Led by Adoption England, regional adoption agencies have built policies that allow access to vital, life changing and life saving therapeutic resources only when families are in the depths of crisis and on the verge of saying they can no longer carry on. Indeed they are so open about this policy that some have sent emails outlining this approach. See attached screenshots of an email sent out by Adopt South West in December 2025.
We also know that the criteria for the previously available match funding within the ASGSF, set by government, included the need to be at high risk of what they term ‘adoption breakdown’ or ‘placement breakdown’.
It is important to take a moment to consider what this means in reality. Families who are approaching the point where it is no longer safe for them to remain together are already experiencing lasting harm. Support needs to be provided long before a family reaches this stage. Allowing difficulties to progress to this point materially increases the likelihood that a family cannot carry on, and the longer they are kept in crisis, the greater the harm that is done. It is unethical and immoral to withhold intervention until the moment when maximum harm has already occurred, and to act only when children are at risk of becoming an expense to the state.
We know government rhetoric for adoptive and kinship families still promotes permanence as a fairytale ending, not the next step in an incredible difficult journey for children that have all experienced loss and attachment disruptions and so often experienced additional complex trauma, abuse and exposure to harmful substances.
The culture and understanding of our children must change. It seems almost impossible to change policy without government and Adoption England acknowledging the needs of the children they are creating policy for.
Government must also acknowledge neuro-science, the impact of developmental trauma on brain architecture, the impact of substance misuse on brain development. The impact of complex trauma, abuse, neglect and more.
Government must also listen to the experts, to the sector and to children and families and look at evidence based solutions. Specialist therapy, carried out by experts is effective. Access to it needs to be expanded, not restricted. Access to it needs to be based on need and not an arbitrary monetary figure based on budgets not evidence. The child’s healing and wellbeing needs to be at the centre of the systems designed. Only then will we see improved outcomes and cost savings.
This email from Adopt South West is the end result of a multitude of failings across government and Adoption England led systems.
Let’s examine it:
They state: If therapeutic provision over and above the new ASGSF fair access limit of £3,000 is required you must first prove that the adoption is at high risk of breakdown. This will involve a lengthy assessment.
This is the position put out by RAAs across the country but we must ask why?
Until April 2025 all children had the potential to access 60% more than £3,000 without having to be at risk of ‘placement breakdown’. We know the cuts to the ASGSF were made without warning, consultation or evidence base yet it is the children and families that must now pay the highest price. Effective therapeutic support has been removed from thousands of children and families with absolutely nothing set up to take its place. It is dangerous, irresponsible and it is causing harm now that will compound over time. It has worsened an already established crisis across adoption and kinship.
There are so many elements in this email that put emphasis on anything but the needs of the children and how to best meet them. Talk of stepping down plans before appropriate levels of support have even begun, talk of safeguarding processes rather than meaningful help, looking to parenting groups and family support networks to heal complex trauma they are absolutely not designed for. We could go on and on.
Tell us what you think of the contents of this email in by getting in touch: [email protected]
That is a request to therapeutic providers as well as parents and carers.
Tell Adoption England what you think about this. Tell Bridget Phillipson and Rachel Reeves. Tell the junior minister for children and families, Josh MacAllister. Labour speak about offering every child the best start in life, the best chances in life. They categorically do not offer those chances to adopted and kinship children, they discriminate against them.
We will keep fighting for our children to be seen, for their needs to be met holistically, for them to have access to the right level of specialist therapeutic support at the right time.
The ASGSF may not have been perfect but it was shown to be one area of support that really worked for so many. Brutally cutting that support with nothing else in place is wrong. Preparing other systems to take its place will take many, many years. The government simply must reverse the cuts to the ASGSF and stop harming some of the most vulnerable children society. Lives depend on them seeing sense.