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Today, in 2026, as one of the largest voluntary adoption agencies in the UK, we continue to place more children and support more families than ever before.
Read all about our history below.
1st Affinity Fostering Service, a well‑established fostering agency in Wrexham, is now wholly owned by Adoption Matters, securing a not for profit future for the agency in Wales. This strategic acquisition ensures a sustainable, not‑for‑profit future for the agency in Wales, as the Welsh Government progresses its commitment to end profit‑making in foster care by 2030.
Foster Care Matters celebrates a ‘Good’ Ofsted rating, with the effectiveness of leaders and managers judged ‘Outstanding’ – the inspection highlights the agency’s commitment to providing safe, supportive, and high quality foster care.
We were delighted to welcome three new Charity Ambassadors, Catherine Richards, Dez Derry and Jeevan Braich. They will help to amplify our mission, build connections within communities, and help secure vital resources through fundraising and outreach initiatives. By sharing stories, promoting events, and using their own unique voices to champion our cause, they play a critical role in transforming lives. We are honoured they have chosen to work with our charity.
Our not-for-profit fostering service, Foster Care Matters celebrate their 1st anniversary in May and later in the year approve their first foster parents, starting the fostering journey for our charity.
Our Concurrent Planning Service, run in partnership with Caritas Care, ended in May 2024. Launching in 2014 and growing to be the largest service of its kind in the country, placing 187 children with our carers and welcoming 146 new carers to the service. Due to changes in the adoption landscape, it meant that we needed to adapt and move our concurrent planning staff back into their respective agencies, to bring their early permanence expertise to our adoption teams. The service was innovative, pioneering and adaptable, constantly changing to meet the needs of children waiting. A service which led the way in the Early Permanence arena and our work has helped pave the way for many of the services now embedded across the country helping hundreds more children and families. We are so very proud of that.
Our new not-for-profit fostering agency, Foster Care Matters launches in May 2024. Committed to re-invest back into our services to offer quality support and ongoing therapeutic training to our foster parents, to help them, make children matter. The agency operates across the North West, Stoke-on-Trent and surrounding areas. www.fostercarematters.org.uk
Our senior management team witness a crisis in foster care not seen in the UK for many years, which coupled with the cost of living crisis, is only looking to deepen. During the Covid-19 pandemic, thousands of foster families ceased fostering and now too many children are being placed far away from their homes, many in residential placements due to the lack of foster families. We start to look to expand our services into fostering. We recruit Karen Palfreyman, who will lead the new agency.
Susy White, was appointed Adoption Matters new Chief Executive Officer on 1 January 2022. A qualified accountant with ACCA who worked in practice before joining Adoption Matters over 17 years ago, Susy has played a pivotal role in Adoption Matters growth and success working closely alongside Norman Goodwin in her current leadership role as Finance and Operations Director.
Adoption Matters Chief Executive Officer, Norman G. Goodwin, CBE, retired in December 2021, after 43 years working in social work, 36 years working for Adoption Matters, 30 years as CEO.
Under Norman’s leadership and supported by a talented and committed team of staff and volunteers, Adoption Matters grew and developed to be the Outstanding rated, innovative children’s charity and agency it is today. Norman's retirement marked the end of a hugely successful era and the start of a new chapter for the Adoption Matters family. Norman is now Patron of our charity.
2020-2021 has been one of the most demanding, stressful years in our modern history dealing with a global pandemic. At Adoption Matters it was also one of the busiest, we saw increases of over 140% in enquiries whilst people were at home perhaps thinking of what is important to many of us, family. Our teams were also incredibly busy supporting our families, children, young people and adopted adults through the pandemic. We continued to remain focused on support and helping reduce the wait for children in care and placed over 90 children with our families during the year.
As the Covid-19 pandemic evolved in early 2020, we quickly adapted our processes to meet the needs of our families and service users. Adoption Matters has always primarily operated as a home working organisation, so we were able to quickly adapt ensuring that our work was conducted safely, adhering to the latest guidance using a mixture of online technology as well as some face-to-face meetings where it is safe and appropriate to do so. Our organisation remained 100% fully staffed throughout the whole pandemic, our administration staff were all deployed to work at home and we even expanding our support staff base to enable to continue to offer the high level of support needed to during this stressful and worrying time for us all. We remained, here for you.
From 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020 – Adoption Matters placed 112 children with our families. 112 new starts, 112 forever families! This was the highest number of children placed since our placement records began in 1955. Working closely with our Regional Adoption Agency colleagues across the country in securing more children their forever home. We were also delighted to welcome 87 new adopters.
In late 2019, the Centre for Adoption Support ceased to be a partnership service moving back to the main support offering of Adoption Matters. The service continued to operate and develop a comprehensive range of adoption support services to our families and commissioned work with our Regional Adoption Agency and Local Authority colleagues.
On 1 March 2019 DFW Adoption, based in Durham became part of Adoption Matters. Together with the DFW Adoption staff who now form the Adoption Matters North East Team, we continued to build on the excellent reputation that DFW Adoption has in the North East, using the resources of a combined and united organisation.
In our 70th year and over 4,000 children placed for adoption. We continue to grow, innovate and offer high quality services to our children and families, operating across 6 regional offices. This year we place 76 children with their new adoptive families, a record for the charity at the time.
To support our expansion, we opened up new offices in Salford, Manchester and Leeds.
Adoption Matters forms a partnership with Caritas Care to offer a new approach to early permanence through the Concurrent Planning Service throughout the North West. In 2019, the service celebrated its 100th placement and is now the largest service of its kind in the country.
Our Centre for Adoption Support (CFAS) was established. Offering therapeutic support to families across the North of England.
Chester Diocese Adoption Service and Blackburn Diocese Adoption Agency merge to become Adoption Matters Northwest providing a service across the whole of the North West.
Adoption Matters foster care service came to an end this year following changes in national funding structures. A farewell party and presentation event marked the end of the era and amongst those who attended were Ken and Dawn Lewis from Neston who fostered on behalf of the agency for 33 years!
Norman, our former CEO, joined Adoption Matters in 1985, initially as a team leader and then Chief Executive Officer in 1992. Norman was awarded a CBE in the 2015 Queen’s Birthday Honours in ‘recognition of his outstanding contribution and distinguished service to adoption services and the family’. Norman is now Patron of our charity.
Blackburn also centralised its services in the late seventies early eighties moved into placing children other than babies who were in the care of Local Authority Social Services Departments. In 1976, The Adoption Act required local authorities to provide their own adoption service and we then continued to work in partnership with several local authorities.
By the 1960s with society’s changing views on unmarried mothers, St. Bridget’s home in Chester closed for a short period of time and reopened in the early 1970s as a day nursery also offering a flat let scheme for mother and child to stay for a short period of time.
In 1983, St. Bridget’s closed and today no longer stands at Lache Lane in Chester.
The Adoption of Children Act 1949 provided that placement of children for adoption would be supervised by local authorities. The Anglican Church has always taken its commitment to social responsibility very seriously – the Board for Social Responsibility dealt with adoption, homelessness, unemployment, social justice and more. Eventually Adoption became a smaller part of this.
In 1955 Chester Diocesan Adoption Service was formed.
Blackburn Diocesan Adoption Agency made their first adoptive placement, a baby girl.
The Adoption of Children Act 1949 provided that placement of children for adoption would be supervised by local authorities. The Anglican Church has always taken its commitment to social responsibility very seriously – the Board for Social Responsibility dealt with adoption, homelessness, unemployment, social justice and more. Eventually Adoption became a smaller part of this.
In 1947 Blackburn Diocesan Adoption Agency was formed.
In 1933, the house was run by the Sisters from St Mary the Virgin and became a long stay home for young women who were pregnant and in need of support. In the early fifties, the house was renamed St. Bridget’s Mother & Baby Home.
Adoption Matters journey began in 1884 when the Duke of Westminster donated a piece of land to the Chester Diocese which was used to build on and in 1886 a building named the ‘Diocesan House of Mercy’ was opened on Lache Lane, Chester and used as a refuge for young women.
