My sons need therapy – Labour might be about to take it away

When I first met my youngest son, he had a flat head and was a ‘floppy baby’ who couldn’t sit up at a year old. 

He looked vacant, expressionless, and it took months for him to smile. 

He’d spent his first eight months lying alone in a cot, rarely picked up, rocked, or comforted. 

He was eerily quiet; he had stopped crying long ago because, in his world, cries went unanswered. He had adapted to neglect, wired for survival rather than connection. 

My eldest son was different, but no less harmed. Adopted at three years old, he was wary, hyper-alert, and unable to tolerate even gentle touch. 

If I moved too quickly, he would flinch and withdraw, physically bracing for the violence he’d previously known. In those early months, during a moment of panic, he put his tiny hands around my neck.

Trauma doesn’t disappear when a child is placed into a loving home. It is embedded physically in their brain, shaping every response and interaction. 

Tackling this is a long, hard process, and that’s precisely why the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) was created. 

It provides specialist trauma therapy, attachment-focused interventions, therapeutic parenting support, and play therapy, vital services that help traumatised children rebuild their emotional foundations. 

And from my experience, that is crucial work. 

The ASGSF doesn’t give money directly to adopters; rather, it funds these critical interventions through local authorities who commission specialist therapy for children most severely impacted by developmental trauma. 

It’s precisely what has allowed my children to move from fear to safety, to finally trust adults, and start engaging meaningfully with the world around them. 

Yet today, the government is threatening to remove this lifeline.  

The ASGSF is only being funded through the end of March, with no update on whether it will be continued or replaced by targeted support.

That has left parents dealing with abandonment from the government, while dealing with their own children’s difficult development. 

For children who’ve experienced abandonment, shame is so entrenched they don’t even realise they’re acting from it. 

Birthdays and holidays are often ruined because joy itself feels threatening to children. 

As an adoptive parent, you quickly become an accidental trauma expert. You devour every book, attend every webinar, and absorb every piece of neuroscience you can, because understanding trauma becomes essential; not just for your child, but for your entire family’s survival. 

But we can’t do this alone, and that’s why lifelines like the ASGSF are so crucial. 

Ten years ago, when David Cameron was prime minister, he passionately encouraged families to step forward to adopt. 

His government launched high-profile adoption campaigns, promising families ongoing support, and rightly describing the long wait for children as a ‘tragedy’.

A decade on, with a new government, those promises ring hollow. Adopters feel abandoned, and the devastating consequences are looming if the ASGSF funding isn’t sorted. 

My children won’t magically stop needing therapy if their support disappears, they won’t suddenly forget their trauma. 

Without continued support, their hard-earned progress will stall or regress. Families like mine are already emotionally exhausted from the relentless push-pull of trauma behaviours. 

Without professional help, the strain quickly becomes overwhelming, leading families to breaking point, adoption breakdown and even children returning to an already overstretched care system. 

Schools and professionals frequently misunderstand trauma, mistaking certain behaviours for deliberate disruption. Traumatised children regularly face exclusion, compounding their struggles. 

Recent research by Newcastle University exposed another hidden crisis: adoption poverty. Adopters are routinely forced out of careers they loved, overwhelmed by advocacy and navigating a fragmented, dysfunctional system. 

This week, the government is launching plans that will urge everyone to work, yet policy-makers seem oblivious to the reality that adoptive parents frequently cannot hold down careers. 

Instead, we spend our lives advocating for our children’s basic rights, caught in endless meetings, battles for Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) and relentless form-filling, all within a fractured, inadequate system. 

Policymakers need to consider the butterfly effect, the unintended chain reactions their decisions set off. Cutting the ASGSF in a few weeks isn’t just a budget decision, it would trigger devastating societal consequences. 

Adoption numbers could dwindle, leaving children stuck longer in an overwhelmed care system. 

Untreated childhood trauma could also lead directly to higher mental health needs, lower educational outcomes, unemployment, and increased criminal justice involvement later.