CVAA response to the Care Review’s ‘Call for Ideas’

In December, the CVAA responded to the Care Review’s ‘call for ideas’, which asked for thoughts from the sector around how all aspects of children’s social care can be improved. Our response focused on one critical theme, also highlighted by the Review itself in its Case for Change. This was how we better establish lifelong permanence for all children, whatever their care arrangement – through stable homes but also lasting relationships and connections which allow children to forge deep senses of identity.

Our main proposal was a national connection service, which could dramatically transform the lives and futures of both adopted children and children in other forms of care, by making it easier for families to maintain relationships and providing professional support to develop appropriate connections as children and young people’s needs and aspirations change.

We also put forward additional ideas which we believe hold immense potential for adopted children and care-experienced children alike. These were:

• A national matching facility to ensure that the right family is found in a timely way for every child; with extra funding to find families for children who wait the longest.
• Funding following the child, so that money is allocated based entirely on need, regardless of who cares for them.
• Parity of support for all carers, including for special guardians to be as rigorously assessed as adopters, and for children with comparable needs to have comparable access to support.

You can find our full submission online here.

The Review plans to publish its final report in the Spring, which will outline its vision for reform and best ideas for how the system can be changed to improve the lives of the children involved.