We are considering it.
My main worry about it is that the fostering and the adoption teams at LAs don't appear to really work with each other, nor even to understand each other's work properly.
I believe that it would be helpful for the prospective adopters to have a fostering mental attitude to the whole process, as well as the desire to adopt a child. This should be reinforced at every step of the way. Unfortunately, though we have expressed interest in CP from the very first contact onwards, we have only been prepped regarding adoption. Mention of CP has been sporadic and, tbh, quite uninformed (despite us continually asking). I think this is at least partly due to the SWs having been in 'adoption' for ages and having little or no experience of 'fostering', and no regular exchanges with the fostering teams.
I worry that this lack of communication and understanding between the teams can eventually lead to problems, which we will then bear the brunt of.
For instance, every 'adoption team' person we have talked to so far (with one lonely exception), has told us that they didn't consider CP an option for us, because we have a BC. Whereas every 'fostering team' person we have talked to so far, has said that if properly done, having a BC should not be a problem - lots of fosterers have birth children, having a birth child rarely prevents someone from fostering. Nor does having a birth child prevent fosterers from going on to adopt their foster child.
FWIW we have been talking to our birth DS about there being children whose parents can't look after them, so someone else needs to look after them, and that we might do that. He knows that our SW comes to see us (we are in stage 2) to help us get ready for looking after a baby. He is a bit ambivalent about a baby moving in with us, but that is to be expected. If baby were later to be 'upgraded' to being a new sibling, that is not without its problems but can certainly be managed. If baby were instead at some point to return to BM, again it would be painful, as it (apparently) always is when foster children move away, but it would NOT be a totally unexpected loss of a 'sibling'.
For us, we are trying to see a potential return of baby to BM as a good thing. If we have grown to love the baby, then surely we should be glad for baby to be spared the trauma of having to be adopted. Despite being saddened of course that we will no longer be a part of this beloved baby's life.
In fact, in some ways having a BC already can make you the ideal CP carer: For instance if you are a SAHM, there are none of the job/finances related problems to contend with.
We talked to a VA who would have taken us on, as prospective CP carers. They invited us to 2 days of a fostering prep course, to be followed by two days of an adoption prep course (we then decided for other reasons, not to go with them). That seems to me to be a lot better (though not perfect) than what LAs seem to be doing. Every LA we have talked to said that they would prep&assess us as adopters and then IF a CP placement came up, would talk to us about the fostering stuff and give us a crash course in fostering. I think that is NOT good enough. For us, it is not a huge problem, because we are doing a lot of our own research into fostering; but the chances are that (many) prospective adopters are going into CP without a proper understanding of the fostering part of it. Including the risks (such as false allegations, addresses becoming known) and time commitments involved (contact, writing logs, going to all sorts of meetings).
I think that both fostering and adopting come with their own specific difficulties, and CP carers should be prepared for, and understand, both. For instance with adoption, the life-long commitment aspect; for instance with fostering, the legal situation and uncertainties. I don't think that either of them is 'easier' than the other, just different. None of them should be added as an 'afterthought'.
As CP placements usually involve very young babies, I believe it is important for prospective CP carers to fully understand the uncertainties surrounding potential development. Given that recently, the majority of adoptions have been of toddlers or pre-schoolers, much of adoption preparation focuses on this age group, whereas little time is spent on what it means to adopt a baby, maybe a baby moving in with you straight from hospital a few days after birth.
Another point which bothers me, is that no-one seems able to tell us anything about how 'linking' works with CP placements. As I understand, if you are going to adopt 'traditionally', you get shown a profile, you express interest, then you get access to all sorts of background information, medical, history, talk to foster carers/nursery teachers, before actually deciding that you want to take this to matching panel. The commitment is lifelong, so it is only right that you know exactly what you are letting yourself in for. However, in a concurrency placement, the commitment is equally life-long. But what information do you get, and when? How can you make such far reaching decisions, if you are told as little about the baby in question as a typical FC would be told, perhaps with the only addition that 'it is highly likely that there will be a placement order for this child within a reasonable time frame'.
It has been said that as initially fosterers, we could not legally access the same amount/type of information about the baby, and its parents/background, as we would in a traditional adoption scenario. Due to data protection and privacy rules and stuff, which I totally understand. It does mean, as a consequence, that there is a massively increased uncertainty regarding the background of the child. I was led to understand that legally, we could not be told if the baby's birth parents had significant mental health issues, or if they had drug&alcohol issues, etc. It was implied that SW would 'obviously' tell us what they knew but weren't actually legally able to, so could never put anything on paper. Now I happen to have an aunt who is a SW in fostering and she has implied to me that LAs have to disclose everything they know (in traditional adoption) to prevent becoming liable to litigation. However in such a situation where they CANNOT legally provide such information, that would also neatly remove them from risking litigation if they somehow 'forget' to mention that BM was binge-drinking 5 times/week throughout the pregnancy.
And yet, after all this, we are still considering it. Not thanks to our LAs efforts, but despite them ;)
We just see too many benefits to be able to discard it easily. Benefits to the child who would one day be OUR CHILD, to weigh up with risks and difficulties for US. In our own personal inwards search of deciding which 'degree of altruism' we can do, e.g. can we agree to having a child join our family when it would mean me becoming a lifelong carer, and never being able to get a job again; we are finding that the kind of sacrifices we would make for a concurrency placement, easier to imagine than quite a few other sacrifices we might CHOOSE to make. And, if we were approached about a child for a concurrency placement, but also had the choice to adopt the same child 'traditionally' half a year later, after the child had been with FCs for that time and after the placement order having come through, it would be a no-brainer for us. WE can deal with the uncertainty and risks, much better than baby can deal with the extra move and being in foster care of unpredictable quality.
Sorry that this is so long; as you can see, it is a subject close to my heart!