Regional Adoption Agency helping children find permanent homes celebrates first birthday

The Regional Adoption Agency, Together4Children have celebrated its first birthday.

The innovate partnership works across the region to find homes for children in care who require a permanent family through adoption and aims to offer a greater level of support to adopters and adopted children.

Shropshire Council, Staffordshire County Council, Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Telford & Wrekin Council joined forces to create the Together4Children adoption agency on 28^th September 2020.

By working together over the last year, the four councils have increased the opportunity to find the right homes for all children in the region who need an adoptive family. Before this, each council only had access to a smaller number of potential adopters, making it harder to find the right family to meet a child’s individual needs. This meant children with specific needs, older children, and those children who needed to live with their brothers and sisters sometimes waited longer before a permanent home was found for them.

Bringing services together has also helped Together4Children offer a broader range of services that provide support to adopted children and their families in the region.

Councillor Dave Evans, cabinet member for children and young people at Stoke-on-Trent City Council said: “The first year of Together4Children has been a great success. The new partnership between the four authorities has helped us match children with the right carers more quickly, which provides greater stability for children and offers more support for parents. Children are our number one priority and as a corporate parent we want our children in care to achieve a sense of security and belonging.”

For more information about adoption in this region see www.together4children.co.uk