Assessment process for adopters to be reformed
Expert group to draw up new process to recruit, train and assess people as adoptive parents.
The assessment process for prospective adopters is to be overhauled, the 바카라 사이트 announced today. Children바카라 사이트™s Minister Tim Loughton has asked a group of experts to draw up a new process to recruit, train and assess people as adoptive parents.
The current system is slow and unnecessarily bureaucratic. Potentially suitable adopters are often turned away because they may not be the right ethnic match, may be overweight or may have smoked. Adoptive parents can wait up to a year or more to be approved, which leaves thousands of children in care waiting months, and even years, for a family.
The new expert panel is made up of representatives from across the adoption sector, including the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies, British Association of Adoption and Fostering, Adoption UK, and the Association of Directors of Children바카라 사이트™s Services. The group will work with Martin Narey, the 바카라 사이트바카라 사이트™s Adoption Adviser, and provide recommendations in March on a new, more efficient process to be introduced later in 2012.
The group has been asked to:
- Consider arrangements for an improved recruitment process for adopters and ensure those who do come forward are not lost to the system.
- Streamline the training and assessment process, building on existing good practice.
- Remove bureaucracy and over-prescription regarding the information to be collected about prospective adopters.
- Provide set timescales for training and assessing the suitability of adopters, along with a new national assessment form based on a concise but robust analysis of capacity to care for a child in need of adoption.
- Suggest what, if any, new monitoring and evaluation mechanisms would need to be put in place to measure the success of the new system.
Tim Loughton said:
The assessment process for people wanting to adopt is painfully slow, repetitive and ineffective. Dedicated social workers are spending too long filling out forms instead of making sound, common-sense judgements about someone바카라 사이트™s suitability to adopt. Children are waiting too long because we are losing many potentially suitable adoptive parents to a system which doesn바카라 사이트™t welcome them and often turns them away at the door.
I am determined to change this. I have this week set up a new expert group to look at radical reform of the assessment process. I want it to be quicker and more effective at approving adoptive parents and matching them with children. We cannot afford to sit back and lose potential adoptive parents when there are children who could benefit hugely from the loving home they can provide.
In October, to mark National Adoption Week, the Prime Minister said he was determined to reduce the time it takes for a child to be placed with an adoptive family. On average, a child waits two years and seven months to be adopted. The 바카라 사이트 is determined to reduce this significantly.
Martin Narey said:
The more I have visited local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies over the last few months, and on Ministers바카라 사이트™ behalf, the more exercised I have become about a parental assessment process which is not fit for purpose. It meanders along, it is failing to keep pace with the number of children cleared for adoption, and it drives many outstanding couples to adopt from abroad. I am simply delighted that the Children바카라 사이트™s Minister has decided to set it aside and start again.
This is a significant moment. We made the system work more quickly in the past and have increased adoptions, only for numbers to fall back again. But this will, I believe, ensure a permanent increase.
The Department has also published today updated performance tables on children in care and adoption. The tables, published for the first time in October, rank local authorities on 15 key indicators. Today바카라 사이트™s tables include the most recent data published in autumn this year.
The 바카라 사이트 is working on a wider programme of reform to overhaul the adoption and care system. More details will be set out in the New Year on the proposals for improving the system.
Related links
Download the Children in Care and Adoption Performance Tables to see how each local authority is performing against 15 key indicators.
Campaign website in partnership with the British Association of Adoption and Fostering and the Fostering Network
Notes to editors
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The new Adoption Assessment Working Group will start work in the new year. It is made up of members of the sector, local government and adoption experts. The group includes representatives from: * Association of Directors of Children바카라 사이트™s Services and individual local authorities * British Association of Adoption and Fostering * Coram Foundation * Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies * Adoption UK
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The updated are available on this website.
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