Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she had made of the potential barriers to opportunity for adopted (a) children and (b) young people; and what steps her Department has taken to help tackle these in the last year.

The department recognises that many adopted children have experienced trauma and neglect. As part of the government’s Plan for Change, we are working to remove barriers to opportunity for all children, including those who are adopted.

To support adopted children in school, we are prioritising their access to school admissions, providing Pupil Premium Plus funding, and ensuring support from designated teachers and virtual school heads.

This year, we have allocated £50 million to the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund to provide essential therapeutic services for eligible children. Additionally, we have invested £8.8 million in Adoption England to improve adoption practices. This includes expanding multi-disciplinary teams to offer specialist support, introducing a new early support framework called ‘Becoming a family’ for the first 12 to 18 months of placement, and implementing an Adoption Support Plan to assess and guide families’ support needs.