Adoption and Children Act (Northern Ireland) 2022

The Adoption Service

4.—(1) An adoption authority must maintain a service designed to meet the needs, in relation to adoption, of—

(a) children who may be adopted, their parents and guardians;

(b) persons wishing to adopt a child; and

(c) adopted persons, their parents, natural parents and former guardians;

and for that purpose must provide the requisite facilities.

(2) Those facilities must include making, and participating in, arrangements—

(a) for the adoption of children; and

(b) for the provision of adoption support services.

(3) As part of the service, the arrangements made for the purposes of subsection (2)(b)—

(a) must extend to the provision of adoption support services to persons who are within a prescribed description;

(b) may extend to the provision of those services to other persons.

(4) An adoption authority may provide any of the requisite facilities by securing their provision by—

(a) an appropriate voluntary organisation or in relation to the provision of adoption support services of a prescribed description a voluntary organisation; or

(b) other persons who are within a prescribed description of persons who may provide the facilities in question.

(5) The facilities of the service must be provided in conjunction with any other social care provided by the adoption authority, with appropriate voluntary organisations and with voluntary organisations providing facilities under subsection (4)(a), so that help may be given in a co-ordinated manner without duplication, omission or avoidable delay.

(6) In this section “social care” has the meaning given by section 2(5) of the Health and Social Care (Reform) Act (Northern Ireland) 2009 (and, in particular, social care in so far as it relates to children).