Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to reduce delays in families accessing therapeutic support through the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund.

Funding for Children’s Social Care, which includes the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF), is being considered as part of the current spending review.

The department has been making a range of changes to improve the timeliness of the ASGSF application process. For example, we will be streamlining the online application process to reduce administration for local authorities and regional adoption agencies (RAAs), and have already changed systems to ensure that application outcomes are delivered more swiftly. We have also introduced a direct communication link with therapy providers to give early updates on any changes and advice on submitting applications.

These changes should help to reduce delays within local authorities and RAAs before applications are received. The additional support to providers, with better sharing of information about the ASGSF, should also help families to receive support more quickly.

One of the main aims of the ASGSF is to support families whose adoption or special guardianship order is at risk of breakdown, with children being at risk of being returned to care, without the specialist therapy linked to trauma and attachment we fund. For this reason, all funding for the ASGSF can be considered crisis funding, and efforts are made to get that support to those in need as soon as possible. The adequacy of the therapies available within the ASGSF is currently being assessed from multiple angles. The National Institute for Health Research is currently conducting a randomised control trial into Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP). This research is currently in the third and final phase and will give robust evidence into the effectiveness of DDP. Moreover, the collection of data from Outcomes Measurement Tools for ASGSF-funded therapies began in December 2023. This data will give an overall picture of the impact and adequacy of ASGSF-funded therapies.