September 10: Figures show council’s commitment to adoption

I WRITE in response to your article (The Yorkshire Post, August 29) on adoption performance.

I am concerned that the coverage may give a false understanding of both the priority and performance of local authorities like North Yorkshire.

In the county, we are absolutely committed to ensuring that young people receive a safe and happy family life. Ideally and usually that is with their birth family but on occasions this could be with extended family members.

If children do need to come into care, ideally we want them to be within a family setting either through a safe rehabilitation home, a longer term placement with a foster family or, where appropriate, through adoption or special guardianship.

On adoption in North Yorkshire specifically, I can confirm that at a time when the numbers of children in care actually continued to 
decrease, we saw an increase in Adoption Orders made locally from 30 (in 2013/14) to 52 (in 2014/15).

We also in the same period increased the number of adopters approved from 
42 to 48.

Indeed Ofsted has rated highly the county’s adoption services.