City’s adoption services praised by Ofsted

Adoption services in Brighton & Hove have been singled out for praise by Ofsted in its national 2016 Social Care Annual Report.

Brighton & Hove City Council’s adoption team is the lead agency in the city. It has helped create a ‘culture of city-wide responsibility’ for adoption service by working very closely with the local NHS, youth services, schools, educational psychologists and voluntary groups.

Bradley Simmons, Ofsted’s South East Director, said this had made a significant and positive difference to the quality and extent of adoption support.

Sensitive and timely support helped children build trusting and enduring attachments to their adoptive parents.

Specialist parenting programmes were readily available, and the joint approach meant professionals could identify and respond swiftly and appropriately to meet adopted children’s additional needs.

Mr Simmons also praised the attention paid to targeting educational support for adopted children.

He said: “Brighton and Hove is a prime example of what can be achieved when senior leaders across a wide range of agencies work together to take collective responsibility, rather than seeing it as the sole charge of a local authority.”

The chair of the council’s children, young people and schools committee, Councillor Tom Bewick, said: “Good professional practice by our front-line children’s services staff combined with strong leadership are the keys to delivering high quality services.

“This praise confirms that we’re going about things the right way and are on track for achieving our goal of an ‘outstanding’ Ofsted rating by 2019.”