Thousands of children in limbo over adoption support funding
- trushali Kotecha
- Apr 1
- 3 min read
31 March 2025
Thousands of children supported by the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) are facing an end-of-financial-year cliff edge today as the fund's continuation remained unconfirmed.
Vital therapy under the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund helps to prevent children from returning to the care system. Picture: PixelShot/AdobeStock
“This would be one of the cruellest cuts yet, punishing the most vulnerable children in our society,” states a petition calling for the renewal of the fund for 2025/26, addressed to minister for children Janet Daby.
The ASGSF is widely considered to provide essential and cost-effective form of early help protecting permanency in adoption and guardianships, helping to prevent children from returning to the care system.
However, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has failed to confirm its extension – instead appearing to suggest that the issue may be dealt with as part of welfare reform.
The petition, which has attracted close to 3,000 signatures since launching a fortnight ago, continues: “We demand that the government immediately renew the ASGSF for 2025/26 or replace it with an equivalent funding stream to ensure these children continue receiving the support they desperately need.”
Among those entitled to support were children whose permanence placements had broken down, and those in kinship care arrangements
Lucy Peake, chief executive of charity Kinship, said she was “seriously concerned” over the lack of clarity around the fund’s future and the “detrimental impact this is having on kinship families who desperately need therapeutic support”, adding: “Children who enter kinship care have typically experienced significant trauma, separation and loss.
“That’s why the ASGSF remains a vital lifeline for many kinship families, often helping children in kinship care to navigate complex challenges with their mental health, identity and family relationships.”
Peake highlighted the charity’s 2024 annual survey, in which 13% of kinship carers told us they were worried whether they could continue caring for their children; with nearly three quarters (72%) saying this was due to difficulties in managing their kinship children’s social, emotional and/or mental health needs.
“If we are to avoid the catastrophe of children being placed back into an already overstretched care system, it is essential that additional funding for the ASGSF is confirmed as soon as possible,” she continued.
Two West Sussex-based kinship carers highlighted the positive impact of the fund for them, having cared for their nine-year-old granddaughter since she was six months old, with sessions helping her deal with trauma around abandonment.
“Our granddaughter has made immense progress since she started this vital therapy, so it’s crucial that she continues with it, but we are extremely worried that the ASGSF funding may end at the end of this month,” he said, adding: “If our granddaughter is no longer able to receive funding for this crucial support, we would be left trying to find £5,000 a year from our pension income…
“If they can’t be helped to cope with their trauma then they and society end up paying one way or another in the end and that's not an outcome we would want.”
Joining calls for the fund’s extension Nigel Minns, chair of the ADCS Health, Care and Additional Needs Policy Committee urged the government to provide “certainty for all those involved, including children, families, providers and local authorities” by not only renewing the fund, but making it more accessible “to avoid breaks in therapy and ensure more children and families get the help and support they need when it is needed”.
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