A growing national training programme is helping adoption professionals better support children from global majority backgrounds into stable, loving homes, with nine cohorts of staff now completing the course.

The Just Heart, Just Hope, Just Home initiative, delivered by The Staff College and commissioned by Adoption England, focuses on equipping regional adoption agency (RAA) staff with the skills and cultural understanding needed to address racial disparities in adoption outcomes.

The programme has so far targeted agencies with the highest proportions of global majority children in their care, reflecting long-standing concerns that these children can face greater barriers to finding permanent families. The training aims to grow local racially just leaders who can confidently champion children’s needs and improve systems from within. 

The RAA's that have gone through the programme are: Adopt East Midlands, One Adoption West Yorkshire, Adoption Now, Adopt Birmingham, Coram Ambitious for Adoption, Adopt London North, Adopt Central England, Adoption at Heart and Adopt East.

Participants receive structured learning designed to share effective practice, challenge and remove blocks and barriers, strengthen leadership, and embed more equitable approaches to family finding and support. The focus is not only on adoption processes, but also on ensuring children experience stability, identity affirmation and long-term belonging.

Participants describe the training as deeply reflective and impactful, with many highlighting the power of lived experience in shaping their learning. One attendee said: “So powerful and an important reminder of why we have to think so carefully about a child’s racial and cultural history.” Another pointed to the value of time and space for “deep conversations with colleagues” and “discussing other people’s experiences and the realities.” 

Another participant expressed how they will embed their learning by “enabling time to think individually and collectively about how to take our motivation, commitment and learning forward to achieve timely permanence for global majority children - including the recruitment and support of global majority adopters”, and another added “the importance of understanding each and every child’s race, culture, heritage and the importances of this to children from global majority backgrounds during and throughout assessment and throughout their life course.”

Sessions featuring lived experiences have had a particularly lasting effect. During the course, participants hear from Theresa Peltier, who was adopted in a trans-racial placement and generously shares some of her own lived experience, and her view on what should change in transracial adoption. “Hearing Theresa’s story… has stayed with me and started some very important discussions with my team,” one participant noted, while another described it as “so powerful and an important reminder of why we have to think so carefully about a child’s racial and cultural history.” Others said such personal testimonies reinforced the importance of ensuring adopters can support a child’s identity over time, with one adding: “Her sharing of her lived experience will stay with me and influence my thinking and practice.”

Organisers say the completion of nine cohorts marks a significant milestone, demonstrating both demand for the training and recognition across the sector of the need for change. The programme is now open to additional regional adoption agencies, as well as wider local authority staff working with children and families.

Rose Durban, Associate at The Staff College said: “We originally piloted the training with Adopt East Midlands, and after the success of that initial cohort, Adoption England commissioned a further eight sessions for the relevant RAAs. We’ve adapted the training for each different locality using their specific data, but the basic shape of the course has remained the same, and the power, understanding and reflection within the room at each locality has been incredible to witness. Teams have been open to learning with and from each other, insightful and reflective, with children at the heart of their practice. The collegiality that emerges is inspiring; the team connect with a shared determination to do better for global majority children. Staff are feeling more confident to challenge the system and to ensure that culture and race are taken seriously in order to ensure suitable, permanent, loving homes for all children. 

She continued: “Awareness of these issues has landed not only with RAA staff but with us here at The Staff College, and with associated staff within local authorities. The more of the system that is involved in these conversations, the better, as racial inequalities don’t just affect adoption. Staff on these training sessions are leaving with a deeper understanding of the needs of the global majority community, and understanding how each and every one of the attendees in the room can be a leader in making positive change. We were very lucky to have been joined by people who kindly and generously shared their own lived-experience and these conversations have had a lasting effect on everyone involved. We’re excited to see how the participating RAAs are able to embed the learning, and look forward to hearing from other RAAs or local authority children’s services staff who want to make a difference.”

The course also provides space for collective reflection and organisational change. Participants said it was “useful to take time as a larger team to consider how to move forward,” and praised the programme for creating “a safe space to share” that was “affirming, interactive and interesting.” Several highlighted increased confidence in challenging practice, with one stating they now feel “more alert to issues within practice and more confident to raise [them] in discussion.”

The expansion reflects a broader shift in children’s services toward a preventative approach to tackling systemic inequalities and improving outcomes for those who have historically waited longest for permanent homes.

With further cohorts planned, leaders hope the initiative will continue to build a network of practitioners committed to ensuring that every child—regardless of background—has the opportunity to grow up in a safe, stable and supportive family, by tackling racial disparities. 

As the accompanying publication puts it: ‘Everything starts with Heart, Hope and a Home’: Read more here https://thestaffcollege.uk/resources/just-home-leading-in-colour/ - ‘A forever family and a forever home – the place where you know you are visible, valued, and loved just as you are. The place where you matter, the place where you belong.’