Adoption: children's futures must not be 'put on hold', PM says

The Prime Minister will say that the Government will ‘tear down barriers’ that prevent prospective adoptive parents from giving a home to children who need one.

Currently the average time between a child moving into care and being adopted is one year and nine months, a process which is considered too long by policymakers and adoption charities.

It also takes twice as long for a black child to find a home than a white child.

Ahead of the Adoption Action Plan to be published next week, the key changes announced are:

• local authorities will be required by law to reduce delays for all adoption cases, with the case for matching the ethnicity of the child to that of prospective adopters coming second to the need to find suitable adoptive parents quickly;

• changes to the law will make it easier for children to be approved by prospective adopters while the courts consider the case for adoption, meaning that children will stay with the same foster parents who want to adopt them;

• if a match has not been found locally within three months, local authorities will refer them to the National Adoption Register so they can find a match from a wider pool of prospective adopters.

The Government will consult on changes to legislation later this year.

New regulations will also require local authorities to keep information about children up to date so that prospective adopters have the best understanding of a child’s needs when they are considering a match.

In a speech today Mr Cameron will say, ‘Every child deserves the love of a stable family - and that’s why I’ve made sorting out and speeding up adoption in this country a priority.

‘There’s no more urgent task for Government than this. Young lives are being wasted while the process takes its toll - and the victims are some of the most vulnerable young people in our society. You can’t put children’s futures on hold while the system gets round to dealing with their case.

‘So this Government is going to tear down the barriers that stop good, caring potential adoptive parents from giving a home to children who so desperately need one.’

Carol Homden, chief executive of children’s charity Coram, said, ‘We welcome the action being taken by the Government to tackle delay. Delay harms children and we must all act collectively on a national as well as local basis to ensure that every child gets the best possible chance of finding security, love and stability in an adoptive family as early as possible. Six months can be half a lifetime for a child.’

The charity, which has been finding adoptive families for children for more than 40 years, also welcomed changes that will make ‘concurrent planning’ easier.’

Concurrent planning places babies with foster carers who may become their adopters if the courts later decide adoption is the best long term option for them. This is so babies who cannot return to their birth parents can stay with the same family, avoiding unnecessary and often traumatic disruption moving from foster cares to adoptive parents.

Ms Homden added, ‘Being moved from a foster family, or between several foster families, before then moving again to adoptive parents is enormously bewildering and disruptive for a young child. Children deserve better and their timescales need to be at the heart of everything we do.’

Anne Longfield, chief executive of 4Children, said, ‘Anything that can make the adoption process faster and simpler will clearly benefit the record number of children going through the care system.  These are the most vulnerable children and we are letting every one of them down if we allow a rigid and slow process to stand in the way of their future happiness and potential.

‘Changing the culture around adoption and recognising the importance of quicker decisions is something clearly to be welcomed. Whilst race and culture are clearly important issues, we have to find a way to improve the current process. The move to have a national adoption register opens up new opportunities to get the right parents for the right child and represents a major step forward for children’s welfare.’