Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support his Department provides to people adopting children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders.

Responsibility for commissioning Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) services lies with clinical commissioning groups working together across all sectors. We know diagnosing FASD is a complex process and we have learnt from recent engagement events with FASD sufferers that diagnostic pathway should be improved. The Department is considering how we can improve access to such services and the diagnostic pathway learning from best practice. We will also ask the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to consider the recent SIGN 156 guidelines ‘Children and Young People Exposed Prenatally to Alcohol ‘in Scotland to review if this guideline could be applied in England.

The Department for Education is the lead Department for adoption. As part of the adoption process potential adopters will be given information known in relation to the child’s health condition and a meeting with a health professional responsible for that child’s care. A care plan will be provided for the child. Both the child and the adoptive parent(s) should have access to local support and services post-adoption to support their child, along with access to the health and care services as part of the local commissioning process.

The Government, through the Adoption Support Fund, also provides families who have adopted or are providing special guardianship to children previously in care with access to funding for specialist assessments and therapeutic support. These may include FASD as part of the wider assessment of a child’s needs.