Recent changes to the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) in England have sparked concern among charities, mental health experts, kinship carers, and adoptive parents. These cuts raise serious questions about duties to vulnerable children, equality of access to support, and long-term outcomes. This article explores what the cuts are, their legal context, what the evidence says about harms (especially mental health), and what might follow if the current trajectory continues.
Recent changes to the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) in England have sparked concern among charities, mental health experts, kinship carers, and adoptive parents. These cuts raise serious questions about duties to vulnerable children, equality of access to support, and long-term outcomes. This article explores what the cuts are, their legal context, what the evidence says about harms (especially mental health), and what might follow if the current trajectory continues.
What has changed: key reductions
To understand the harm, we must first highlight what was reduced or removed under ASGSF from April 2025. According to a briefing by the House of Commons Library and related policy organisations:
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The Fair Access Limit for therapy per child per year under ASGSF was reduced from £5,000 to £3,000.
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A separate allowance of £2,500 per child per year for specialist assessments has been removed.
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Match funding for high‐cost or exceptional cases where the fund would contribute (alongside local authorities etc) to therapy costs above the fair access limit. This is no longer available.
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Provisions allowing support to span across financial years have been curtailed; all therapy and assessment packages must now be completed by 31 March each financial year.
These changes were justified by government as necessary to ensure the sustainability of the fund in the face of rising demand and budget constraints. The overall pot is roughly stable, but individual child entitlements have been cut.
Legal framework & obligations under family law
Under the Adoption and Children Act 2002, adoptive parents are entitled to an assessment of adoption support needs from the relevant local authority. That includes considering mental health and therapeutic services. In respect of the Children Act 1989, and the Special Guardianship Regulations 2005, children previously looked after who come under Special Guardianship Orders (SGOs) also have rights to have their support needs assessed.
Many of these children have special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and may also have experienced trauma, loss, or neglect. Fair access to support becomes a question of whether statutory and legal rights are being undermined by funding cuts.
In essence, the law acknowledges that adoption or special guardianship does not erase past trauma; rather, additional support (especially therapeutic) is often required to meet children’s welfare needs, to help with attachment, behaviour, school functioning, and emotional regulation.
What the survey evidence shows: harms to mental health and family wellbeing
Multiple sources have demonstrated, including a recent survey described in Community Care, that the cuts are already having negative effects on the children that rely on the services.
- Negative impact on children’s mental health: Just over 80% of respondents to the survey said that changes to the ASGSF had had a negative impact on children’s mental health.
- Behavioural problems and family strain: Approximately three‐quarters said that children’s behaviour had worsened—this included increased aggression, self‐harm, or suicidal thoughts. Carers and parents spoke of rising violence in the home, emotional crises, and children losing trust in professionals.
- Delayed or stopped support: Families report therapy being stopped abruptly while applications are resubmitted, gaps of months between assessment and therapy, or inability to afford both assessment and therapy because of the smaller funds. Some children are left waiting without crucial interventions.
- Parents and carers in crisis: Many carers are feeling overwhelmed, with some kinship carers saying they may not continue caring under the prevailing conditions. And emotional distress among carers is high, with feelings of fear, anxiety, exhaustion becoming commonplace. This has led to legal and social service professionals warning of adoption breakdowns, or children returning into care if therapeutic support is insufficient.
- Worsening school outcomes, behavioural exclusion: Recent reports suggest children are facing increasing levels of exclusion from school and experiencing greater difficulties with their education, largely because mental health challenges are closely connected to both learning and social functioning. In particular, children with special educational needs and disabilities appear to be disproportionately affected.
- Trust, continuity and relationship damage: One striking quote from MPs speaking in Parliament: a young child “asked: ‘If I save up my pocket money, can I keep seeing you?’” when therapy was being cut. This shows how deeply trust has been damaged, arguably leading to long‐term consequences for the child’s sense of safety and willingness to engage in therapy in the future.
Why these harms matter: developmental, legal, economic consequences
It is not just that cuts cause immediate pain; there are likely to be serious downstream effects too, both legally and in terms of child development, as well as public spending.
Psychological and developmental risks
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Attachment & trauma: Children who have been in care often have complex trauma; early therapeutic intervention is key. Disruption or delay of therapy can worsen attachment issues, retraumatise, or entrench dysfunctional coping behaviours.
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Trust and stability: Abrupt ends to care or therapy burden the child’s sense of stability, which is probably already fragile after experiencing being in care. That can lead to mistrust of professionals and reluctance to engage with later help.
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Education and social outcomes: Emotional dysregulation and untreated mental health issues may lead to school exclusion, poor performance, peer relationship breakdown, and social isolation.
Legal and rights implications
Under the Children Act 1989, local authorities have duties to safeguard and promote children’s welfare. If support that was lawfully required becomes practically unobtainable, questions could arise about whether these legal duties are being met.
Are children under special guardianship being treated differently from those in care? Do children in different areas or through different agencies have unequal access to therapy? This could raise issues under equality law and human rights law.
Long‐term economic costs
Failing to support children early tends to cost more later—increased involvement by social services, mental health services, criminal justice, special educational provision, and residential care becomes more likely. Charities warn that budget savings now may lead to much larger public costs in future with adoption breakdowns or movement back into care.
Can families challenge the reduction in funding?
From a legal perspective, while the government has the power to set budgets, it also has statutory duties and obligations to ensure that adopted children’s welfare is promoted, their support needs assessed, and that access to necessary support is not undermined by arbitrary limits.
In theory, judicial review or legal challenge could be used if it is shown that the cuts deny children their legal rights (e.g. to support assessed as necessary), or breach duties under legislation. But costs, delays, and proving a statutory duty was breached are high barriers.
Children with protected characteristics (e.g. disability) are more likely to be disproportionately impacted by loss of support, and this could form part of equality claims or policy lobbying.
Local authorities continue to hold statutory duties that require them to carry out assessments of children’s needs. However, these assessments lose much of their value if the funding provided to meet the identified needs is inadequate. In such circumstances, the statutory purpose of the assessments risks being undermined and may ultimately be frustrated. Complaints can be made through the local authority’s complaints procedure and, if unresolved, escalated to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. The Ombudsman can investigate maladministration and issue recommendations for remedy.
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