Autumn Update from CCS

A message from our CEO, Emma Simpson:

“It’s National Adoption Week! This week, more than ever, the adoption agencies are reaching out to help find people who want to explore adoption as a route to parenting. ‘A Welcome Home’ recruitment campaign is there to help people think about making that first call. People might feel like they need to be 100% ready and have “life” sorted before starting that conversation. We are all perfectly imperfect, and right now, more than ever, we need to find more adopters for children waiting with plans for adoption.

On the 21^st of October, here at CCS, we’ve had our bi-annual Agency Day, where we got all of our staff together to reflect on the last 6 months and plan for the next 6. Lots of interesting discussion about innovation, AI, and working collaboratively across the agency in order to provide adoption support to over 80 families at a time! I feel so lucky to lead this charity, with such a committed and skilled group of staff. What comes across every day is their sense of purpose in doing quality assessments, working alongside people through their adoption journey, and always thinking about the child first.

We also had lots of discussions about the challenges of providing adoption support to families. Certainly not helped by the government’s 40% cut to the ASGSF in April 2025. We have launched shorter therapeutic parenting courses, and we are encouraging families to think about how best to use their children’s Fair Access Limits. Our Social Workers and Family support workers provide invaluable support to families, particularly around education, emotional and behavioural needs, transitions, life story work, and direct contact time with birth family members. However, so much of our adoption support doesn’t receive any public funding. We provide a wide range of activities and social events (30 different types of events in just 2025), but we have a constant fundraising challenge to fund these essential activities, and right now, the fundraising climate is tough. So we continue to think creatively about how, as a team, we can support our families, we will continue to innovate, adapt and change. With a team of highly motivated, purpose-driven staff, we believe anything is possible.”

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