Adoption Barometer 2026: established adoptive families (England) The proportion of adoptive families experiencing severe challenges remains high, but has levelled off after increases in recent years. Despite this, adoptive families are less optimistic about their futures than ever before. Changes to the ASGSF have negatively impacted more than half of all respondents and assessments of the positive impact of adoption support were lower than in previous years. Statement UK wide England I am satisfied with the quality of the core adoption support I have accessed via my adoption agency. 68% 69% Families with significant or urgent needs are provided with a package of enhanced adoption support. 59% 59% I am satisfied with the quality of the enhanced adoption support I received via my adoption agency. 53% 54% My agency manages arrangements for direct and indirect contact effectively. 59% 59% My child’s school works with me to find the best ways to support my child. 73% 73% My child’s teachers have a good understanding of the needs of care-experienced and adopted children. 52% 54% What is going well? “The trauma therapy service we were able to access using the ASGSF was excellent and invaluable.” “Our Virtual School is really helpful and on the ball.” “There is beginning to be a wider understanding and knowledge of the lifelong impact of FASD and of early childhood trauma.” “Peer support hubs for families which allow children to meet other adoptees and adoptive parents to form networks are really valuable.” What could be improved? “There should be some form of adoption ‘lifecycle’ service that parents can sign up to and that proactively delivers updates and suggests support at the different stages of adopting and raising an adopted child to adulthood.” “I would ensure service providers work with schools to ensure their knowledge and understanding of trauma informed practice and make sure the designated leads for previously looked after children are fit for purpose.” “It should become a non-partisan viewpoint that any children who the state has had to care for need support as a lifelong commitment.” “Social workers should be therapeutically trained. There should be ring-fenced funding for adoption support. We need an honest overview of children’s needs at the start with assessments (e.g. for autism, FASD, ADHD) done as a matter of course.” Adoption Support “I’m so worried about the ASGSF. I had no idea that its future was not secure when I became an adoptive parent and now that it is not certain I worry about how I will support my children in the future.” In April 2025, after delaying the announcement about the continuation of the ASGSF, the Government announced a severely reduced fund for 2025/6, with the Fair Access Limit shrinking from £5,000 to £3,000 and the funding for multi-disciplinary assessments removed altogether. The promise of partial match funding for applications exceeding the fair access limit was also removed, with families being told to ask their adoption agencies to make up the difference. The Adoption Barometer reveals that these changes had a significant negative impact on many adoptive families with more than half of all respondents affected. “The ASGSF is a lifeline – the reduction in funding is having a detrimental impact and I wish the powers that be could see that.” “Reverse changes to ASGSF. We adopted with the understanding that we would have support along this journey when needed, and we shouldn’t have to beg for help.” Among respondents who accessed ASGSF-funded support during 2025: “Consistent, early and preventative intervention is not only more effective for adoptees and families, but also significantly more cost-effective in the long term. Investing in timely therapeutic and specialist support reduces the likelihood of placement breakdown, school exclusion, escalating mental health needs, and later reliance on more expensive statutory services. A stable, needs-led funding framework would provide security for families, enable better planning and commissioning of services, and represent a more efficient and responsible use of public funds.” Keeping in Contact with Birth Relatives “We have sent a number of letters at the time agreed, and we expected not to hear back from the birth parents, but we had no acknowledgement that they had even been received by the letterbox team. When I called to query it they then told me they didn't have forwarding addresses for the parents so they weren't going anywhere.” Among respondents who had ever agreed to letterbox-style indirect contact with a birth relatives, only 40% said this contact between themselves and their child’s birth mother was still active. 48% of agreements for indirect contact with birth siblings were active, but for birth fathers, only 27% were still active. Increasing rates of direct contact appear to be levelling off – one third of respondents reported that one or more of their adopted children had kept in touch directly with a birth relative during 2024. The most common arrangements for keeping in touch directly were with children’s siblings. “Our personal experience of direct contact with birth parents, supported to begin with by the adoption agency, has been really good.” Education “It is so hard to get the school system to understand that children from a challenging background need extra support. They say they have been trained but we have seen no evidence of this as they lack basic understanding. It would be good to see more training for schools.” “The Virtual School was really helpful when we encountered difficulties with the primary school not understanding our child’s needs.” “We need a much wider offering of alternative provision/therapeutic education settings for adopted children to go to when they cannot access mainstream education.” Back to England overview Manage Cookie Preferences