The Development of the Strengths and Risks Matching Tool for Adoption in the United Kingdom

Identifying the strengths and risks of prospective matches in adoption is crucial to adoption placement stability. With the aim to deliver a consistent and service-led approach to matching children in care with prospective adopters, a tool to identify strengths and risks related to adoption placement was developed. Using a mixed-methods approach, this tool was developed in line with the psychometric theory of test construction, from item generation using semi-structured interviews and survey methods, and exploratory factor analysis to determine the factor structure of the assessment-to-assessment of retest reliability and finalization. Comprising three main components (adopter capabilities and skills, adopter profiles and characteristics, and adoption plans, preparations, and transitions), this tool can be used by practitioners to identify strengths and risks in proposed matches at any point during the linking and matching process.