18,000 vulnerable children could lose 'vital' therapy as adoption fund faces axe

18,000 vulnerable children could lose 'vital' therapy as adoption fund faces axe

Connie Dimsdale

Education and News Reporter

March 31, 2025 5:00 am (Updated 12:14 pm)

The Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund is due to expire on Monday 31 March - with no guarantee that it will be renewed

Adoptive parent Sarah said her seven-year-old daughter will ‘regress’ if the scheme is cut (Photo: Supplied)

Thousands of vulnerable children could lose access to “vital” therapy if the Government axes its adoption support scheme, The i Paper can reveal.

The Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF), which provides therapy for more than 18,000 young people, is due to expire on Monday 31 March – with no guarantee from Labour that it will continue.

The Department for Education (DfE) has promised to set out more details about its plans “as soon as possible”.

But parents fear a months-long application backlog is building as families have been told by local authorities they cannot apply for 2025/26 funding unless the Government commits to extending the fund.

And children’s mental health charities are fearing the worst, with The Purple Elephant Project in Twickenham, London, launching a crowdfunding target of £50,000 to “save vital therapy services” for adopted children.

“Due to an imminent potential funding cut on March 31 2025, over 50 of our vulnerable children and their families are at risk of losing the vital therapy services they rely on, which could lead to devastating consequences,” the charity states on its website.

Under the scheme, local authorities and adoption agencies could apply for £5,000 per year per child for therapy and £2,500 per year for specialist assessments.

Children will be able to continue receiving therapy into the new financial year if applications were agreed and treatment was started before March 2025.

What is the adoption and special guardianship support fund?

The fund pays for essential therapeutic services, such as creative therapies for people aged up to 21, or 25 if they have an education, health and care plan.

Those who are eligible include those who were previously in local authority care in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, or are adopted from overseas.

It can be used to pay for creative therapies including art, music, drama and play therapy.

Aims of the therapies include improving a child’s relationship with friends, family members, teachers and school staff.

It can also pay for specialist assessments that lead to a therapeutic support plan for families.

Each child can received £5,000 per child for therapy and £2,500 for specialist assessments.

But any families waiting for the fresh funding allocation will be left in limbo, with applications currently unable to go forward.

Adoptive parent Sarah, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, attempted to start an application to continue her seven-year-old daughter’s therapy from April after running out of last year’s £5,000 allocation in October.

But she was told by the local authority in February that she needed to wait until it was clear whether the scheme would be renewed. A month later, there is still no clarity from the Government, leaving Sarah fearing that the scheme will be cut altogether.

“This is supposed to be breaking the cycle, but it’s going to be very hard to do that without extra support, because it doesn’t matter how nice we are or how much we love her, she’s traumatised and needs more professional help than we’re able to give,” she told The i Paper.

Sarah’s daughter is one of 18,030 children who used the support fund in 2024, according to Janet Daby, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the DfE.

She was adopted at the age of four and has benefited from sensory and attachment therapy to help her develop healthy relationships and move beyond her troubled past. But since the funding ran out, Sarah said her daughter’s mental state has started to “regress”.

She said: “Because she’s young, the earlier you can do this work, the better the long-term outlook for her life.

“If we can address these things with her sooner rather than later, she can begin, hopefully, to live a normal life. She’s not been able to do that so far because she’s all consumed with keeping herself safe.

“She’s built up barriers in herself where she does not feel anything. She doesn’t cry, she doesn’t laugh. She has done everything in her little body to stop feeling and letting anything impact her.”

Lucy Peake, chief executive of the charity Kinship, said she is “seriously concerned” about the lack of clarity surrounding the future of ASGSF.

“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,” she said.

Munira Wilson MP, Liberal Democrat education, children and families spokesperson, warned that the “life-changing” adoption fund is “teetering on a cliff edge” due to Labour’s refusal to clarify its plans.

It called for the government to make an “eleventh-hour U-turn” and guarantee that the fund will be renewed for the next financial year.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Children in care deserve the best life chances and adoption enables more children to grow up in safe, loving homes.

“Through our Plan for Change, we’re committed to ensuring all children are able to achieve and thrive, which is why adoptive families will be at the heart of our plans to re-balance the system to provide earlier support and greater stability for children.

“We will set out more details on the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund as soon as possible.”