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Save Adoption and Children Act 2002
On 30 December 2005 the Adoption and Children Act 2002 was fully implemented. It represents the most radical overhaul of adoption law for 26 years, replacing the outdated Adoption Act 1976 and modernising the entire legal framework for domestic and intercountry adoption. Local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies must comply with the new provisions.
The act contains key provisions which:
- align adoption law with the relevant provisions of the Children Act 1989 to ensure that the child's welfare is the paramount consideration in all decisions relating to adoption
- place a duty on local authorities to maintain an adoption service, including arrangements for the provision of adoption support services
- provide a new right to an assessment of needs for adoption support services for adoptive families and others
- set out a new regulatory structure for adoption support agencies
- enable the appropriate minister to establish an independent review mechanism in relation to qualifying determinations made by an adoption agency
- make provision for the process of adoption, including new measures for placement for adoption with consent and placement orders
- provide for adoption orders to be made in favour of single people, married couples and, for the first time, unmarried couples
- provide a new framework designed to ensure adoption agencies have a more consistent approach to accessing information held about adoptions which take place after the act comes into force
- provide a new regulatory framework to enable intermediary agencies to help adopted adults obtain information about their adoption and facilitate contact between them and their adult birth relatives, where the person was adopted before the 2002 act came into force
- provide additional restrictions on bringing a child into the UK in connection with adoption
- provide for restrictions on arranging adoptions and advertising children for adoption, other than through adoption agencies
- and amend the Children Act 1989 to introduce a new special guardianship order, intended to provide permanence for children for whom adoption is not appropriate.
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Last updated on 05/05/2009
