Report of the Strategic Director of Children and Education Services

This report outlines the progress in planning and placements for children, assessment, and approval of prospective adoptive parents, and in offering adoption support.

The Committee considered a report of the Strategic Director of Children and Education Services which outlined the progress in planning and placements for children, assessment, and approval of prospective adoptive parents, and in offering adoption support.

Key points and themes in the report included:

·       Performance (children);

·       Quality of children’s reports;

·       Marketing recruitment and assessment of adopters;

·       Practice developments;

·       Adoption Panel; and

·       Adoption support.

Alice Taylor from Adoption Counts delivered a presentation which outlined the highlights for Manchester from the Adoption Counts Annual Report.  This included children’s data, timescales, early permanence, report quality, adopter data, adoption support and achievements in 2023 beyond the service’s core work.

Some of the key points and themes that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

·       The quality of Child Permanence Reports (CPRs);

·       Reasons for delays in adoption and what was being done to expedite the adoption process; and

·       Staff retention and supervision.

The Deputy Strategic Director of Children’s Services informed Members that the CPR was the profile and story of the child which could assist with the matching of a child for adoption and, although the quality of some CPRs presented at the first stage (Should Be Placed For Adoption – or SHOBPA - meeting) needed to improve, this did not indicate that poor decisions were being made in relation to the placement of a child for adoption as there was a lengthy, robust process in place.  He reported that there had been delays in the adoption process in 2022 – 2023, partly as a legacy of the pandemic.  He outlined some of the other issues which could cause delays, including relatives coming forward late in the process for alternative care arrangements which then had to be explored, lengthy care proceedings and the complexities of individual children and planning for them.  He reported that the service was involved in the oversight and governance of the family court to influence improvements which could be made and in family group conferencing to identify family members at an earlier point in the process.

Alice Taylor reported that the Council and Adoption Counts held regular tracking meetings so Adoption Counts was made aware of any unexpected delays, for example if a family member had put themselves forward to be assessed, but that a lot of the background work would still be taking place so the agency was in a position to progress to matching with a family if it was then decided that adoption was the right path for that child.  She outlined work that would be taking place over the next year to streamline the adoption process within the agency to minimise delays, while ensuring the process was robust.

The Chair expressed concern about the delays in the process, including court backlogs.  She requested that the next time items on adoption and fostering were considered that adoptive parents and foster carers be invited to the meeting to speak about their experiences.  The Strategic Director (Children and Education Services) requested that consideration be given to this outside of the meeting to ensure that the families and children involved were not compromised.

In response to a question from the Chair about Greater Manchester local authorities which were not part of Adoption Counts, the Deputy Strategic Director of Children’s Services reported that all local authorities were linked with a regional adoption agency but some Greater Manchester authorities were aligned with a different agency.  He highlighted the role of the Workforce Development Strategy and assured Members that the appropriate supervision of and support for staff at the Council and Adoption Counts was of the highest priority.  In response to Members’ comments about retaining links with birth families after adoption, he highlighted the importance of lifelong letterbox contact and reported that work was taking place to improve the quality and meaningfulness of this contact.

A Member asked if Committee Members could visit the Council’s social work frontline service and this was supported by the Chair.

Decision

To arrange a visit to the Council’s social work frontline services.