Did you know that there are no accurate statistics about the number of care-experienced children in our schools? Perhaps that’s why the government has found it so easy to cut the funding that’s meant to support them. In fact, did you even know that had happened?
According to the Department for Education, in 2024 the number of children who left care through an special guardianship order (SGO) was 3,860 and the number of children who left care through adoption was 2,980.
If we work on the basis that approximately 6,500 children leave the care system every year and multiply this number by twelve, it would be fair to assume that there are in excess of 70,000 care-experienced children in our schools. Most have been removed from their birth parents due to abuse, neglect or violence.
According to Adoption UK’s 2024 Breaking the barriers to school attendance report, as many as half of adopted children and those living under SGOs are struggling to take their seats in the classroom.
They are more likely to have additional needs, to struggle with school attendance, to be in internal exclusion or on a part-time timetable, and to be suspended or permanently excluded.
Children who have experienced early childhood trauma may find themselves regularly having a fight/flight/freeze trauma response. They may experience sensory overload or be unable to cope with the number of demands put on them in schools. They might struggle making and keeping friends.
Many just simply don’t feel safe when they are away from their primary care-giver.
In 2015, in recognition of the additional challenges they face, the Adoption Support Fund was introduced. The ASF entitled children to access up to £5,000 a year in therapeutic support and offered a further £2,500 for specialist assessments.
In 2023, the ASF was expanded to include those leaving care under Special Guardianship or Child Arrangement Orders. Under its new name of the adoption and special guardianship support fund (ASGSF), it can be used to cover a wide range of therapeutic support.
These cuts will have a catastrophic effect
Last month, however, the government slashed the fair access limit for the ASGSF to £3,000 and removed the assessment strand completely. The adoption and kinship care community has been left devastated. These cuts will have a catastrophic effect on these vulnerable children. We are calling on them to reconsider and to take urgent action to reverse the cuts.
In the meantime, the news may have gone unnoticed in education circles, but schools need to be aware that these cuts will affect them. Some 70,000 already-traumatised children are now suffering a significant reduction in support, which will almost certainly affect their behaviour in the classroom and playground.
Care-experienced children attract pupil premium funding of £2,570 per child per year. While this fund is not ring-fenced, in light of these changes, schools should consider carefully how they might use it to best support the care-experienced children in their schools. Some providers have introduced targeted educational support packages that can be funded with pupil premium payments.
In addition, many schools would benefit from up-to-date trauma training. Our understanding of trauma has changed significantly since I did my teacher training back in 2005, and many schools are still relying on outdated rewards and sanctions policies to try to force compliance.
Likewise, public rewards often exacerbate problems for children with developmental trauma, as they feel unable to meet expectations, go into toxic shame and may start to sabotage. Indeed, any one-size-fits-all sanctions policies are likely to miss things at best, and at worst exacerbate them.
The message from the adoption and kinship care community is clear: fund now or pay later. Thirty-nine per cent of care leavers aged 19 to 21 are not in education, employment or training, compared with 13 per cent of their peers. Care leavers make up 25 per cent of the adult homeless population and 25 per cent of the adult prison population.
While many schools may have only a relatively small number of care-experienced children on their roll, if all schools join the campaign to improve outcomes for care-experienced children, then we will be giving some of our most vulnerable children a future.
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