A NEW regional adoption agency for Devon, Plymouth, Torbay and Somerset is set to be formed and will shorten waiting times for children awaiting adoption.

The new single regional adoption service – Adopt South West – has been formed as the Government wants adoption services to work together, so 152 council adoption services will become 19 Regional Adoption Agencies.

The move is expected to improve the adoption process; making it simpler for adoptive parents, and quicker so children awaiting adoption are waiting less time.

Working regionally expands the pool of adoption-ready parents to match children with and that means children will not be waiting for adoption for as long.

Devon County Council’s cabinet unanimously approved a recommendation for establishing a Regional Adoption Agency last week.

Cllr James McInnes, Devon County Council’s Cabinet Member with responsibility for the Council’s adoption service, said: “This is the right step for the region. We have a lot of good practice to draw upon, that when shared will improve the service such that children will wait less time to be adopted, and parents will receive the same high standard of support.”

Council adoption services – 152 of them nationally – have tended to operate independently to a large extent, with individual budgets and with variation in the levels of support offered by councils to adoptive parents.

At present, they match children in their care to potential adopters from within their own pool of adoption-ready parents. And where they can’t find a suitable match between a child and an adopter from within their pool, they make the placement with adopters in other Council areas.

Children across the four authority areas currently wait on average anywhere from about six months to longer for adoption.

But under the new arrangement, the time a child waits across all four council areas is expected to be significantly reduced, positioning the region as having one of the shortest waiting times for adoption in the UK.

If you’re interested in finding out more about adoption, please visit the Adopt South West website or freephone 0800 0832227.