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Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund

The Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) provides us with funding to pay for essential therapeutic services for eligible adoptive families.

Eligibility

The £50 million fund is available for children who live in England up to and including the age of 21 (or 25 with a statement of special educational needs or an education health and care plan) who:

  • are adopted and were previously in local authority care in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
  • are adopted from overseas.
  • are under a child arrangements order (CAO) to enable the assessment of a potential special guardian, while the CAO is in force.
  • are subject to a Special Guardianship Order and were previously in care.

Maximum funding allocation for each child

Until the end of March 2026, the ASGSF will have a single fair access limit of:

  • £3,000 per child per year for therapy
  • Specialist assessments up to the level of £2,500 per child will be considered, but only within the overall £3,000 fair access limit.

This will maximise the number of children who are able to benefit from the ASGSF.

We know that the reduction in the fair access limit will have an impact on families and will continue to work with parents and providers to support as many families as possible.

Get an assessment

To access the fund, we'll need to assess your family's adoption support needs.

To request an assessment, you can email us at adoption.partnership@kent.gov.uk or call 03000 422373.

What happens next

If, through our assessment, we decide that therapeutic services would be beneficial to your family, we will apply for funding on your behalf.

Once the funding has been received , we'll speak to you about who can provide the support you need and which provider you would prefer.

For more information, check the list of frequently asked questions on the Adoption UK website.

Outstanding applications

We are working on applications that were prepared before the ‘Fair Access Limit’ change as they will need to be amended and resubmitted. Any applications that were previously approved as ‘split-year’ from 2024/25 into 2025/26 will be honoured by the ASGSF.

We appreciate that these changes will cause some concern about what this means and the impact it will have on families. We are also adjusting to these changes and appreciate your understanding while we get used to how things will work going forward.