What is the Adoption Support Fund (ASF)?

 

On 24th January 2013, the Department for Education (DfE) published their report ‘Further Action on Adoption: Finding more loving homes’, setting out their proposals to attract adopters and improve the support available to adoptive families. This led to the implementation of the Prototype Adoption Support Fund in December 2013 which has been working with ten Local Authorities to generate sustainable improvement to the assessment and provision of appropriate therapeutic support to adoptive families.

 

Now with a simplified application process and refined funding criteria the Adoption Support Fund was opened to all 152 Local Authorities in England on 1st May 2015. We encourage all Local Authorities to make applications for funding to provide post-adoption therapeutic support and would be pleased to discuss any questions or suggestions that you might have. 


News / Events

Get Aggregated RSS

NEWSFLASH: ASF Specialist Assessment

14 September 2017

Following a number of requests for clarification, this newsflash provides further information on the definition of ‘Specialist Assessment’ under the Specialist Assessment Fair Access Limit...

NEWSFLASH: Multi-million fund reaches record number of adoptive families

02 August 2017

On the 2nd August, Robert Goodwill, Minister for Children and Families, publicised the success of the Adoption Support Fund. 

He announced that, £52 million has been released through the Fund so far, reaching 22,000 children and 18,000 families...

 

NEWSFLASH: ASF Applications: ASF Application Portal for 2017/18

31 March 2017

Following feedback from local authorities, a new re-designed ASF Application Portal will come into effect from 1 April 2017. The new portal is currently being developed and will be more user friendly and support the Fair Access Limits requirements.

 

The ASF Team will be holding a series of webinars from the middle of March, to help support you with the transition to the new portal and answer any questions that you may have.

 

Please look out for further newsflashes, which will provide details of when the webinars will be and how you can register to attend.

The Adoption Support Fund – 2017/18

03 February 2017

On the 25th January, Edward Timpson, the Minister of State for Vulnerable Children and Families, wrote to Directors of Children’s Services to inform them of changes to the ASF Fair Access Limit from April 2017.  The changes take into account the implementation of this year’s Fair Access Limit and matched funding approach.