The fight for the ASGSF must go on

 Many parents and carers describe their efforts to get the right support for their child as ‘a fight’. Lucy Watson writes about how the ‘fight’ to protect the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund in England and the cost it comes with. 

It was a busy day. As well as supporting our child to attend his alternative provision we were interviewed about the cuts to the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) for the BBC.  

In between shots I told the reporter that I will never give up fighting for the fund and the essential therapeutic support that it provides for our family. 

That evening, we watched the news piece together. Our son was proud of his TV debut and how well he had done. I felt hopeful. 

That night though, I fell into bed, exhausted to my bones, my mind whirring. The fight is exhausting. It’s not just the latest fight, to reverse the cuts to the fund, but the many, many layers of complexity we have had to work through and take on. We fought to get an EHCP for our son, then for a place for him in a specialist school, then for him to access an alternative provision while he waits for his school place to become available.  

And now we’re fighting cuts to the ASGSF. But this fight is not being carried out alone. Many of us are fighting for our children’s futures. 

On Saturday 3rd May, approximately one thousand members of the adoption and kinship care community came together in London for a peaceful protest against the cuts that the government have made to the fund. The protest organizer, Clare Solomons reminded us that our voices are stronger when we come together. 

‘Our Children need us to make them listen,’ she said, as she spoke to the crowd outside Downing Street, ‘and when our children need us, we, all of us and everyone who supports this cause, are always there. And we always will be.’ 

And so, the fight must go on.