SOCIAL workers from Blackburn with Darwen and Lancashire County Council have attended a briefing to outline sweeping reforms of the child adoption process.

At a meeting in Cheshire they were joined by social workers from across the North West to hear details of the the new national Adoption Register which starts in April.

The aim of the Register is to get more of the children now in care adopted more quickly. It is the centrepiece of government plans to modernise the adoption process and make it more efficient.

Its target is to increase the number of children being moved from care into stable homes by up to 40%.

The register will store thousands of records of children awaiting adoption and approved adoptive parents. It will scan the data on a daily basis looking for suitable links anywhere in the country.

Ruth Fasht, director of the Register, told the meeting that social workers would no longer have stretch resources conducting searches for suitable adoptive parents.