Adoption and Children Act (Northern Ireland) 2022

Adoption support services

1.—(1) The facilities to be provided by an HSC trust as part of the service maintained under Article 3(1) of the Adoption (Northern Ireland) Order 1987 include such arrangements as a trust may be required by regulations to make for the provision of adoption support services to prescribed persons.

(2) Regulations under sub-paragraph (1) may require an HSC trust—

(a) at the request of a prescribed person, to carry out an assessment of the person’s needs for adoption support services,

(b) if, as a result of the assessment, a trust decides that the person has such needs, to decide whether to provide any such services to the person,

(c) if a trust decides to provide any such services to a person, and the circumstances fall within a description prescribed by the regulations, to prepare a plan in accordance with which the services are to be provided to the person and keep the plan under review.

(3) Subsections (7) and (8) (except paragraph (a)) of section 5 of this Act apply to regulations under sub-paragraph (1) as they apply to regulations made by virtue of that section.

(4) Article 59(1) of the Adoption (Northern Ireland) Order 1987 (prohibited payments) does not apply to any payment made in accordance with regulations under sub-paragraph (1).

(5) In this paragraph, “HSC trust” has the meaning given by Article 2 of the Adoption (Northern Ireland) Order 1987.