Skills of voluntary adoption agencies should be exploited

EDITOR—The government's white paper on adoption is ambitious indeed1 and addresses some of the problems highlighted in Mather's editorial.2

Some voluntary agencies in the United Kingdom specialise in adoption work. In 1999 an inspection of voluntary adoption agencies showed that local authorities often lacked any strategic planning links with them and rarely used the specialist skills of the social workers.3 Establishing early links and working in partnership with the voluntary agencies can help in finding adoptive parents for “hard to place” children. The agencies' skill in recruiting and supporting adoptive parents should be exploited. The report found that local authorities often made ad hoc decisions about purchasing or providing services …