ASGSF News

Dear all in the adoption community,

After the good news of last week, where we heard that the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) would be continuing for at least another year, we were deeply shocked and saddened to hear on 14^th April that there are significant cuts coming in with immediate effect. We understand that the government is under serious financial pressures however, this fund is for the most vulnerable children in society, and it is an essential layer of support. CCS has supported hundreds of families since 2017 to access the specialist clinical assessments, therapeutic packages and our bespoke Therapeutic Parenting course, Hearts & Minds, and we have heard again and again about the significant changes and improvements that this has had on families’ lives. CCS will be urgently looking at the changes to the fund and will be communicating out directly to families affected in the coming weeks.

In summary, the changes are as follows:

— Reducing the overall Fair Access Limit (FAL) to £3,000 (previously £5,000)

— No longer having a separate FAL for specialist assessments. Specialist assessments up to the level of £2,500 will be considered for funding, but only within the overall FAL of £3,000.

— No longer accepting match funding applications for therapy which costs more than the £3,000 FAL, or for specialist assessments which cost more than £2,500.

— Ending transitional funding arrangements across years.

— CCS is part of the CVAA (Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies), and as a VAA, we promise and will deliver lifelong support. The CVAA’s response to this news can be found here.

What you can do:

1. We have already set up a fundraising page so that we can offer therapy sessions to those families that should be continuing therapy packages that were started in 2024-25. Thank you to everyone who has already donated a total of £1370 – this is amazing, and we are already setting up these sessions. But we need to fundraise more to fill the gap created by the government’s delay in decision. Please help if you can:

Urgent Appeal

2. Adoption UK are running a Q&A webinar for adopters on the ASGSF news tomorrow, 16^th April, at 8 pm. Please share this with your communities or sign up here.

3. If you are willing to speak to the media about the impact of this decision on your family – please let us know by emailing us at admin@ccsadoption.org we can then pass your details to the CVAA and hopefully we can get your voice heard, anything we can do to amplify our concerns and put much-needed pressure on government may help.

CCS will continue to support all of its adoptive families through the coming weeks. Please be reassured that we are working with the CCS staff team and therapist to find the best way forward and to make a plan of how we can continue to support you into the future.

Thank you,

Emma Simpson
CEO, CCS Adoption