At a Cabinet meeting at Portsmouth city council today, PCC councillors approved almost £800,000 of funding for a regional adoption agency that would span Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
The agency, called Adopt South, would combine services from Portsmouth City Council, Southampton City Council, Hampshire County Council and Isle of Wight Council. It will also work with voluntary adoption agencies and other groups.
PCC would contribute £764k/year
Portsmouth agreed to contribute £764,000 annually to the agency until 2021. This is the same cost of running adoption services at the council individually.
Speaking at the cabinet meeting, Alison Jeffrey, director of children, families and education at the council, said:
“We think this is a really good thing for the children of Portsmouth who need adoption. We would be working with other councils to make it easier for children who need adopting and to find them families who can best support them.”
Portsmouth adoption: Less than 30/year
Between April 2017 and March 2018 30 children were granted adoption placement orders by the court in Portsmouth. Over the same period 20 Pompey children were linked to adoptive families, some of which would have had a placement order in the previous year.
Portsmouth council leader, Cllr Gerald Vernon-Jackson, believed this wasn’t enough. He said:
“We found adopted homes for 30 kids last year but that’s less than one a week.
“Working together will drive up the numbers so we are able to find homes for them. Hopefully we can offer adoption to more families and children in the future.”
“A good thing”
Pompey Cllr Rob Wood added:
“The regional agency is a very good thing. Because we are seeing a rising number of children needing to be housed, we need to look at this. We should be taking action.”
Another Portsmouth council councillor, Lynne Stagg, hoped it would speed up the process for children and families,
“As someone who was adopted myself I am pleased to see this is being considered. It took my parents two years to adopt and caused them agony”
Decision in next few weeks
In the next few weeks respective cabinets for Hampshire, Southampton and the Isle of Wight will decide whether to join the regional agency. Adopt South will only be set up if all four authorities agree to proposals.
If it gets the go-ahead the agency is planned to start operating in April 2019.
This article is from the BBC’s LDRS (Local Democracy Reporter Service) scheme, which OnTheWight is taking part in. Some additions by OnTheWight. Ed
Image: crazymandi under CC BY 2.0
