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News@www.adoption-net.co.uk
Story published on November 25, 2002
Government figures released
The Department of Health has released their latest figures bulletin based on children who are adopted from care.
These bulletins provide provisional national figures on children looked after at 31 March 2002 and children adopted from care during the year ending 31 March 2002. Final figures will be published in the government's "Children Looked After" publication, in spring 2003.
Below are the main findings.
Children looked after at 31 March 2002
The figures show that:
59,700 children were looked after at 31 March 2002, 1.3% more than a year earlier.
The number of children looked after at 31 March increased by an average 1.4% per year between 2000 and 2002. This compares with 4.4% per year between 1998 and 2000.
The use of care orders continues to increase. 38,400 children were under care orders at 31 March 2002, 2% more than a year earlier.
3,600 children were placed for adoption at 31 March 2002, up 5% on the previous year.
39,200 children (66%) were looked after in foster placements at 31 March 2002, a similar proportion to 1998.
The largest category of need for looked after children was "abuse or neglect" with an estimated 37,100 children at 31 March 2002 (62%). The second largest category was "family dysfunction" (10% or 6,200 children).
There was very little change in the ethnic origin of looked after children between March 2001 and March 2002: 48,700 of looked after children were white (82%), 4,400 were mixed (7%), 3,900 were black (7%) and 1,400 were Asian (2%).
Children adopted from care during the year ending 31 March 2002
The figures show that:
3,400 looked after children were adopted in England in the year ending 31 March 2002, 11% (350) more than in the previous year and 25% (690) more than in 1999/00.
60% (2,000) of these children were aged between 1 to 4, whilst 29% (1,000) were aged between 5 and 9.
66% (2,250) of children had been looked after for less than 3 years prior to being adopted.
The average time taken for looked after children to complete the adoption process was 2 years 10 months in 2001/02.
80% (2,700) of looked after children adopted during the year 2001/02 were placed for adoption within 12 months of the best interest decision.
16% (550) of children were adopted by their former foster carer in 2001/02, compared to 14% (430) in 2000/01.
see notes for editors
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