You never know exactly who’s going to walk through the door when you hold a launch event. It turns out a lot of people feel very strongly about giving adopted children an equal chance at school. Our events in London and Cardiff were both packed with politicians, partner organisations and adoptive families.

The headline of the Westminster event was the need for a re-think about the way we are educating traumatised children, in order to give them a real chance of building bright futures and becoming happy, productive members of society.     

This was spelled out in speeches by AUK CEO Sue Armstrong Brown (you can see the highlights here), MPs Emma Lewell-Buck and Victoria Prentis, Bishop James Langstaff and Sally Kelly, chair of the National Association of Virtual School Heads.

Adoption UK in Wales was joined at their event by 6 Assembly Members, including Secretary for Education Kirsty Williams. She went straight from the event to the Senedd, where she told the Assembly: ‘ I’m very keen...to work with representatives of AUK Cymru to look at the asks in the report, especially the collection of data...[&] ongoing professional development.' 

We encouraged politicians to add their names to our call for an equal chance, so we can continue to work with them to make change happen for adoptive families across the UK. 

As well as our political supporters, 3,000 of you have already added your names to the call for action. If you haven’t done that yet, please sign here and share: 

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/support-the-call-for-an-equal-chance 

Pictures from the event:

                                 

                  NAHT President, Andy Mellor                                                 Baroness Walmsley 

                                 

                Bishop James Langstaff (L), AUK's                  Victoria Prentis MP & Tim Loughton MP
     Sue Armstrong Brown & Trustee Tony Breslin