CoramBAAF Annual Review 2023

Annual review 2023

To our members...

As we reflect on the past year, all of us at CoramBAAF want to say a big thank you to all of you for your unwavering dedication to improving the lives of the children, young people, and families you work with. Without your commitment, our vision would not be possible – that every child and family have the care and support they need to thrive.

While this document highlights our achievements in 2023, it is our members who shape and guide us. As professionals working across adoption, fostering, and kinship care, you determine our mission; supporting and empowering professionals to do the best for children and families who come into contact with adoption, fostering and kinship care.

During the year, we responded to the calls for change in policy and practice prompted by the Cumbria child safeguarding practice review. We provided support to social workers working with Ukrainian children and young people living in kinship arrangements. And our inaugural Private Fostering Awareness Day underscored the importance of sharing knowledge and information to improve practice.

Collaborating with Regional Adoption Agencies, we facilitated free lunch and learn sessions that explored diversity in adoption. These discussions highlighted gaps in understanding, particularly around transracial adoption and LGBTQ+ adoption. We hosted ‘Understanding careexperienced young people’s intersectional identities, through their stories’ and ‘Embracing diversity: supporting trans, non-binary and gender diverse adopters’ as part of the programme.

Our recent publications, including “Child to Parent Violence and Aggression” and “Working with Children who have experienced neglect”, as well as the articles in our “Adoption & Fostering” journal, have explored the critical priorities within children’s social care. We hope that the ideas, insight and research shared by the authors have helped to address your needs and facilitate best practice across the sector.

In 2023, we welcomed the Outbound Permanence Service to CoramBAAF, expanding our advice and information services with new expertise and resources. Thank you for being an essential part of making our mission and vision a reality. Together, we continue to make a positive impact in the lives of those we serve.

We look forward to working with you in 2024.

Yours sincerely,

Ellen Broomé

Managing Director, CoramBAAF

Policy, research and development

Throughout the year we delivered high quality, evidence-based policy and practice advice, guidance and information to our members and other relevant stakeholders, including central and local government

Implications of the Cumbria child safeguarding practice review

After the tragic murder of Leiland-James Corkill, the Cumbria Safeguarding Children Partnership conducted a practice review, proposing recommendations such as improved information sharing and updating medical assessments for potential adopters.

In 2023, a multi-agency working group, including CoramBAAF, reviewed these recommendations, emphasising the use of recently revised adult health forms and updated financial assessment forms for adoption processes across the UK

Frequently asked questions regarding Ukrainian children and young people living in kinship arrangements in England

We've curated a suite of resources aimed at guiding professionals through the intricate intersection of social care and immigration law.

We created a poster that outlines the actions we recommend you take to support Ukrainian children living in kinship arrangements in England - a clear and informative snapshot for you to download For those seeking a deeper understanding, we ' ve developed a comprehensive FAQ document specifically for professionals directly engaged with Ukrainian children and their families.

Private Fostering Awareness Day

In November, we launched our first Private Fostering Awareness Day. We hosted two events, a ‘Breakfast Briefing’ for social workers new to private fostering and a ‘Lunch and Learn’ for those already working in the private fostering area. We also released updated resources including our advice note and children’s guide.

Lunch and learn series in collaboration with RAA leaders

On behalf of regional adoption agency leaders, we delivered a series of open access webinars exploring promising practices in adoption work around diversity. These included:

Embracing diversity: supporting trans, non-binary and gender diverse adopters Expressions of self: understanding care-experienced young peoples' intersectional identities, through their stories

Family finding and adoption assessment: key considerations in relation to diversity and good practice

Foster Carer Advisory Committee visit Downing Street

We accompanied nine members of our Foster Carer Advisory Committee to No.10 Downing Street for a round table event hosted by the Secretary of State for Education Rt Hon Gillian Keegan MP and then Children’s Minister, Claire Coutinho MP; to celebrate the work of foster carers.

Publications

We are one of the UK’s leading publishers with over 200 titles in print. Our books are designed to help social workers, legal and health professionals, adopters, foster carers and more to make informed decisions, gain valuable insights, and receive expert advice and information.

Our eBookstore

We launched our ebookstore where a large and diverse range of titles can now be bought as digital only versions All eBookstore purchases are held in customers’ personalised online libraries, where they can be stored and viewed either via a browser or through an app on a phone or tablet.

‘Adoption & Fostering’ journal

Our quarterly peer-reviewed journal has an international reputation as one of the world’s leading sources of research, knowledge and information for academics, practitioners and all those interested in adoption, fostering, kinship and childcare practice. This year we welcomed Dennis Golm from the University of Southampton as the new Journal Editor.

In October we published a special edition, ‘The digital turn in child and family social work: Challenges, opportunities and imagined futures’, featuring a range of articles exploring the impact that digital technologies are having on care-experienced children and young people and those who work with them. Published

Over

99,600 journal article downloads

Over

22,700 books sold in 2023

We respond to over

3,200 enquiries every year

“I genuinely appreciate all the advice you have provided throughout the year; it has made a significant positive impact on me supporting my organisation. I could not have done it without your input and solid, sound advice”.

“Thank you so much, clear and concise and we absolutely know what to do now. You are all so knowledgeable, and it’s such a comfort to have you as a safety net!”

From April 2024 access to the Outbound Permanence Service will become a benefit for local authority, regional adoption agency, regional collaborative and health and social care trust members in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Advice and information

Our Advice Line continues to deliver an essential service to members. With expert input from our policy and practice specialists as well as in-house legal and health consultants, the team responds to thousands of enquiries every year.

The Information Service supports members, groups and colleagues across CoramBAAF with up-to-date research, developments, resources and statistics

Outbound Permanence Service

In July, the Outbound Permanence Service, formerly part of IAC – The Centre for Adoption, joined CoramBAAF. The service provides specialist advice to local authorities with children in care proceedings whose plan is to move them to kinship carers (family members or friends) living overseas.

Training and events

We deliver high-quality training, conference and consultancy services for social work, health and legal professionals, foster carers and adopters.

Our extensive programme of webinars – free for CoramBAAF members – cover a diverse range of themes and emerging issues and provide a platform for experts with lived or learnt experience.

We delivered nine Exploring Expertise webinars. Highlights included:

Enhancing anti-racist practice in services supporting permanence for children and young people

Microaggressions experienced by LGBTQ+ foster carers

Accessing records for care-experienced and adopted people

We delivered eight Learning from Research webinars including: Experiences of special guardians and practitioners when facilitating contact between children and their parents

Family Group Conferencing in pre-proceedings

Making long-term foster care a positive permanence option

New and innovative training

Journey of the child | For Agency Decision Makers

This training provided a reflective place for those making major decisions that have a huge impact on a child’s life and those around them. It was delivered across the UK by our Adoption and Legal Consultants to explore regulations, improve skills, and consider case study examples to support best practices.

1,363 peopleattendedour events

2,127 peopleattendedour training

200 trainingcourses Weranover

Early Permanence | The Law and Practice

Early Permanence is a child-centred approach that provides crucial earlystage stability while a court decides the final care plan for a child. Our training explored the fundamentals of Early Permanence, the legal context, national perspectives, developments and changes.

Members’ Week

From 25-29 September hundreds of our members came together to explore key topics and best practices that mirror the journey of children and young people through the care system. We ran webinars on the challenging complexities of kinship care planning and the impact and implications of how professionals talk and write about young people in care; we published podcasts on the barriers and support available to care-experienced people waiting to access their records and what health assessments are and how they are used; we hosted a panel discussion on whether being ‘ care experienced’ should be a protected characteristic with experts including Terry Galloway; and much more.

Annual Health Conference

In June over 100 delegates attended - ‘Safe in care or in harm’s way? Recognising and responding to risks to keep children in care safe’ - our annual conference for health professionals A range of speakers reflected on recent child safeguarding practice reviews and how recommendations impact practice. Attendees explored the links between experiencing adversity and trauma and the impact on vulnerability and potential safeguarding issues.

Did you know that you’re probably already a member?

94% of local authorities are members. If yours is, then so are you.

Take advantage of your organisation's membership by creating a personal website account. This will give you access to a range of membership benefits, including webinar recordings, our journal, our practice forums and much more.