Project title

Exploring and comparing the costs of adoption 

Introduction

This work is further developing the unit costs for eight adoption processes that underpin the placement of children for adoption, from the point of the best interest decision to the completion of post adoption support. Detailed work is being undertaken in  four research sites exploring the costs of recruitment, assessment, linking and matching of potential adoptive parents. The study  is funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families as part of the Children in Need extension of the Cost Calculator. The work  builds on and takes further the unit costs developed by Selwyn and colleagues (2006).

Aims

• To explore how the unit costs of adoption processes can be weighted to include the costs of attrition at each stage of the recruitment, assessment and matching process.
• To provide robust unit costs for adoption processes that are suitable for use in the Cost Calculator for Children’s Services.

Progress

To gather time use activity data for the unit cost calculations, focus groups have been conducted with adoption teams in three local authorities. Detailed event records have been completed by members of the adoption team in one of the authorities. Adopter recruitment and attrition questionnaires have also been completed.

The data is currently being analysed and compiled into a short report.

Outputs

Holmes, L., Westlake, D. and Ward, H. (Forthcoming 2009) Variations in the Costs of Adoption: A study of practice in four local authorities. Loughborough: CCFR.

Reference

Selwyn, J., Sturgess, W., Quinton, D. and Baxter, C. (2006) Costs and Outcomes of Non-Infant Adoptions. London: BAAF.

Contact

Lisa Holmes, Research Fellow

Email: L.J.Holmes@lboro.ac.uk