Adoption Partnership South East has reduced the time that adopted children and families wait for specialist support when they reach out to the adoption advice and support line, to just five days.

Through funding from Adoption England and the Department for Education (DfE), and subsequently from the Adoption Support and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) Pilot programme, the team at Adoption Partnership South East has been able to increase capacity for adoption support through streamlined services, reduce waiting times for families and provide training for social workers to improve outcomes for adoptive families.

Rachel Dobson, Service Manager at Adoption Partnership South East said: “Through initial funding from the DfE we were able to recruit additional therapists into our team to ensure we have the capacity to provide timely adoption support across the region. We also started working with partner agencies across the area to raise awareness of the needs of adopted children. We’ve often found that adopted children can be misunderstood and appear ‘invisible’ within communities. Because they are loved and cared for by their adoptive families, their needs are not always highlighted and understood beyond the adoption networks. 

She continued: “The results of that initial phase of work have been fantastic and we’ve built long lasting relationships with our health and education colleagues and put adopted children and families on their radar. In fact, the local Integrated Care Board (ICB) has added adopted children into the vulnerable category within their commissioning contracts, and Kent County Council has done the same within the Education Strategy to ensure adopted people remain an area of focus.”

Adoption Partnership South East also hosted a conference for stakeholders, bringing together key individuals from health, education and youth services to share adoption related content with professionals, and is currently working with the local CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) team to define roles around adopted young people’s care.

Through funding from the ASGSF Pilot programme, Adoption Partnership South East has been able to progress work even further and, by streamlining their systems, has been able to ensure every person who contacts their advice and support line receives an hour-long consultation with an experienced and therapeutic Adoption Support Social Worker, within just five days. The social workers who take these calls are trained to Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP) Level 2. 

This means that the social workers can offer parents a therapeutic response from their initial conversation, providing specialist advice and emotional support around topics such as challenges with emotional regulation and connections, sibling dynamics, challenges in school, child-to-parent violence and poor mental health. Staff are encouraged to take the time listen to the family, connect with them and their story and have a detailed discussion to assess if the family would benefit from a short intervention with the in-house team or be referred for a full assessment of need. Current feedback consistently highlights the emotional impact, professionalism, and practical support offered.

One family commented on the advice and support line: “[the advisor] was great at listening and offering advice. I found it very therapeutic being able to talk about my concerns with someone understanding and that was taking my concerns seriously.” Another parent said: “The call with [advisor] was informative. She was helpful and understanding.  I feel like we have a clear plan of action moving forwards.”

To strengthen the calls, staff delivering them are supported by clinical consultations from DDP consultants and the team have also established multi-disciplinary discussion panels, which give staff the opportunity to discuss complex cases in more detail and gain insights from professionals working in other disciplines to take a more holistic view. These have proved incredibly powerful, having a positive impact on the whole service and reducing the demand for assessments of need. 

One practitioner said: “Hearing people’s reflections gave time to consider a way forward in a complex situation with lots of threads.” Another commented: “Seeing the situation through a different lens which has given a new understanding and empathy…”

Another practitioner shared this feedback about the panel discussions: “My thoughts are more clarified in their form and it was useful to hear what the therapists were discussing... It was very helpful having different people’s perspective from their particular expertise. I enjoyed the session and would seek to do another when felt needed.”

Rachel Dobson continued: “We’ve upskilled our social workers with the aim of providing families with earlier support and to ultimately reduce the need for more extensive support when they might be closer to reaching breaking point. We’re giving them the support they need, when they need it and this in turn is freeing up our resources to work with families who are perhaps further into their adoption journey and need more in-depth support. Feedback from staff and families about this work has been positive thanks to the blended, multidisciplinary approach that isn’t solely reliant on direct therapy.”

Amy Coombs, Head of Adoption Partnership South East, said: “I’m so proud of this service. We’ve been through a real culture shift and moved to a DDP informed service, with a heavy emphasis on connection with families. Our aim is to make sure families feel as supported as possible, so we have regular catch-up calls and they each have an allocated social worker, even if some of our therapists are working with them, we make sure they have a consistent connection with the team. We don’t want to wait until families reach a crisis point, so we’re improving our approach to early intervention and prevention to give families what they need sooner, and feedback so far is really positive showing that we’re building trust with the service, which is incredibly important for long-term engagement.”

Sarah Johal, National Adoption Strategic Lead, Adoption England said: “The team within Adoption Partnership South East have achieved some great things over the past few years, setting a real standard for multidisciplinary work and building relationships with their local stakeholders to ensure adopted children and young people are heard and understood. Their work to improve access to support for adoptive families is also a good example of what can be achieved, and means more families are getting the right support as and when they need it. To have reduced their waiting time to five days is positive and we’re looking forward to supporting the team in seeing what they can achieve next.”

To find out more about Adoption Partnership South East click here.