Agenda item

The Cabinet Member for Children and Young People’s Services and the Assistant Director – Children’s Social Care attended meeting to provide a report on the impact of the One Adoption South Yorkshire regional adoption agency since its launch on 1 January 2021.

In introducing the report, the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People’s Services noted that the launch of the new regional adoption agency involved a significant amount of planning and development as it had been essential that the new agency continued to deliver the high levels of service for children and adoptive families that had been provided by the Rotherham adoption agency.

The Assistant Director – Children’s Social Care advised that One Adoption South Yorkshire was a ‘partnership’ model Regional Adoption Agency where the majority staff, apart from a small hub of administrative and strategic staff, remained employed by their original local authority. It was noted that this approach both enabled staff to retain their terms and conditions, and for each local authority involved to gain the benefits and efficiencies of pooled resources in order to maximize outcomes for children and adopters. The Assistant Director advised that the Regional Adoption Agency approach was now widespread across the country.

The Assistant Director noted that a set of targets and performance indicators to measure the performance of the new regional agency over its first year of operation had been agreed. The Assistant Director advised further that as the new agency had only been in operation for eight months, and as a full year of data wasn’t available, early analysis of available data had shown that the new agency was on track to meet its performance targets across all of its key performance targets.

It was noted that targets had been set around the following objectives.

·       the recruitment of adopters.

·       the number of children placed for adoption.

·       the reduction of the number of interagency placements.

·       the delivery of post-adoption support.

The Assistant Director advised that despite the challenges created by the pandemic, that the key area of activity surrounding the recruitment of adopters had continued throughout the period with indicators showing that the new agency was on track to meet its target of recruiting 92 new adoptive families during the year. The Assistant Director advised that with regard to interagency placements that the trends were looking positive with fewer interagency placements for children from Rotherham than in the comparable period during 2020. The Assistant Director noted that while it was important to reduce the number of costly interagency placements and to keep as many children as possible in the local area, interagency placements would always be needed in order to ensure that each child was placed with the most suitable family for their needs.

The Assistant Director provided information around the provision of, and development of effective post-adoption support, noting that it was essential that potential adopters knew that support was available to them whenever they may require it in the future. The Assistant Director advised that the completion of the legal adoption process was never the end of the adoption process, and as each child would always retain a connection with their birth family it was essential that tailored and effective post-adoption support was in always place  in order to ensure that each child’s and family’s needs were effectively met.

The Assistant Director detailed the key areas of focus for the new agency moving forwards including the recruitment of a diverse range of adoptive families and the further development of post-adoption support for children, adoptive families and birth families.

Members asked for further information on the activity that was being carried out to recruit a more diverse and representative range of adoptive families. The Assistant Director advised that this activity was a work in progress but noted that activity included having literature available in a range of languages, promotion via social media, radio and bus advertising, as well as utilising the knowledge and connections of agency staff. The Cabinet Member advised that elected members could help with the recruitment of adopters by sharing social media posts with their followers in their local communities.

Members asked how the type of support provided post-adoption compared to the support provided to foster carers. The Assistant Director stated that once the legal adoption process had been completed there would no longer be a social worker involved with the family as the adopter had taken on all legal responsibility for a child, and as such had the same rights and responsibilities as any parent and their birth child. The Assistant Director advised that all adopters were able to access post-adoption support, including access to therapeutic support at any time up until child was aged 18. The Assistant Director noted that post-adoption support was provided for the first three years after adoption by the local authority who had managed the original adoption process, and after three years support was provided by the local authority where the child lived. It was noted that adoptive parents, like all parents could access support via Early Help or Social Care if required.

Members noted that the report had stated that post-adoption support in Rotherham had a smaller resource due to a different approach to delivery than in other local authority areas and asked for further information on how this approach differed. The Assistant Director advised that in Rotherham post-adoption support had been managed by purchasing bespoke services from providers for each child and family, whereas the approach taken in other areas had been to employ staff directly to provide the post-adoption support.

Members noted that the new model of delivery for One Adoption South Yorkshire appeared to be complex and sought assurance that the new regional adoption agency was working effectively. The Assistant Director advised that while the operation of the new agency could appear complex, assured members that in reality it was much simpler than it appeared and was performing and functioning well. The Assistant Director advised that the new regional agency created greater resilience across the service, enabled the sharing of best practice over a wider area and created more opportunities to recruit potential adopters.

Members sought further information regarding how the performance targets for One Adoption South Yorkshire had been arrived at an agreed. The Assistant Director advised that the agreed performance targets had been established by looking at the past performance of the four agencies that made up One Adoption South Yorkshire and by predicting what improvements in performance could be expected by the creation of the new agency. The Assistant Director advised that these targets would be amended for future years to in order to reflect the actual performance of the regional agency. The Assistant Director also noted that it had been difficult to set targets due to the impact of the pandemic. For example, that while the recruitment of adopters had continued throughout the pandemic, the processes involved had a taken longer to complete than would have normally been expected.

The Chair asked if there were particular groups in society where it was more challenging to recruit potential adopters from. The Assistant Director noted that there was a national shortage of adoptive families from BAME backgrounds and that this was also a problem across South Yorkshire. The Assistant Director advised that the recruitment of all types of adopters was constantly challenging and that it was essential that there was a clear message that all types of families and individuals could adopt and could come forward as potential adopters.

Members asked that as One Adoption South Yorkshire was a shared service across Rotherham, Sheffield, Doncaster and Barnsley, whether there would be any joint scrutiny of the service. The Cabinet Member advised that she would discuss how procedures around the monitoring of work of the new agency was monitored could be facilitated most effectively with her counterparts in the other authorities

The Chair thanked the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People’s Services, the Assistant Director – Children’s Social Care for attending the meeting and answering member questions.

Resolved: -

1)    That the report be noted.

2)    That a report on the performance of the One Adoption South Yorkshire regional adoption agency be brought to the September 2022 meeting of the Improving Lives Select Commission.

3)    That consideration be given to how all elected members can be involved in promoting the work of One Adoption South Yorkshire in their wards and in encouraging potential adoptive parents to come forward.