Matching in adoption is a critical process to secure legal, residential, and relational permanence for children. In recent decades, matching has shifted towards a needs-based approach, emphasising the child’s specific requirements and the adoptive parents’ capacity to meet them, with necessary support. 

Adoption England launched the Matching Grants Programme in 2022. As part of the programme, regional adoption agencies (RAAs) and their partnerships were able to apply for funding to implement projects that aimed to improve matching systems, processes, and practice at local, regional, or national level.

Eleven projects received funding to implement a wide variety of activities to improve matching systems and practice between September 2022 and May 2025. 

Adoption England commissioned an evaluation partnership from the University of 
East Anglia and the Institute of Public Care, Oxford Brookes University, to explore how matching grants were implemented and early evidence of impact. 

The projects funded by the Matching Grants Programme were diverse in scope and size, and addressed the whole spectrum of family-finding and matching activities.

The report finds that the Matching Grants Programme generated valuable learning around specific innovations and promising practice improvements. Based on this, the report puts forward several recommendations.