Download the letter template in Word format here.
Dear [Title] [Surname]
I am writing to you as a constituent about a matter affecting some of the most vulnerable children in the country.
On 10 February, the Minister for Children and Families, Josh MacAlister MP, made a written statement to Parliament setting out plans for the future of the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund. He also announced a consultation titled Adoption Support that Works for All.
Action Against ASGSF Changes has published a detailed response to the statement here:
https://asgsfprotest.com/the-future-of-the-asgsf/
And a briefing for MPs here:
https://asgsfprotest.com/parliamentary-briefing-march-2026/
The announcement, proposals and consultation raise multiple concerns:
- The Fair Access Limit remains at £3,000. Survey evidence from Action Against ASGSF Changes found that 98% of families report this is insufficient to meet their child’s needs, and only 10 of the 777 children represented had their needs fully met at this level.
- The proposals understate the scale and clinical complexity of need among adopted and kinship children, contrary to the Department for Education’s own commissioned research.
- Proposed reforms risk reducing access to specialist trauma-informed therapeutic support.
- The design of the consultation surveys is not fit for purpose. The children and young people’s survey places significant cognitive demands on a cohort disproportionately affected by ADHD, FASD, autism and developmental trauma, and will systematically exclude many of the young people whose lives will be most affected by the outcome. The adults’ survey lacks the trauma-informed scaffolding needed for families to safely disclose the full complexity of their experiences.
- There is insufficient transparency about how consultation responses will be analysed or influence final decisions, and no independent oversight of the process.
Survey evidence from Action Against ASGSF Changes, drawn from 469 families representing 777 children, shows the April 2025 cuts are already causing serious harm. 98% of families report the £3,000 limit does not meet their child’s needs. 81% report a negative or very negative impact on their child’s mental health. Families describe children in suicidal crisis left without support, families being unable to stay together, and school exclusions directly linked to breaks in therapy.
The cuts are also placing severe financial pressure on specialist therapy providers. Some have already ceased trading or been forced to downscale. Others are withdrawing from ASGSF-funded work altogether, risking the permanent loss of skills and expertise built over more than a decade.
The consultation document repeatedly asserts that most children’s needs can be met by non-clinical services and suggests their needs have been ‘medicalised’. The Department’s own commissioned research does not support this. The Family Routes report (DfE, January 2026) describes the ASGSF as ‘an essential route’ to mental health support. Beyond the Adoption Order (Selwyn, Wijedasa and Meakings, 2014), also commissioned by the Department for Education, found that without access to specialist therapeutic support, adoption disruption rates are significantly higher, and identified adolescence as a period of particular crisis requiring specialist, multidisciplinary intervention rather than parenting support alone. That finding has not changed. The POTATO Group’s Far, Far Beyond the Adoption Order (2025) found that 85% of children represented were living with developmental trauma and 63% had diagnoses of Complex PTSD. The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Adoption and Permanence Adoptee Voices Inquiry Report (2026) found that 92% of respondents believed adoptees need specialist help to understand their past, and 51% said they wanted mental health support but could not find help that worked. The Adoption UK Barometer 2025 found that 42% of families describe themselves as facing severe challenges or crisis, with only 22% reporting they are mostly doing well.
The government is also proposing to expand Adoption England pilot schemes and move from a nationally administered fund to locally determined offers. Those pilots are still running and cannot yet have generated the evidence base needed to justify their expansion into a national model by 2028. There is no clarity on whether future funding will be ring-fenced, raising serious concerns about postcode variation.
I would be grateful if you would press the Minister for Children and Families and the Treasury to reverse the April 2025 cuts to the Fair Access Limit, matched funding and assessment funding. I would also ask you to call on the Government to pause the consultation until both surveys have been independently reviewed and rewritten to ensure they are trauma-informed and accessible to all those affected, and until there is full transparency about how responses will be analysed and what weight they will carry in final decisions.
Kind regards,
[Your Name]
References:
Action Against ASGSF Changes Parent & Carer Survey, July 2025.
https://asgsfprotest.com/pcsurveyapril2025/
Adoptee Voices Inquiry Report, All-Party Parliamentary Group for Adoption and Permanence, January 2026.
https://appgap.info/s/APPGAP-Adoptee-Voices-inquiry-report.pdf
The Adoption Barometer 2025 – England. Adoption UK.
https://www.adoptionuk.org/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=db584175-3b79-4b54-bcb4-9a0da9bd161d
Beyond the Adoption Order: Challenges, Interventions and Adoption Disruption. Selwyn, J., Wijedasa, D. and Meakings, S. Department for Education, 2014. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/301889/Final_Report_-_3rd_April_2014v2.pdf
Family Routes: exploring the needs and experiences of young people, Published by the Department for Education, January 2026 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/697799b7f909df76c5e71f5a/Family_routes_exploring_needs_experiences_and_outcomes_among_young_people_adoption_special_guardianship.pdf
Far, Far Beyond the Adoption Order: Lessons from Lives Impacted by Trauma. The POTATO Group, June 2025.
https://www.thepotatogroup.org.uk/research