Shropshire’s adoption services to be discussed at Scrutiny
A recent report on Shropshire’s adoption service has been published and will be discussed at scrutiny committee today [Wednesday 16 July].
Since 1998, Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin Council have run a successful Joint Adoption service (JAS) and in April 2014 it was agreed to create a four-way local authority adoption agency across West Mercia at a Portfolio Holder meeting.
The report looks at the progress of the West Mercia Adoption Partnership since the meeting and details the current performance of the Joint Adoption Service and plans for the development of the service over the next twelve months.
The report also looks to develop key areas of the adoption partnership with the merge. A key point is the development of fostering to adopt policies, making it easier for children to find permanent placements. They will also look at the development of evidenced based matching process to make adoption much more realistic the first time around, which will ultimately help the children in care.
According to the January 2014 scoreboard report, the average time in Shropshire between a child entering a care and then subsequently being adopted is 417 days, this over 200 days sooner than the national average – contributing to Shropshire becoming second best performing adoption agency in England. This high success rate and performance in the national scoreboard that led Edward Timpson MP sending a formal congratulations to Shropshire Council.
Ann Hartley, Shropshire Council Cabinet member for children’s services, said:
“A huge benefit to the partnership is the pooling of staff skills and expertise across the region. Alongside this, we’re also looking to identify more children for whom adoption should be a permanent option despite potential obstacles to them, such as age. Process mapping has already begun, looking at both the child’s and the adopters’ journey through the system.
“One thing that the West Mercia Adoption Partnership aims to improve is the preparation programme for adopters. It will make the programmes regionally consistent which will increase choice of venues and dates.”
Cllr Joyce Barrow, who will chair the committee, said:
“It is important that Scrutiny looks at adoption and fostering services. We deal with children at a very vulnerable time in their lives and as such we need to ensure we have the best and efficient service with the best possible outcomes for adopting/fostering parents. At the moment we have a task and finish group looking in depth at our looked after children which I feel will put forward some recommendations that will make a real difference.”
The scrutiny committee will weigh the possible risks against the equally possible opportunities that this report is offering and offer amendments where they see fit.
