Adoption boost for borough with new partnership

Blackburn with Darwen Council is joining up with other local authorities to form a single adoption agency – further helping children to find their families.

This week is National Adoption Week, and the Department for Education has announced that, Blackburn with Darwen, Bolton Bury, Oldham, Rochdale and Tameside Councils, in partnership with Adoption Matters and Caritas Care Voluntary Adoption Agencies, have been successful in their bid to form one of the first Regional Adoption Agencies.

The Regional Adoption Agency will bring together some of the region’s best performing adoption agencies from the statutory and voluntary sectors to form a single, regional agency which will deliver improved outcomes for children who need adoptive parents across six Local Authority areas.

Councillor Maureen Bateson, Blackburn with Darwen Council’s Executive Member for Children’s Services, said:

We are delighted to have been selected, with our partners, to be among the first Regional Adoption Agencies. Blackburn with Darwen Council’s adoption team work extremely hard to improve the lives of children in our care and help them find loving families, and this new partnership will help us do this even more.,

This is a really exciting opportunity to bring together expertise across the agencies and we welcome the financial and practical support that the Department for Education will provide.

In Blackburn with Darwen we aim to put the needs of the child first and this new collaboration will helpus all to work together to quickly match children to their new family from a wider pool of suitable adopters.”