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Sounds good. I'm not sure about guaranteeing that you can get a social worker arriving on your doorstep shortly after a 3 a.m. call, but the general principle looks very good. Well done, Jim!Love,Corkwing

Hi,You may be interested in our response here:http://www.adoptionuk.org.uk/information/110393/a_current_press_releases/Naomi--Naomi Evetts - Press and PR Assistant

the first two years may be the easiest! what about lifetime support when the teen is excluded from school and involved with youth justicewhat about support to ensure the school puts support in place etc . . .

Thinking about it, a number of the hardest to place children should be screened out by the initial assessment because adoption is simply unsuitable for them.Then there are others who could be suitable if there was this level of support for as long as it's needed, along with therapy, respite care etcBut support for two years? Is that going to make much difference?Of course, better preparation tailored to each child would be great.But it seems to me that what is needed before anything else is information about the number of LAC children who were adopted but have come back into care. Otherwise how do you know what works and what doesn't?

i.e. how can there be 'payment by results' if we don't know what the results are?Two years is very short-term to assess 'results' - basically it seems that the 'results' are 'making sure the placement lasts long enough for the AO to be sorted out'.

The support being offered here should be given to any family which ends up with children with extreme behaviours - here they are assuming in advance that there will be extreme behaviours and so dangling the carrot of good support to the families who might take them. But if you adopt children who haven't been pre-flagged up like this and you have the same problems, there isn't any help like this available. I don't like two-tier systems myself.

I am not keen either on a two tier system - but to be fair to Jim, he is working from a social investment perspective to meet a particular perceived challenge in the current climate - that of older children costing the tax payer about 50 grand a yr in FC or residential Placements.Of course those of us with children with difficulties would love to have this social investment - but life is not that simple as we all know - bottom line is that this could not work with all adoptions (nor is it needed) and the professionals would rather wait until it all goes pear shaped and the adoption breaks down X number of years down the line - What cost SOCIAL/EMOTIONAL/LOVE investment that many put into their adopted children - for those able to remain at home - we don't know do we - but that said, I think anything that will give an older child the chance at family life (post assessment - wondering why the maudsley has been singled out) has to be a good thing - or at least it should be tried I guess - we don't know what we don't know - maybe Baker Tilly could do some more work to find out exactly what the cost of good post adoption support/education and health support looks like in a few LA's and what the social impact is on the cost to society when it goes pear shaped in terms of prison/addiction services and history repeating itself to name but a few possible outcomes.