Archived Forums

Hi Sally1) Yes, most definitely2) Trained respite carer3) Yes, absolutely4) In an ideal world, adoption support workers should be in a position to signpost and safeguard. But it does seems to vary between LAs as to the quality/resourcing/validity given to adoption support teams by managers/directorsBTW, can't believe no-one else has responded, maybe this is posted on the wrong board? Hope someone else will be along shortly.Y

1) Yes, most definitely2) Therapy involving both parent & Child (e.g. DDP)3) Yes, absolutely4) First point of contact for Post Adoption support should be the LA in which you live (from placement) Placing Authority should only be responsible for funding, not provision for first 3 years post Adoption Order. Independent Support should be provided to determine the level of budget required, with an appeal process if further funding required in adolescence.Barge

if personal budgets means dividing the current budget between all adoptees - then £2 each will not provide effective supportif there are expected levels of service for low need, moderate need and high need adoptees with agreed levels of funding that could be allocated to the adopter to spend on personalised services that could be fantasticbut as we know the most traumatised third of adoptees may need huge resources, respite/in our case via workers in the home through direct paymentsout of city specialist education day or boardingyears of intensive specialist adoption sensitive therapeutic support etcif you pm me i would be happy to be in email contact about a specific package which we built up

For me I think this would need to be additional money as adoption support is poorly funded in our area as we are a small la and very few of our adoptees are locally placed so most adopters have a different placing authority. This means after three years we find our local post adoption support team are keen but badly funded so how much would there be for individual adopters?I think local advice and guidance about adoption friendly services would be helpful, as finding these myself was the hardest thing. But I would have appreciated a personal budget for sports clubs and seeing psychologists when school wouldn't take him in after school clubs and nhs said would only see parents, not children!

Thank you very much for all your responses. I don't think I am allowed to publicise my request for information anywhere else on the boards, but would really like some more input. There is little detail behind the headline announcement so it would be useful to get the views of adopters across.

Hi Sally Don In principle I think it is the way to go.The specifics - well that is a bit harder.Different adopters and adopted children need different levels of support at different parts of the adoption journey.I would like a personal budget, but as True has already said, that would , atm, amount to about £10 a year where we live. That is not going to do for the very traumatised EJ and less trasumatised yet needy BJ.Although it has (and continues to be) hard to fight for adoption friendly therapy, the most difficult part of our journey to date has been the absolute total lack of respite. So I would use any personal budget to manage that resource. I would need to know that the respite carer's were probably LA specialist FC's and therefore as LA Carers, the safeguards around CP/training/quality assurance / contracting etc would be managed by the LA's commissioning dept.It will be intriguing if some LA's go with personal bubets for SEN chilldren and what effects that will have on personal budget of SEN adopted children's adoption support budget.

I haven't read anything about this yet, too busy over the last few months.Is it similar to the In Control approach in Community Care? Whereby people who are assessed as needing services (not just everyone) is assessed and the level of need is on some kind of scale that dictates how much they should receive a year? Historically there were no options other that receive LA homecare or homehelp services. But the model of InControl is about promoting control and people not being constrained by the services the council offer. I remember seeing a DVD about a man in his forties or fifties, his world was turned upside down due to a stroke, he couldn't work and required care. Historically he would have been offered home helps at certain times of the day, a lot of the time it would be service led, well probably most of the time to be honest. With a personal budget he decided what his needs were. He added an extension to his house to enable him to be more independent with personal care, and paid for his friends football club season ticket, thus he didn't feel beholden to his friend who now needed to be an unofficial carer when they went to the football together. Previous to the stroke him and his friend were life long season ticket holders, but when his needs changed he felt very uncomfortable about the relationship. When he paid the season ticket of his friend he felt it was more an equal friendship, and his wife had an afternoon of respite. He felt that having his own budget had enabled him to improve his quality of life.I may be totally wrong about the plan, but I'm wondering if thats the kind of model they are thinking of? A personal budget which means people aren't constrained by what the local LA provide, they can shop around, and also be creative in their approach?

1)Yes, then what its used for could be tailored to what my child needs, not what suits the social work budgets!2)Apropriate therapy as needed at different development stages, and activities which develop skills and abilities that this child is behind on because of trauma3)Yes, very much so, some stuff that is best for kid is in wrong sector for present sw frameworks.4)Difficult to say, often the parents know the kid best and find the propfessionals are locked into their own mindsets. Perhaps some indipendant experts who respect the expert knowledge of the parents and take it into account. Ideally well trained post adoption workers who know the difficulties of adopted kids that come out post adoption, but arent dependant on social work budgets.

I fear that as some have said already that the budget set would be way lower than that that we would actually need.If we had been given a budget from day one I would not have had the experience to know if it were adequate or not. What we needed 6 years ago is not what we need now.I think if i had been told we could have say £1000 per month ( unlikely I know) I would have thought that that was great but now that wouldn't even scratch the surface and I would be scared that as a new adopter we would accept anything as we wouldn't want to rock the boat with SS and be seen to be money grabing.Adoption is a very different situation to that of people who have birth children with special needs, disabled adults or the elderly.We have had to prove to the LA that we are good parents for these children so the last thing we want to do is ask for help, admit we can't cope or say we are in financial trouble because we are in fear of having our children taken from us.We, unlike the other groups that would perhaps like this type of budget are the only ones who are often blaimed for the way in which our children are, when it is us who are picking up the pieces of others neglect as Madrid said.As our SS gave us no help what so ever and no post adoption support + we live in a small LA with little in the way of therapy available. I wouldn't have known where to start if i also had to think about the budget. I just wouldn't need the stress.

Spent a good deal of time reading our LA's consultation on the SEN Green Paper.They are talking about introducing a communication passport specifically around transitions within the SEN system.So, bearing in mind that there is also talk of an Adoption Passport in the sugested reforms on adoption support, I would be interested to know if the idea will be that the adoption passport and the personal budget will go hand in hand.We already hold a comprehensive hospital passport for EJ, I would be very happy to have a communication passport for EJ too (statemented and in EBD school) and therefore I am hopeful that the adoption passport will be drawn up by or at the very least with , together with adopters, that they will be very specific to the adopted child/ren and family and will be regularly reviewed by PASW's. If/As and when the needs change throughout the adoption journey , I would hope that the personal budget will increase (or decrease) as per passport need.SallyDon - i am going to post on the adopters board so that everyone has at a least a chance of adding to your article. Many thanks for getting a way in to such an influencial SW journal. Just hope the President of the ADCS reads your article when it is published.

Have been giving this some thought. Not sure I am convinced about personal budgets if it means all support must come from a single budget.What I would be concerned about are unexpected problems arising and no help available as its outside of the budget.In principle it's a good idea, especially giving adopters more control and say in what is needed. If a personal budget is over and above current support offered, then all well and good. If its not I think it's going to add more pressure to adoptive families. I do appreciate where current support is virtually non existent then it can only be a bonus.It's difficult to say what I would spend it on, as although my ds obviously needs support I'm still awaiting a diagnosis, if there is one. I do receive an adoption allowance and use this for various activities aimed to help improve confidence and generally make life better for ds in the long run. I have also used it to pay for a private assessment as nhs was taking forever. So I guess having that option is good.I would hate to see a 'dla' style assessment to ascertain what level of support is needed. Things can change so quickly as we all know and it may mean no support if you have to go back and re apply for extra help.My understanding of what a personal budget means may not be right, I haven't looked into it, so apologies if I'm misunderstanding.

Thanks for all your considered responses and to Jellies for offering to publicise my request on the main board.I am confident that the article will attract a wide readership and so it is a good opportunity for adopters to add to the debate on post adoption support. I have had assistance from Hugh Thornbery and Martin Narey as well as other charities and private providers but of course the most important input is that from adopters. There appears to be little detail out there about how the system would work so the emphasis is very much on how adopters would like it to be structured.

The first part of my article on the government proposals for post adoption support budgets is published here.http://www.communitycare.co.uk/articles/31/01/2013/118876/are-personal-budgets-the-best-chance-to-improve-adoption-support-in-10-years.htmThe second part will focus on good models for therapeutic support and will be published soon.Thank you to everyone who contributed.Sally

Very interesting - Let's hope the people in power are listening.

I am not sure this answer is relevant to us having not adopted through an LA but I know from my own work with children with Down Syndrome that where this happens already (e.g. the Netherlands) parents often choose services for their child that are not supported by the best evidence. For example, the best evidence for DS is that apart from a very small minority with significant extra needs, mainstream school vastly improves outcomes. However more parents choose special schools for their children with DS under the personal budget scheme than otherwise. This is particularly true for parents who don't have much education.I know this sounds horrible and most parents would love to think they know best for their child but it rather reminds me of the health care market in the US or indeed what we've been hearing about the nursery care market here. Once parents have a budget, the service providers just market themselves even if their services are vastly inappropriate for the child AND they set the rates higher because the individual parents don't have the bargaining power of an LEA/LA or an NHS trust. So parents get swept in by the promises rather than what the evidence is on what works for children in given circumstances.It's also like the alternative health care market, a small proportion of which is definitely helpful but just not yet NHS funded, but the vast majority of which is expensive handwaving.