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