CVAA comment on Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund 2025-26 announcementCVAA comment on Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund 2025-26 announcement
Today the Children's Minister Janet Daby MP confirmed in Parliament the continuation of the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) for 2025-6. Funding of £50m has been confirmed, however the Department for Education has said that “exact plans for the fund will be confirmed as soon as possible, with a focus on ensuring that the funding reaches as many children and families as possible. Until then, the application process will remain on hold, and we regret any delays this causes.”
Responding to the news, CVAA’s CEO Satwinder Sandhu commented:
Today’s announcement is bittersweet. We are enormously relieved and pleased that the fund has been confirmed, albeit just for the year ahead. The support this fund enables is simply life changing for children and families. However we now have to redirect our concerns to the thousands of families facing a dangerous gap in therapy, of unknown length, while the fund is flooded with applications (once they re-open the application portal that is). It’s a dire situation which needs an emergency strategy from the DfE to identify and fast-track families in most need. There also needs to be consideration of emergency funding to plug the gap or at least reimburse services which have to use their reserves to keep children safe these next few months.
What’s clear is that in recent months we have witnessed a shortsighted approach from government towards adoptive families. They recognise the urgent need for more prospective adopters, yet they undermine this by failing to provide adopters with assurances of support which is essential for all children being placed. This contradiction is not working for anyone – for children, adopters or the public purse. Recruitment and support must go hand in hand.
If the government is serious about reducing the number of children facing a childhood of instability in care, they must step up – urgently – and prove their commitment to supporting adoptive families. This goes beyond just continuing the ASGSF – the whole structure of support needs reviewing, and financial support for adopters needs to be strengthened too. The voluntary sector has a strong history of providing outstanding support services and must be better supported to continue to do this as the needs of children and families continue to grow.