkit to assist councils at a local level.
The launch of a
consultation on the proposal to include a category for entry into care
after an adoption on the SSDA903 return.
PSA TARGET
3. The White Paper Adoption: A New Approach contained details of the
targets for adoption to be incorporated into the Department of Health's
PSA. It also promised that the Government would set a specific target to
ensure that the adoption process takes place to timescales consistent
with the National Adoption Standards.
4. The Minister today announced that the target on timescales will be:
By 31 March 2005, at least 95% of looked after children should be placed
for adoption within 12 months of the decision that adoption is in the
child's best interest, up from 81% in 2001.
5. This means that the final wording of the overall PSA target will be:
"Maximising the contribution adoption can make to providing permanent
families for children without compromising on quality, so maintaining
current levels of adoptive placement stability. Specifically, by
bringing councils' practice up to the level of the best, by 2004-05:
- to increase by 40% the number of looked after children who are
adopted, and aim to exceed this by achieving, if possible, a 50%
increase, up from 2700 in 1999-00;
to increase to
95% the proportion of looked after children placed for adoption within
12 months of the decision that adoption is in the child's best
interests, up from 81% in 2000-01."
6. This is a national target which will be monitored through the new
annual adoption (AD1) statistical collection. It should be read in
conjunction with the National Adoption Standards which include an
expectation that the usual timescale between the best interest decision
and a suitable match being identified and agreed should be six months,
except when this would not be in the best interests of the individual
child.
7. The Government is determined that this new strand of the target does
not result in children being rushed through the adoption process or
placed in unsuitable adoptive families. For this reason the Department
of Health will be ensuring that current levels of placement stability
are maintained by monitoring stability levels through existing data on
the proportion of placements for adoption ending in adoption.
8. Over the next year the Department of Health will also be pursuing the
White Paper commitment to work with stakeholders to develop appropriate
ways to get regular information on the long term success and stability
of adoption. This information will be used to develop outcome-based
targets from 2004/05.
9. An aide memoire outlining the components of the Adoption PSA target
is attached.
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NATIONAL ADOPTION STANDARDS
10. The National Adoption Standards were published in August this year
and set out what children, prospective adopters, birth families and the
general public can expect from the adoption service. They are also
intended to ensure that everybody receives a fair and equal service
wherever they live. A commitment was made to confirm the timescale for
implementing the Standards in full alongside the new PSA target. The
Minister has stated that in so far as the Standards are not already a
requirement of primary legislation, or the regulations or otherwise set
out in guidance issued under Section 7 of the Local Authority Social
Services Act 1970 (statutory guidance), from 1 April 2003 they are, for
councils, to have the status of statutory guidance.
11. A council should follow guidance issued under Section 7 unless there
is a good reason for them not to do so, but any deviation from the
guidance should not be significant and must be capable of justification.
The National Adoption Standards were written for a broader audience than
is usually the case for statutory guidance, and their tone and language
reflects this. They should be read and implemented in the context of
existing primary legislation, regulations and guidance. To assist
adoption agencies in interpreting the Standards, we will place on the
adoption website
www.dfes.gov.uk/adoption/improvingpractice
a comparative analysis of
the Standards alongside the existing requirements of primary
legislation, regulations and statutory guidance. This will be updated as
necessary.
CONSULTATION ON USE OF SSDA 903 RETURN TO MONITOR DISRUPTION RATES POST
ADOPTION ORDER
12. The current data collection does not allow for the recording of
children returning to care as a result of the breakdown of an adoption.
It is important that this information is collected as a first step in
monitoring the long-term stability of adoptions and to supplement the
information we are using to monitor the stability of placements for
adoption as part of the PSA target.
13. The Department of Health has invited comments on its proposal to
include a new reason for the start of a care episode after an adoption
breakdown on the statistical collection for looked after children
(SSDA903) to provide national estimates of the number of children
adopted from care whose adoptions have broken down after the making of
an adoption order. A short consultation document is attached. Comments
should be submitted by 2 April 2002.
ADOPTER RECRUITMENT TOOLKIT
14. Working with a number of stakeholders, the Department of Health has
produced a Toolkit for local use in recruiting adopters. The purpose of
this Toolkit is to help adoption agencies take forward local media
activities for recruiting new prospective adopters. To meet the PSA
target and implement the National Adoption Standards it will be
essential to attract more people into considering becoming adoptive
parents. The Toolkit has been designed for use by those with limited
experience of managing PR campaigns, however, it is hoped that those
agencies with dedicated PR managers will also find the guide and the
artwork resource helpful.
15. The PR Resource section of the Toolkit is designed to help agencies
make the most of opportunities to obtain positive coverage of adoption
in the local media by offering practical advice, tips and guidance,
including how to write a press release or respond to enquiries from the
media. Using the toolkit will help ensure agency staff are equipped to
deal with the media in a positive and confident way. This section also
encloses copies of a generic information leaflet and fact sheet for
issue to prospective adopters, as well as a generic A3 poster.
16. The Artwork Resource section of the Toolkit offers clear guidance on
the use of artwork within the campaign, including advice on poster and
advertisement layout and design. It also includes a CD-ROM holding a
selection of artwork and poster layouts for agencies to choose from.
17. Additional copies of the toolkit can be ordered free of charge using
the special order form which you can download from the adoption website
-
http://www.dfes.dfes.uk/adoption/improvingpractice/adopterrecruitartwork.shtml
The PR Resource
section of the Toolkit is also available on the Department of Health's
adoption website at www.dfes.gov.uk/adoption/improvingpractice, but we
are unable to provide on line access to the Artwork Resource section of
the Toolkit.
18. An information video for agencies to use when preparing prospective
adopters is also being developed by the Department of Health, and this
will be made available to agencies in 2002. The video will give simple
and clear messages about how the adoption process works, and what
prospective adopters can expect from it, and will feature real adopters
and children. It will also give clear messages about the kinds of
children needing adoption.
CANCELLATION OF CIRCULARS
19. This Circular should be cancelled on 1 April 2005.
ENQUIRIES
Enquiries about this Circular should be made in writing to:
Adoption and Permanence Team (LAC(2001)33)
Email:
mbadoption.standards@dfes.gsi.gov.uk
Please quote
Adoption LAC(2001)33 in the subject box
Children Looked
After Team
Statistics Division 3A
Department of Health
Room 451C
Skipton House
80 London Road
London SE1 6LH
Fax: 020 7972 5660
Email:
mbadoption.standards@dfes.gsi.gov.uk
From: Adoption and Permanence Team
Further copies of this Circular may be obtained from Department of
Health, PO Box 777, London SE1 6XH, Tel. 08701 555 455 or Fax 01623 724
524. Please quote the code and serial number appearing on the top
right-hand corner.
Current circulars are now listed on the Department of Health web site on
the Internet at:
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/coinh.html Full text
of recent circulars is also accessible at this site.
Why not visit
the Department of Health's adoption website at
www.dfes.gov.uk/adoption
