- Promote cultural competence: Recognise and respect the cultural backgrounds of adopted children and their families by commissioning culturally sensitive and responsive services that promote a sense of identity and belonging.
- Be flexible and accessible: Meet the varied needs of children and families by providing support in different formats, such as online resources, support groups, and personalised one-on-one support.
- Foster collaborative partnerships: Build collaborative relationships between social workers, commissioners, and service providers, engaging adoptive families in the commissioning process to align services with their needs through open and transparent processes.
- Training and development: Ensure those involved in commissioning have the necessary skills and knowledge to address the evolving needs of adopted children and their families.
- Early intervention services: Offer timely support to prevent issues from escalating and contribute to the long-term well-being of adopted children and their families.
What is Commissioning?
Commissioning is the process for deciding how to use the total resources available for families to improve outcomes in the most efficient, effective, equitable, and sustainable way. Adoption England has a small commissioning team which oversees the delivery of national projects to improve outcomes for adopted children and their families.
Adoption England's Commissioning Programme
Adoption England's commissioning programme (formally The National Adoption Commissioning Programme) is a two-year initiative designed to enhance adoption support services nationwide.
This programme, running until March 2025, aims to establish both national and pan-regional commissioning arrangements for adoption support. It covers the entire commissioning cycle: analysis and planning, implementation, monitoring, and review.
To achieve sustainable improvements in adoption support services, a collaborative effort is required.
A long-term vision for the commissioning of adoption support has been developed to guide stakeholders over the next 3 to 5 years. This vision provides a clear direction, encouraging engagement and commitment from all involved parties.
Our Long-Term Vision:
- For adopted children, young people, and their families: They will have access to timely, high-quality support that meets their needs. Satisfaction with the support received is paramount, with their views playing a crucial role in shaping the services offered.
- For Regional Adoption Agencies (RAAs) and Local Authority (LA) Staff: There will be a shared understanding of what constitutes high-quality support, ensuring confidence in offering this to families at a fair price. RAAs and LA staff will understand their service needs and commission them effectively, using streamlined processes and shared arrangements where appropriate.
- For Providers: A dynamic market will include a variety of flexible providers whose services are tailored to needs. Streamlined processes will improve support for providers, and trusted relationships with commissioners will encourage providers to invest in and enhance their services.
To help develop and shape the Programme, RAA leaders and wider stakeholders were involved in a comprehensive engagement process. This collaborative process led to the development of an implementation strategy, outlining how the programme will be delivered to achieve the shared goals.
To achieve the programme's goals, the Community of Practice for the Commissioning of Adoption Support is being developed to foster shared learning and continuous improvement in adoption support commissioning. This community brings together commissioners and practitioners involved in providing services to adopted children and their families. Key efforts include facilitating information sharing, setting quality assurance standards, offering guidance and training on commissioning processes, advising on procurement regulations, providing shared resources, hosting discussion forums, supporting providers, and conducting various learning sessions.
Commissioning Adoption Support
Adoption support commissioners include everyone involved in the adoption support process. This includes individuals in strategic positions, procurement roles, and social workers who help adoptive families access support.
The Commissioning Process
There are three stages to the commissioning process:
- Analyse and Plan: Using data to identify the current and future needs of families, analysing existing services and their effectiveness, and developing commissioning strategies.
- Implement: Engaging with the market to understand and encourage providers, writing service specifications and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and purchasing services.
- Monitor and Review: Managing contracts, ensuring quality, and reviewing provider performance.
These three stages form a continuous, cyclical process that drives the commissioning of adoption support services. The feedback loop created by the Monitor and Review stage should inform the Analyse and Plan stage of each subsequent cycle, fostering continuous improvement in service delivery. This approach ensures that adoption support services are consistently enhanced to better meet the needs of families, as outlined in the Blueprint for an Adoption Support Service by CoramBAAF.
Key Principles for Commissioning in Children’s Services
- Base decisions on identified needs of adoptive families: Decisions should be based on the identified needs of adoptive families, as outlined in CoramBAAF’s Blueprint. This involves a collaborative and ongoing process with social workers, the adopted child and adoptive family, and other professionals.
- Be outcomes-driven: Commissioning activities should strongly focus on improving outcomes rather than just outputs. By agreeing on clear intended outcomes, a shared vision can be ensured for everyone involved in planning and delivering adoption support services. Outcomes measurement should be integrated into your monitoring and review processes.
- Effective use of money: Where necessary, commissioning processes should be used to decommission services which are inefficient, ineffective, inequitable, or unsustainable.
- Use data effectively: Strategically use demographic data, feedback from adoptive families, and outcome measurements across the commissioning cycle to base decisions on robust analysis and evidence.
- Continuous quality improvement: Establish a system for regular monitoring and review of services, seeking feedback from adoptive families to identify improvements for future commissioning cycles.
National Picture of Adoption Support Commissioning
To improve our collective understanding of the needs of adoptive families now and in the future, the National Picture of Adoption Support Commissioning has been developed, using:
- Collated data provided to pan-regions via the core team from Coram-I and the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF), as well as data submitted by pan-regions to the core team on services not funded by the ASGSF.
- Insights from 8 Regional Strategic Commissioning Needs Assessments which have included the voice of those affected by adoption.
Through insights from regional needs assessments, we can now begin to evidence the needs of adopted children and their families nationally, allowing for the prediction of needs and planning of adoption support services required. Collaboration is key to securing and understanding effective and efficient services for adopted people and their families to get tailored help and support when they need it. This is the beginning of ongoing work to inform strategic commissioning.
Adoption England Commissioning Webinar
Hear about the work regional adoption agencies are doing to improve our collective understanding of the needs of adoptive families now and in the future through the Adoption England Commissioning Programme.
Independent Evaluation
The Institute of Public Care (IPC) at Oxford Brookes University has been commissioned by Adoption England to carry out an independent evaluation of the Programme. The evaluation commenced in February 2024 and will end in June 2025. The focus of this interim report is to consider what progress has been made so far.
Evaluation of the National Adoption Commissioning Programme by IPC - YouTube
Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) pilot
The ASGSF development pilot is being run by Adoption England on behalf of the Department for Education.
During the pilot, funding will be devolved to five pan-regions to develop and deliver a core offer and early support provision in their area.
The pilot will allow teams to recruit and retain staff and to develop partnerships, with the aim of improving pathways for children and young people to access better and more timely support. The involvement of in-house teams will help to build a more comprehensive knowledge of what works, and identify and resolve problems at the earliest opportunity.
The pilot will also test the viability of pan-regional commissioning to achieve sustainable, consistent and quality adoption support services.
