New National Adoption Service for Wales to go live in November 2014, Gwenda Thomas announces
4 Jun 2014 04:23 PM
A new service to speed
up the adoption process for children and prospective adoptive parents in Wales
will be launched in November 2014, the Deputy Minister for Social Services,
Gwenda Thomas announced yesterday
The National Adoption Service
for Wales will promote adoptions, increase the pool of adopters, and ensure
good quality post adoption support is available for those who need it. It is a
key element of the Welsh Government’s plans for transforming the way
social services are delivered in Wales.
It will lead to better
collaboration and joint commissioning of adoption services, resulting in the
eradication of children drifting in care, the more efficient uses of resources
for the provision of training and assessment, an improvement in the matching
process and the widest choice of placements, through the increased use of
Voluntary Adoption Agencies.
The Deputy Minister made the
announcement as she launched one of the first elements of the new adoption
service – a new secure online register which allows adoption agencies in
Wales to access, free of charge, a Wales-wide register of children waiting to
be adopted and of approved prospective adopters.
Gwenda Thomas
said:
“I’m very pleased to
announce that the National Adoption Agency for Wales will be formally launched
in November.
“I recognise and am still
concerned with delays in the adoption system and the potential lasting harm
this can have on children, robbing them of their best chance of the love and
stability of a new family.”
“I refuse to accept that
children can be left to drift in the care system and I expect to see an upward
trend over the next few years as the National Adoption Service drives up
standards and performance.
“That’s why we
needed to make a step change in the way adoption services are delivered, and
through the establishment of a National Service, which will have the power to
deliver services across Wales, we are delivering that change. The new service
will address current concerns without losing the undeniable strengths of the
existing system, achieving change without detriment.”
The new register
(www.walesadoptionregister.org.uk) provides a wider pool of prospective
adopters for children in need of an adoptive placement and whose local
authorities have been unable to find a placement locally. It will enable
potential matches to be identified much more quickly than would be the case for
many children if matches were identified only at a local level.
The register has also been
designed to ‘talk’ to the adoption registers in England, Scotland
and Northern Ireland, to maximise opportunities for children and prospective
adopters where this is appropriate.
Gwenda Thomas
added:
“I am delighted that the
new Wales Adoption Register has gone live. Our investment in a new
all-Wales register is designed to help adoption agencies in Wales make
potential matches quickly and speed up the adoption process both for children
and prospective adoptive parents.”
Following a competitive
tendering exercise, the Welsh Government awarded the contract to run the new
register to the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF)
Cymru.
Wendy Keidan, Director of BAAF
Cymru, said:
“BAAF Cymru is delighted
to have been awarded the contract to operate the first single Wales Adoption
Register on behalf of the Welsh Government.
“The Register is an
integral part of the National Adoption Service with a key objective of
minimising delay in the matching of children and adopters living in Wales. We
are very excited to be working alongside our partners in the statutory and
voluntary sectors to ensure that the Register will proactively contribute to
identifying ‘forever‘ families at the earliest opportunity for
children in Wales waiting for a loving adoptive home.”