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The page on our website on the Adoption Support Fund - http://bit.ly/1GTA3td First4Adoption - main page - http://bit.ly/1E4UkLl - with Q&A for parents - http://bit.ly/1OwfCUf Blog post - ASF: Start your engines - by Misadventures of an Adoptive Dad - http://bit.ly/1ImjnYK Blog post - The Adoption Support Fund - by blogger Puffin Diaries on The Adoption Social website - http://bit.ly/1Hv5Yg6 If you have questions or feedback, Hugh Thornbery, our CEO, has set up a new Twitter account specifically to help - http://bit.ly/1G0VJkb Alternatively, give our Helpline - http://bit.ly/HR43tL - a call or drop them an email.

Thank you I just posted about this and so am really pleased this is here!!!

The Adoption Support Fund goes live today in England. Yesterday morning, Sally Donovan appeared on BBC Breakfast. Here's her blog about what she wanted to say "on the couch": Blog post - Sally Donovan is on BBC Breakfast (hopefully) - by blogger and author Sally Donovan - http://bit.ly/1PaDzyU Yesterday (30.04.15) BBC News ran a piece which included a video of Amanda Boorman and her daughter Jazz talking about the need for the adoption support - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-32527890 Here is a description of Sally and Hugh Thornbery's appearance on BBC Breakfast in the same segment - http://bit.ly/1FCzJhg (Unfortunately BBC Breakfast isn't shown on iPlayer so we can't include the link) You can read our press release here - http://bit.ly/1zjgyI4 This morning Hugh Thornbery was on BBC Radio Shropshire talking about the Adoption Support Fund. His interview runs from 02:18:16 to 02:22:35 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02p6xv8 Go to http://www.adoptionsupportfund.co.uk/ for information for parents, local authorities and providers.

Hi there Online Team It may just be me that is unclear about this one aspect, but here goes ... Is the adoption support fund a set amount for each adopted child? In other words, once that set amount has been used up, does it come to an end? Or is it an amount of money that is available each year, so that when the allocation is used up in one year, there will be another allowance in the following year? My main reason for asking this is .... we want to have our child assessed for FASD at Dr Mukherjee's clinic in Surrey, but if adoption support fund is used to pay for this, does that mean we'd have nothing left to pay for therapy or any other ongoing support? Can you help with these queries?

Hi SkyblueGrassGreen, I'll try and answer your questions but don't forget you can always drop our Helpline an email too, of course. Their contacts are here - http://bit.ly/HR43tL The Adoption Support Fund does not limit the amount per child, or even per local authority. Local authorities can apply to the ASF to pay for specialist clinical assessments which might include an FASD assessment. If a child has FASD their outcomes (identified in the assessment of needs) might improve through therapeutic services that the ASF will fund. Currently the ASF only has guaranteed funding from Government for one year. Unfortunately, because of the election and Government spending reviews, it's not possible to find out any more about future plans at the moment. However, Adoption UK does feel that it's really important the adopters apply to the ASF while the money is available to support the case that there really is a need. I hope that helps? All the best, Online Team

Dear Online Team Wow! Thank you so much for your clear answer to my query. I'm really grateful. And now I'm going to request an adoption support assessment including assessment for FASD . THANK YOU !

I wanted to ask a question re: adoption targets. Do local authorities have adoption targets and why is there such a drive to get adoptions increasing, why not look to keep children more with their birth parents.

Adoption is a last resort, often after birth parents have been supported for months or years. Kinship etc all have to be considered first before SW are able to apply to the courts to release a child for adoption, only about 14% of kids in care are adopted, most either go back home or to relations, The reason there was a big push to get more adopters was all the children who needed a home but that were not getting placed.

Seems an odd question to a post that’s 3 years old?

No to adoption targets. Total myth. Children who are adopted have often been neglected and abused. The average age of adoption was about 4yrs old the last time I looked a couple of yrs ago. There’s been a lot of water under the bridge by then. Their birth parents might love them very much and they have really tried but had such a lot of awfulness in their own lives they couldn’t parent adequately. In actual fact a lot of adoptive parents end up trying to get support from social services and cannot get it and get blamed for everything going wrong for the child, forgetting the child’s traumatic start in life.