An evaluation published today of the first year of a new programme which provides intensive, bespoke matching for priority children finds that the programme has potential to speed up family finding for priority children and could find families for children who may otherwise not have been placed with an adoptive family.
Developed by Coram’s Adoption Activity Days team and funded by Adoption England, the Step Up programme aims to reduce delays for children with priority characteristics (also known as “harder to place”) who often wait longer to be adopted such as: children from minoritised ethnicity backgrounds; children in sibling groups; children over five years old; and children with complex needs. Children with these characteristics often have a shorter period of time allocated for family finding and are more likely to have their plans move away from adoption if they do not find a successful match after 12 months.
Step Up offers a package of bespoke and intensive family finding services designed to be flexible and tailored to the needs of the child or sibling group over a six-month period. The offer includes a range of activities such as: funding for children to attend Adoption Activity Days*; high quality and dynamic profiling using professional videos and photos of the child or sibling group; and therapeutic support separate to that which might be provided under the Adoption Support Fund.
Over the course of its first year, the Step Up programme received referrals from twenty-four children with priority characteristics who were at very different stages in their family finding journey. Eleven of the 24 children had received the full six months of support by the time of the evaluation, while the remaining 13 were referred to the programme towards the end of the first year and so had not received the full six months of support.
The evaluation, carried out by the Coram Institute for Children, finds that nine of the 11 children who had received the full six months of support had progressed to adoption panel with a potential adoptive family. Family finders interviewed reported that referring children to Step Up offered a “considerable gain” and that families were found for children who may not otherwise have been placed. One family finder said:
“Once you’ve had it (Step Up) for one or two priority children, it’s so good you want it for all your children that are priority […] it’s just such a good service for them and you know how much they’ll benefit from it”.
The evaluation finds that Step Up increased the number of options for children as they were linked with a wider network of professionals and prospective adopters. Referral to the programme improved children’s access to Adoption Activity Days and Exchange Days**, and positive outcomes were achieved for children attending, such as expressions of interest from potential adopters.
Practitioners reported that the extra time and resources provided by the programme enabled experienced Step Up practitioners to work with children’s family finders to assess potential adoptive families more quickly and with greater confidence. Step Up practitioners also provided additional support to potential adoptive families, helping them to make informed decisions about progressing to adopt a child.
The evaluation makes the following recommendations for the next two years of the Step Up programme:
- Explore Step Up as a targeted offer to increase opportunities for children with a combination of priority characteristics, complex cases, experience of placement disruption or a lack of expressions of interest.
- Consider the feasibility of increasing Step Up support from six months to 12, in line with the needs of the child.
- Increase referrals specifically from children of Black African or Black Caribbean backgrounds in the next cohort.
- Record outcomes of children who were not placed, or who were placed after the programme of support ended, to complete data.
Max Stanford, head of Impact and Evaluation at Coram, said: “While these are interim findings from the first year of Step Up delivery, they are very encouraging. The final evaluation report in two years will hopefully be able to provide more evidence on the impact of the programme for priority children and professionals.”
Sally Beaumont, head of Coram’s Adoption Activity Days team, said: “The value of the intensive nature of family finding for children’s outcomes has been really encouraging and led to fewer changes of care plans for children. We know that finding permanency via adoption can be more challenging for children who have priority characteristics. Having an additional family finder for these children and working collaboratively with family finders in our partner agencies has been a really positive experience. Our specialist family finders have a holistic overview of all the family finding options available and the specific funding for these children to be profiled regionally and nationally has been really beneficial.”