CYP Adoption statement of purpose 2024-25

The address of your Adoption Team is;

Family Adoption Links
North Lincolnshire Adoption
Church Square House
30 – 40 High Street
Scunthorpe
North Lincolnshire
DN15 6NL

Telephone: 01724 297024

1 For Starters

Every Adoption Team has to write a Statement of Purpose. This is so that everyone knows what the Adoption Team does and the rules that it has to follow.

Some of the rules that we have to follow are in these important papers;

• National Minimum Standards for Adoption 2014
• Statutory Guidance on Adoption 2013

You should have a chance to see this Statement of Purpose. We make sure it is on the Council’s webpages www.northlincs.gov.uk and we also give it to every adopted young person that we are working with.

Every year we review this so that you can see what we will be doing and what we want to achieve.

The people who check we are doing what we need to do are from Ofsted and their details are;

OFSTED
Piccadilly Street
Store Street
Manchester
M1 2WD
Telephone 0300 123 1231
Email; enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk

Your opinion is important to us and we make sure that we listen to your suggestions.

We want you to tell us what is working well and if you think there is something we can be doing better. The different ways you can contact us are included in this Statement of Purpose.

2  What Adopted Young People say we should do

We run an adopted young person’s group for young people aged nearly seven years old and all the way up to 18 years old. The young people who come to this group have called the group ‘Superkidz’s’.

Here are some of the things that they said the Adoption Team should do;

• Help with any troubles
• Give information
• Give support
• Help answer questions about birth families
• Be friendly
• Listen to young people
• Be nice to people
• Treat people fairly
• Help children find a family
• To keep arranging for adopted young people to meet.

3  What the Adoption Team will do

We will do all the above and…

• You are all different and have your own opinions so we will listen to you in how best to support you and your family.
• We will ask you what you think about the Adoption Team. This helps us find out the best way we can help.
• We will ask you for any ideas about things we can do.
• What you say is always important to us.
• We will be respectful
• We will find out about everyone’s needs and make sure all are treated fairly and with respect.
• We will be available to help with troubles.
• We will give information about the support and services we provide. We will make sure that we do this by talking and also by writing things down.
• We will try to answer all your questions. Sometimes the answer may be difficult to hear, and we will always be around to support you and to help you work it out.
• It’s important that you are safe and that you are given every chance to succeed, and this means having a goal for your future. We will do whatever we can to help with this.

Examples of Services we will provide for you:

• We can give you a Children’s Guide to Adoption.
• We can give you a guide to Adoption Support Services in North Lincolnshire.
• We also have an After 18 guide to Adoption.
• We can help with collecting memories and in collecting information for your life story book.
• We can try to help sort out things to do with Keeping in Touch (contact) with birth relatives or other important people in your life.
• Sometimes you may need to talk to someone else, like a therapist. This can be the case when things feel very complicated, and space and time is needed to work some things out. An Adoption Social Worker or Therapist may be the best person to help you do this. Either way, we will help you find someone you can talk to on a one to one.
• We will make sure you have the dates for the Superkidz group.
• We can arrange different training, for example, we can help schools understand a little more about what it is like to be adopted. Or you might want to learn about something in particular. If you let us know then we might be able to arrange it.
• Every year we will also invite you to any events that we host.

4 Important News

The Government is always looking at different ways we can work to make sure that we are providing the very best services for you. One of the things that they have asked is that Local Authority Adoption Agencies, likes ours, join with other Local Authority Adoption Agencies to form a Regional Adoption Agency. This means that we will become ‘bigger’ and we can share the different things we do.

* A Local Authority is the people responsible for the area you live in, usually the ‘county’ you are in. For us, this is North Lincolnshire.

From October 2020, we became part of a Regional Adoption Agency which is called Family Adoption Links. The other adoption agencies that are in our Regional Adoption Agency are Lincolnshire and Rutland, Leicestershire, Leicester City and Northamptonshire.

We will keep you updated and let you know all the things you need to know about this as they happen. We will also make sure that we keep your Statement of Purpose, updated with news around this. The important thing you need to know for now is that you can continue to contact us in the same way, using the same number and that our team address will remain the same.

We now have an online group “Collabor8” for adopted young people aged 12 to 18 in all 5 local authorities. The people in the group share their views about the team, what adopted young people and their families need and how Family Adoption Links can help them. We value the information given by the young people in the group and offer a voucher of choice for £25 for everyone who can join us at a meeting.

5 How to contact the Team

If you would like to know more about adoption or to share any suggestions you have then please contact;

Catherine Francis, Lead Officer Adoption – 01724 297024 or catherine.francis@northlincs.gov.uk

If you are unhappy about anything then you can also contact Catherine who will work with you to come up with the best way to sort out what is making you unhappy.

You can also contact the Adoption Duty Worker on 01724 297024.

We have an Adoption Duty Worker Monday to Friday at the following times;

• Monday – Thursday 1pm – 5pm
• Friday 1pm – 4.30pm

Or email us at adoption@northlincs.gov.uk

Your email will be read by our adoption social workers who will respond on the same day. (Monday to Friday)

As well as Catherine…

In North Lincolnshire we have someone who can give advice about adoption support. This person is called an Adoption Support Services Advisor and she is called Karen Everatt. You can contact Karen at karen.everatt@northlincs.gov.uk or write to her at the below address.

The Adoption Support Services Advisor
North Lincolnshire Council
30 – 40 Church Square House
Scunthorpe
North Lincolnshire
DN15 6NL

Or, you can speak to an Adoption Duty Worker on 01724 297024 and ask that they tell Karen that you want to speak to her.

6. Other Useful Information;

Making a Complaint

If you are really unhappy with the service from the North Lincolnshire Adoption and you have tried to tell us but you don’t think that it has been sorted, you can contact the Complaints Person and she is called Lesley Cooper. Contact details are:

Lesley Cooper, Contact and Relationship Manager
North Lincolnshire Council
Church Square House
30 – 40 High Street
Scunthorpe
North Lincolnshire
DN15 6NL

Telephone Number 01724 297069
Email Lesley.Cooper@northlincs.gov.uk

If you remain unsatisfied with our response you may wish to contact the Local Government Ombudsman on 0300 061 0614.

The Children’s Commissioner for England

The Children’s Commissioner for England promotes and protects children’s rights in England. The Commissioner does this by listening to what children and young people say about what matters to them and making sure adults in charge take their views and
interests into account. Contact details are;

The Office of the Children’s Commissioner
Sanctuary Buildings
20 Great Smith Street
London
SW1P 3BT

Tel: 020 7783 8330
Email: info.request@childrenscommissioner.gsi.gov.uk