Archive: News
Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund cuts – a backward step for vulnerable children
Listen to our latest podcast to hear the changes discussed with Stephen Mulley, Therapy Services Manager at Family Futures and Clare Solomons, adoptive parent.
Family Futures is gravely concerned about the cuts announced on 14 April to the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF).
Reducing the annual per-child limit from £5,000 to £3,000 will almost halve the number of therapy sessions children can attend each year. This means less frequent and shorter-term therapy for children still recovering from trauma, abuse, and violence. Additionally, withdrawing the £2,500 allocation for specialist assessments and requiring these assessments to be funded within the reduced limit will further deplete resources for therapy.
The removal of match funding is particularly concerning as it has been a vital safety net for the highest-risk, most vulnerable children, safeguarding them by ensuring urgent intervention. Local Authorities budgets are already overstretched and it is unlikely they will be in a position to step in and provide the level of financial support needed for the children with most complex needs or at highest risk.
Families across England now face unmanageable challenges, making more adoption and kinship placement breakdowns inevitable. Family Futures, along with adoption, kinship and therapeutic support agencies are calling on the government to urgently reassess these changes.
Jay Vaughan MBE, CEO of Family Futures, expressed deep concern:
“These funding cuts will have direct and catastrophic consequences for vulnerable children and their families. Match funding has been a lifeline for the highest-risk cases, protecting traumatised children who are at the greatest risk of harm. We urge the government to reconsider these funding cuts and commit to preserving the long-term stability of placements through financial support that will enable children to recover from trauma and thrive.
This decision is a backward step. Unresolved trauma, parent or carer burnout and family instability do not save money. They lead to higher emotional and financial costs to society down the line. These changes also risk discouraging prospective adopters at a time when every effort should be made to support them in their vital role of caring for society’s most vulnerable children.
Therapy should be based on a holistic assessment of the child’s unique needs. Without this, how can we ensure that the money is being used effectively on the right therapeutic intervention?”
As Clare, a parent attending Family Futures with her daughters, said:
“Therapy offers our daughters the best chance of recovering from past traumas, fulfilling their potential, and leading happy lives. What our family needs — specialist therapy —exists, and it works exceptionally well, but our access to it relies on ASGSF funding, and that is out of our control.”
Children supported by Family Futures have often endured horrific abuse, neglect, or violence before finding safety in adoptive or kinship families. Many children we see are so traumatised they cannot eat, sleep or trust a parent to care for them. They require specialist, therapeutic care to address complex needs and recover from trauma.
We need to understand from the government how they will ensure that vulnerable children are not abandoned by the very system meant to protect them. The government promised to “keep children safe and help families thrive.” We are asking the government to rethink and act decisively to prevent further harm to children.
We will continue to provide further information and support for families via our website.
14 April 2025
What is meant by match funding?
Until now, the ASGSF provided up to 50% of funding needed to support children with an exceptional level of need, with the rest provided by the local authority. The ASGSF will no longer match fund this support.
Sign the petition and join the march against ASGSF funding cuts
Clare, a parent whose daughters come to Family Futures for therapy, has set up a protest march and petition against the funding cuts to highlight the impact this is having on vulnerable children across England. Please share and help spread the word. The protest march will take place on 3rd May at 1pm.
Listen to the ASGSF discussion on BBC 5 Live Nicky Campbell show, 17 April 2025 10-11am
Family Futures parent, Clare, and our CEO Jay Vaughan, alongside Emily Frith, Adoption UK’s CEO and other parents and professionals, called on the government to urgently rethink the cuts to the ASGSF.
Write to your MP
Adoption UK has a letter template here for you to personalise and adapt.
Adoption and Special Guardianship Fund confirmed for 2025-26
We are pleased that the government has announced the continuation of the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund for 2025-26. The fund is a lifeline for care experienced children who need urgent support for complex needs and are recovering from trauma.
However, this extremely delayed confirmation of the fund’s continuation means that funding for therapy has already stopped for the majority of the children we support at Family Futures. Adoptive and kinship families across England have now been left in limbo with no therapeutic support and this is having a devastating impact on children who rely on consistent, reliable support from their therapist. We are still waiting to hear from the government when applications for therapy this year will open. This means further delay, anxiety and distress for children while the system deals with the backlog in applications.
One parent whose children are supported by Family Futures described the effect of this funding chaos on her family:
“With lengthy gaps, delays and unknowns, therapy becomes another thing in their lives that is unpredictable, that lets them down, that disappears from their lives and is out of their control. You can draw your own parallels with the life of a care experienced child here. These delays are re-traumatising for our children.”
Jay Vaughan MBE, CEO of Family Futures, said:
“Our experience demonstrates that delays in therapy have a direct and detrimental impact on the safety and stability of Adoptive and Special Guardianship placements, placing the children we support at significant risk.”
Family Futures urges the government to fast-track the ASGSF application process for our most vulnerable children and provide children recovering from trauma the certainty that this fund will continue long-term without the devastating disruption caused by gaps and delays. We hope to see applications open and fast tracked as soon as possible, with more thought given to the long-term future of this fund.
Read more about the effect on children and families of ASGSF delays and our CEO, Jay Vaughan’s comments in this Community Care article (28 March 2025) here.
Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund to continue with £50m for 2025-26 – Community Care
1 April 2025
Jay Vaughan MBE joins the Institute of Recovery from Childhood Trauma (IRCT) as a Trustee
We’re delighted to announce that our CEO, Jay Vaughan MBE, has been accepted as a Trustee for the Institute of Recovery from Childhood Trauma (IRCT).
“I feel that IRCT‘s mission and Family Futures’ mission are very much aligned, committed to helping children and their families recover from trauma.” – Jay Vaughan MBE.
Family Futures believes that investing in supporting children who have suffered from childhood trauma is about investing in a better future for all of us. As a Trustee at IRCT, Jay will be working with the charity on their mission to ensure the right to recovery from childhood trauma is established and available for all children, that resilience is developed and cycles of abuse and neglect are broken.
The IRCT seeks to achieve these goals by allowing children to take their place in their communities with confidence, to make mutually satisfying relationships with others and to fulfil their potential. Read more about the IRCT here.
The IRCT is currently working with Barnardo’s on amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to improve support for care leavers and transform their life chances. The amendments would:
• Introduce a new minimum standard for what local offers of support for care leavers should include. This should ensure greater consistency in the support care leavers are provided – irrespective of where they live.
• Place a greater responsibility on a range of state institutions and government bodies to recognise the unique challenges these young people face when delivering their services.
Read the report and Parliamentary briefing here
Therapists express urgent concerns as funding for thousands of adopted and special guardianship children remains uncertain
With no government announcement on the continuation of the vital Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF), at least 19,495 adopted and special guardianship children are now facing delays to critical therapy and assessments.
Specialist psychological services across England are raising urgent concerns over delays in confirming the future of the ASGSF. With no funding secured beyond March 2025, thousands of vulnerable children risk losing access to vital therapy. This situation, as one adoptive parent described it, has the potential to cause “serious harm.”
Clare, an adoptive parent whose family is supported by Family Futures, stressed the urgency and impact of this delay for her family:
“Therapy offers our daughters the best chance of recovering from past traumas, fulfilling their potential and most importantly leading happy lives…What our family needs – specialist therapy – exists, and it works exceptionally well, but our access to it relies on ASGSF funding and that is out of our control. The government are failing care experienced children and will cause them serious harm.”
Jay Vaughan MBE, CEO and co-founder of Family Futures said:
“The continued uncertainty surrounding the ASGSF announcement is deeply worrying. Our experience demonstrates that delays in therapy have a direct and detrimental impact on the safety and stability of Adoptive and Special Guardianship placements, placing the children we support at significant risk.
The emotional toll of this uncertainty is immense. Our families are experiencing a significant and unnecessary increase in stress and worry, exacerbating their already stressful home lives which will have long-lasting consequences for their wellbeing.”
You can read the full press release here and the blog by Clare, adoptive parent here:
Why the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund is so vital for our family.
Join the campaign by emailing your local MP using Adoption UK’s template here.
Why the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund is so vital for our family
We are adoptive parents to twin girls who are now 8 years old. As with so many care experienced children they have complex needs that require long term specialist therapeutic input. The Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) is what has allowed us to access the therapy that our daughters desperately need.
Therapy offers our daughters the best chance of recovering from past traumas, fulfilling their potential and most importantly leading happy lives. The research and statistics on children that do not receive the appropriate therapeutic support are stark. Prior to receiving therapy our daughters’ complex needs had a pervasive and negative impact across all areas of their lives and our family life. It left them without a school place, and in a constant survival state with high levels of emotional dysregulation.
Without therapy, despite all the love in the world we would not have been able to make the progress we have – not even close.
For therapy to continue we need the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund to continue. The yearly stress of applying for funding and waiting to hear if you have got it or not makes an incredibly difficult situation even harder, because the very thing you know you need the most, therapy, is out of your control. The fate of your family’s future lies outside of your control. The current situation, not knowing if the ASGSF will continue at all, or what the government intend to do regarding post adoption support, is even worse. We don’t even know if there will be funds to apply for year on year. Right now, that means therapeutic relationships that have been built up over time, healing that is in process, the knowing help and support are there are all going to come to an abrupt halt at the end of March 2025.
Our children will not have the therapy they desperately need, and our family will not have the support it desperately needs. We will have to explain this to our children, we will have to live with the potentially catastrophic consequences of the government’s inaction. The last time a decision about the continuation of the ASGSF was made, it resulted in 5-6 month delays in the therapy funding process. That has huge real life ramifications.
What our family needs – specialist therapy – exists, and it works exceptionally well, but our access to it relies on ASGSF funding and that is out of our control. The government are failing care experienced children and will cause them serious harm. For children who have already experienced trauma and significant harm, who have already been disadvantaged, who have already had many relationships abruptly ended, who have had little control over their own fate, that is unforgivable. Anyone who understands the needs of this group of children would not allow situations like this to continue. A long term plan and commitment needs to be made and made now.
Blog by Clare and family
28 February 2025
Bookings now open! Start your journey to become a certified NPP Practitioner
Our new NPP training course is now open for bookings! We’re delighted to be offering an early bird discount of 10% on bookings before 31st March. Jay Vaughan MBE will deliver NPP Level 1 training on 20–24 October 2025, with days 1 and 5 online and days 2-4 in person at Family Futures in London.
NPP (Neuro Physiological Psychotherapy) is an evidenced based therapy that has been tried and tested with families for over 25 years. It is child-centred and holistic, enabling you to select the most appropriate intervention to support different levels of the brain and the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), depending on the individual needs of each child you are working with.
By attending NPP Level 1, you will become an NPP informed practitioner and will be equipped to decide when it’s most appropriate to use body-based, attachment-enhancing or reflective therapies, or a blend of these, in your work with children and families.
To get your early bird discount of 10% please use code TRAINING25 when you are placing your order.
What will I learn in the NPP Level 1 training?
Using theory, case studies and experiential experience during the training, you will learn about the Family Futures’ NPP model and the importance of working with the body and brain together. The training will cover:
Day one – Research & Multidisciplinary Assessment
Day two – Principles of the NPP approach and primitive brain therapy
Day three – Limbic brain therapy
Day four – Cortical brain therapy
Day five – Pulling it all together and next steps
Listen to the story of NPP here – why was it developed and how does it help children?
Pondering pods – NPP, the Family Futures therapy model
Jay Vaughan MBE, co-founder of NPP and your NPP course trainer, explains:
“It isn’t just how we think and feel about the world that is impacted by trauma, it’s the physiology of the body…The name Neuro Physiological Psychotherapy, for us conveyed the importance of working with the body and brain together to help traumatised children.”
“I just felt really supported and optimistic for the future” – Buzz, prospective adoptive parent
Listen to the full podcast episode with Buzz and Jenni here. Are you interested in adopting a child and want to find out more? At Family Futures we focus on preparing adopters to parent children who wait the longest for a safe, loving home. Through a bespoke assessment process, we equip prospective parents with an understanding of the impact of trauma and provide therapeutic tools to support their child’s development.
Join our next online information evening to connect with our social work team, hear from experienced adopters, and learn how Family Futures’ tailored approach empowers families to thrive. We offer adoptive families long-term support, every step of the way.
“I just felt really supported and optimistic for the future”
– Buzz, prospective adopter with Family Futures
Listen to the full podcast episode with Buzz and Jenni here
Our Big Adoption Day event took place on Wednesday 15th January 2025 at 18.30-20.00. To book a place on our next information evening please contact us here.
Can you help a child feel safe?
This year we had more requests than ever for support from the Family Futures Crisis Fund. We set up the fund to help families who are struggling and in crisis, when they have no other support available.
One teenager, Layla, I have helped through the Crisis Fund was too anxious to go to school. She had a history of unimaginable abuse in her early childhood before going into care. She was experiencing mental health issues and feeling so distressed she was unable to leave her room. The Crisis Fund enabled me to do an emergency home visit to give her the professional support and care she desperately needed. I was also able to support her parents who were extremely worried and anxious about how best to support their daughter.
Will you help us provide a vital lifeline to children and families in crisis? Donate here
At a time of year when children should be feeling safe and excited about the festive season, we see children who are anxious, afraid and unable to trust people around them. Please support the Family Futures Crisis Fund so that our specialist team can help families at the hardest times.
– Jay, CEO and co-founder of Family Futures
December 2024
“We need to do it right, to make sure that it is safe”
@BBCBreakfast – Jay Vaughan, CEO of Family Futures, discusses the new proposed changes for adopted children, alongside Angela Fraser-Wicks (Trustee Chair at Family Rights Group and birth mother), 7 November 2024.
Cassie and her adoptive mum, Dee, also shared their experience of contact with Cassie’s birth mum on the Today Programme, BBC Radio 4, 7 November (2:50:54) Listen to the full interview here. Cassie, who came to Family Futures for therapeutic support, highlights the need for this support for children who are in contact with birth family relatives so that the experience can be positive for everyone involved.
Cassie and Dee’s experience also features in this BBC News article Adopted children to have closer contact with birth families – BBC News
Our focus at Family Futures has always been what’s best for each adopted child or young person – we can’t have a one size fits all approach. For the proposed changes to work for children there needs to be more support and funding made available. Read our full statement here.
Family Futures responds to new recommendations for best practice in respect of adoption
The new report, Recommendations for best practice in respect of adoption by the Public law working group: adoption sub-group (published 7 November 2024) recommends that there needs to be a greater focus on contact with adopted children’s birth families as long as it is safe.
Family Futures has been facilitating contact for adopted children and families in the UK for over 26 years. Contact with birth relatives that is supported by a therapist and in the context of life story work can be an important part of a young person’s development, helping them understand who they are and strengthening their sense of identity.
We have found from our research and listening to children, adoptive families and birth relatives, however, that there can’t be a ‘one size fits all’ approach when it comes to contact as each child’s experience and trauma history is unique. The report and the consultation responses reference this point but we believe that in order to achieve a truly child-centred approach to contact in adoption and ensure it enhances every child’s wellbeing, there must be an assessment of their unique needs by specialists trained in trauma and attachment.
“It’s important to try to put the child’s trauma hat on when making decisions about contact” – Cassie, adopted person, speaking at Family Futures’ conference on Contact in Context
Cassie and her adoptive mum, Dee, shared their experience of contact with Cassie’s birth mum on the Today Programme, BBC Radio 4, 7 November (2:50:54) Listen to the full interview here.
The first task for adults has to be ensuring children feel safe and have a formula for a secure attachment to their adoptive parents. Where there are mental health issues and the contact would be traumatising it should not go ahead.
It is vital to make an informed decision based on a full child assessment, particularly in 21st century adoption, where the majority of children have a history of trauma and significant harm before being removed from their birth families. Where a child’s trauma history is not taken into account, the child is at risk of being re-traumatised and set back on their journey of recovery, attachment and healing in their adoptive family.
We have seen that a child’s needs for contact will change as they get older, ebbing and flowing through childhood. It is clear that an order made at placement will not necessarily be fit for purpose in a year’s time, let alone many years later.
The experience of contact with birth relatives needs to enable all parties (children, adoptive parents and birth parents) to feel empowered, and for this to be achieved, there needs to be professional support made available for all concerned. The child’s feelings about contact should be explored and acknowledged so that they see contact as something that is done for them and not to them.
This will require a significant increase in resources and government funding for the assessment and facilitating of contact for children where it is in the child’s best interests. At the moment, the Adoption Support and Special Guardianship Fund (ASGSF) does not cover this. For such a seismic change to be successful and benefit children and families, the extra resources need to come with it.
We believe it’s important to hear the views and lived experience of adopted people when thinking about adoption policy and practice. Family Futures brought together a range of opinions about contact and maintaining relationships with birth families at our 25th anniversary conference, Contact in Context. Listen to the live podcast episode recorded during the conference to hear adopted people, adoptive parents and professionals’ lived experiences and opinions.
Family Futures is a member of CVAA, the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies. Read CVAA’s response to this report here.
See our publication Contact: a Family Futures Framework and the Executive Summary here.
See our videos and resources about contact in adoption from a range of perspectives here.
