Adoptions – Data Linkage

This dataset reports information about all children who cease to be looked after in a collection year upon the granting of an adoption order.  This information was previously collected as part of the AD1 (children adopted) return but now forms part of the annual Looked After Children Census return made by Welsh local authorities. 

It includes key dates (latest care period, decision, matching and placement) along with basic demographic data about the adopter(s) eg number, gender and ethnicity.  There is also a flag to denote whether the child was adopted by their former foster carers. 

Within SAIL, this dataset must be linked to the primary Children Looked After census (LACW) to get child characteristics (week of birth, gender, ALF). 

Data Owner	Welsh Government
Earliest Data	1st April 2002
Frequency of Updates	Annual
Lag in Updates Becoming Available	Approx 4 months after the local authority returns have been completed and verified

Meta Data 

ADR UK Catalogue	https://datacatalogue.adruk.org/browser/dataset?id=5462644471927188424&origin=3
Health Data Gateway	https://web.www.healthdatagateway.org/dataset/cfdafacb-48f0-4ad8-9f20-193a5eec2da4
Data Resource	Allnatt, G., Lee, A., Scourfield, J., Elliott, M., Broadhurst, K., and Griffiths, L., (2022) “Data resource profile: children looked after administrative records in Wales”, International Journal of Population Data Science, 7(1). doi: 10.23889/ijpds.v7i1.1752.
Data Insight	Allnatt, G., Elliott, M., Cowley, L., Lee, A., North, L., Broadhurst, K., and Griffiths, L. (2023) Data Explained: Children Looked After Datasets. Available from: https://adrwales.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Data-Explained-CLA-datasets_final.pdf
Other useful publications	Allnatt, G., Elliott, M., Scourfield, J., Lee, A., Griffiths, L (2022) Use of Looked Administrative Children’s Social Care Data for Research: A scoping Review of Existing UK Studies British Journal of Social Work 00, p.p. 1-22.