Part 1 of The Children and Families Act 2014 contains provisions to go through with proposals made in ‘An Action Plan for Adoption: Tackling Delay’ (Department of Education, 2012). The government has made investments of four and half million pounds to end delays for children awaiting adoption; 4,060 children had an adoption decision but were not yet placed at 31 March 2015), on average adoption delays of one year and nine months (Department of Education, 2015). Longer delays were caused by seeking a perfect or partial ethnic match for the child. Charles et al (1992) and Thoburn et al (2000) highlighted that Black Minority Children remained amongst the most difficult children to place, on average delays being up to one year longer. Researcher
…show more content…
Initially the Adoption and Children’s Act (2002) section one, subsection five sought: ‘due consideration to be given to religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background’ of the child. An Action Plan for Adoption: Tackling Delay (2012) identified that local authorities found difficulties in finding matches and working to this legislation. Professional disagreement over ‘same race’ placements sometimes arose when white families applied to adopt minority ethnic children (Selwyn, et al 2008). This has lead to the UK Prime Minister committing to new legislation to ensure that policies of ethnic matching do not slow down the adoption of Black Minority children to white families, essentially to get children placed with adoptive families …show more content…
Under this section Educational Health Care Plan (EHC) has been introduced, replacing Statements of Special Educational Needs (SEN) or learning difficulty assessment. The primary goals are to give families a greater involvement in decisions about their support and to encourage social care, education and health services to work together when supporting those with special needs or disabilities (The Children and Families Act, 2014). The young person, their parents, carers or teachers can request the council to undertake an assessment. Once the assessment has taken place the council decides if the child or young person needs any additional support, the assessment itself must include the views of the young person and their parents, and they are fully included with the EHC Plan from the beginning. This is a considerable change, as under the previous legislation parents and the young person were consulted at the start and the end of the process but not as the SEN plan was progressing (Ko,
Initially the Adoption and Children’s Act (2002) section one, subsection five sought: ‘due consideration to be given to religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background’ of the child. An Action Plan for Adoption: Tackling Delay (2012) identified that local authorities found difficulties in finding matches and working to this legislation. Professional disagreement over ‘same race’ placements sometimes arose when white families applied to adopt minority ethnic children (Selwyn, et al 2008). This has lead to the UK Prime Minister committing to new legislation to ensure that policies of ethnic matching do not slow down the adoption of Black Minority children to white families, essentially to get children placed with adoptive families …show more content…
Under this section Educational Health Care Plan (EHC) has been introduced, replacing Statements of Special Educational Needs (SEN) or learning difficulty assessment. The primary goals are to give families a greater involvement in decisions about their support and to encourage social care, education and health services to work together when supporting those with special needs or disabilities (The Children and Families Act, 2014). The young person, their parents, carers or teachers can request the council to undertake an assessment. Once the assessment has taken place the council decides if the child or young person needs any additional support, the assessment itself must include the views of the young person and their parents, and they are fully included with the EHC Plan from the beginning. This is a considerable change, as under the previous legislation parents and the young person were consulted at the start and the end of the process but not as the SEN plan was progressing (Ko,