Blog: Starting a dialogue around adoption support this Big Adoption Day

This year’s Big Adoption Day theme centres on adoption support, an extremely important subject and one which couldn’t be more timely. In 2025, the provision and adequacy of support for adopted children and families was thrust into the media spotlight when the government made changes to the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) in England, which CVAA has strongly opposed and campaigned against. Then in December, the BBC released its File on Four investigation Adoption: The Blame Game, which told the stories of families who were let down by the State and insufficiently supported. Meanwhile in Scotland a family won an out-of-court settlement and apology from a council for failing to support them when their adopted teenage son was in crisis.

It is important therefore that VAAs are able to have honest conversations about adoption support, but the issue is nuanced. On the one hand, CVAA and our member agencies have been dismayed by the ASGSF cuts in England. We have long campaigned for greater investment from governments in all four nations into adoption support for families, including earlier support, less bureaucracy, more timely access to specialist therapeutic support, and support around maintaining children’s lifelong relationships with birth families.

On the other hand, we remain proud of the lifelong adoption support voluntary adoption agencies commit to and provide to their families, which has been a hallmark of the VAA sector for decades.

• VAAs know that adoption is a lifelong journey so don’t have arbitrary timeframes after which families can’t access support. All VAA families can access support at any time, even long after the adoption.
• Being independent nonprofit organisations helps VAAs provide support quickly and flexibly, without long waiting lists.
• Every VAA is officially inspected and rated highly, with support often a strong feature.
• As nonprofits VAAs have the ability to fundraise to bolster the support offer for families.

The recent BBC investigation reported that some parents feel they are sold a lie about adoption support. This is unacceptable. No one should ever be told that ‘love is all you need’ to care for adopted children, as this is false. The needs of adopted children are complex because of the trauma and loss that they have experienced, and parents need intensive training and support, which adapts over time and ramps up and down as needed. Our most important job as charities and nonprofit adoption organisations is being upfront and honest about the realities of adoption and the support available, enabling everyone considering adoption to make informed choices, at their own pace, free from any pressure.

The adoption support provided by VAAs is good – often great – but not limitless. Every VAA will have a ‘core offer’ of adoption support which is unique to their agency. Our expectation and ask of all our members is that this is very clearly outlined on websites, brochures and so on. Usually the core offer will include training, ad hoc advice and guidance, peer support for adopters, events like family days and meet ups, signposting to special services, initial consultation/advice on needs assessments for children and young people and so on.

But many of our members go above and beyond this. Adoption Matters for example has a multidisciplinary team providing a range of therapeutic interventions. PACT runs CATCH, an extensive online platform to support adopters and other carers with resources on parenting and trauma, complete with e-learning modules, webinars and forums. And Family Futures is primarily a complex trauma service and therapy centre, as well as an adoption agency dedicated to training therapeutic parents.

In England, the ASGSF has for the last 10 years made therapeutic support available for adopted children (and more recently kinship children and previously looked after children with a Child Arrangements Order). This Fund currently remains although the amount of funding available per child has been reduced. The government in England is currently considering reforming the Fund and is expected to launch a process of public engagement about this imminently. You can track news updates on the ASGSF on our news page here and we will continue to publish updates as the situation progresses. We also know that adoption support is high on the agenda for governments across the other nations in the UK.

So what can anyone interested in adoption do to ensure they are well informed before considering next steps?

1. Research – look at websites and request information packs to understand more about the agency and what services they offer.
2. Dialogue – pick up the phone or attend an information event. Ask hard questions and request specific details.
3. Shop around – contact different agencies, both nonprofit and statutory, to understand the differences between them.

A full list of VAA events taking place on Big Adoption Day is here.