Concurrent Planning

[Bitchfromhell]

According to our local authority the British adoption system is viewed as "draconian" and vast changes will be made in the coming years.
They currently have an excellent f2a record, rate as outstanding in the most recent ofsted report and we are having a good assessment experience with them. They will be moving their cases to concurrent planning where possible going forward.

Concurrent planning has been explained to me as the child being placed when assessments are still underway, but it is deemed that the child will probably need a permanent forever family. There is no placement order.
F2a as when the assessments are completed but there is still no placement order due to contests etc. Although within 26 weeks the placement order will be granted unless the contests are successful etc.

The la feel that they will move as many cases of babies to concurrency as possible over the coming years. F2a will be used where possible but due to the nature of late pg announcements etc it isn't always viable.
Cases of older children (up to about 4) will also go through concurrent planning where appropriate.

Can I please ask for your thoughts/advice/experiences of this if you have any?

I'm not sure if I have the details right for one thing.

I also want to know what this means for us as prospective adopters?

Nb. I know this is a good thing for the children. I'm confident in the reasoning behind it. I just would really appreciate your thoughts and knowledge.

Tia

My LA have just started this and the realities are:

You are a foster cater not an adopter until the placement order is in place

You take the child to contact with birth parents up to 5 times a week

You are required to follow all the restrictions of a foster cater, you must write daily logs, check everything with the LA.

You are not and will not be known as mum and dad until after placement order is in place.

Although their is likelihood that birth parents will not be assessed as able to care for the parents, a relative may come up and be assessed.

I have currently requested to only be assessed as an adopter and only be considered for children with a placement order.

I know in reality I may end up with a concurrent placement because my preference is a child 0-2.

My understanding is that children are put into F2A placements when SS are almost certain that the children will not be returned. The family will still be undergoing assessment yes. You will be expected to take lo to contact meetings with BP.
Our LA still don't do much of this, possibly because they have a lot of children in care and not enough adopters. We were advised against it as we have a BC and the uncertainty was too much when considering him.
I have seen a number of successful placements and also witnessed a friend have to return the baby to BF. I am very much on the fence.

We were happy with the risks/process of F2a. Concurrency is another layer of uncertainty though isn't it?

They were put to us as the same thing. Just different words?

I think in our la F2a is under the umbrella of concurrency but is when assessments are already completed.
Regular concurrency is when assessments are on going so there is more chance of baby being returned.

Apparently coram have been running a concurrency scheme where the assessments have been ongoing for a few years. In 56 placements 53 have resulted in adoption, 3 babies have been returned to birth family.

*The coram scheme is not F2a.

F2A, concurrency and early permanence are all the same thing. Just different names.

Concurrent planning is where you have two plans, as the name suggests. One to rehabilitate the birth family and return child. Assessments for this are ongoing. A second plan to have the child cared for by foster careers who are approved and willing to adopt should the other plan fail.

In fostering to adopt there is one plan, that the foster caters adopt baby. There is no plan to rehabilitate birth family as assessments are already completed. Return of baby would usually only happen after a contest in court by birth family. Or if a previously undisclosed birth family member applied for custody.

F2a is under the concurrency umbrella but is quite different for the prospective adopters.

14. The Minister, Edward Timpson MP, summed up the differences as follows:

"Concurrent planning, by the very word suggests there are two plans. So you have the plan that you are considering on one parallel, which is rehabilitation to the birth family, and the other plan, which is a permanency decision that is outside the birth family … However, as regards fostering for adoption, there is one plan. The decision has been made that the right long-term placement for that child is adoption, so the circumstances are very different".[12]

This is from the House of Lords document. I can link if anyone else is considering this/interested?

Ah, thank you, as suspected my LA are telling us it's all the same

Ok, I think I'm getting somewhere now! F2a and concurrency are both types of early permenance plans or (EPP's)

So if anyone has made it this far, my op really should have been:

Does anyone have knowledge or experiences of epp's they would be prepared to share please? I'm particularly interested in concurrent planning as I'm less familiar with that than F2a but discussion around both would be amazing
Tia

3/56 would be way too much of a risk for me personally. I can absolutely see how it is best for the child - although we also had a bc so we're also considering their needs like a pp.

On fact our adoption was incredibly straightforward - no contest from bps, no other family members as neither had extended family, two previous siblings with pos etc etc and it was still incredibly stressful.

I wouldn't underestimate living with the stress and strain of knowing that your precious child is not leg yours for months and months. Even with a PO that was a massive emotional pit of despair for a year.

Bitchfromhell pretty much sums up the difference between concurrency and foster to adopt. They are both forms of early permanency but very different. The risk is greater (around 90% of cases in concurrency lead to adoption as opposed to around 98% in f2a). Statistically that is significant.

So now to my experience. We have been concurrent carers now to two beautiful children who have both been successfully reunified with their family. They both continue to do very well at home.I do stress we defy the odds and where we are concurrency still has a greater than 90% adoption rate. We are currently waiting for a third concurrent placement. WHY? Because for us concurrency is about the child not us the carers. We believe that if a child can safely return home and be raised by his parents then that has to be best for the child. If they can't and require adopting isn't it amazing that they get to be in their forever home from birth or as close to birth as possible and not have the trauma of a move and separation from their primary carers.

To go down the path of concurrency you really need to have a different mindset. You have to accept that you are carers initially, albeit carers who will develop a fierce love and protection for the child. In concurrency (true concurrency) you will be meeting the birth family regularly as you hand over the child during contact, you will build up a relationship with them and if it is decided that the child can return home you will hopefully have developed a respect for the birth family ( for us we began to love both families ) and so will hopefully be proud of what they have achieved. You will cry and grieve but hopefully feel proud of them and a sense of achievement in your role in giving the little one the best start in life. If as is more likely it is decided that adoption is in the best interest you will have first hand knowledge of the birth family, will have possibly seen what a fight their parents put up for them and be able to impart this knowledge to the child growing up. Life story work will be stronger. BUT most importantly the child will have no significant move ahead of them. They will have been building a secure attachment to you from as early as possible.

Having children permanently in our home through adoption is still a goal for us but we will always go onto foster as well. We do believe we will adopt through concurrency at some point but for us we see it as a journey that is bringing so much joy and experiences along the way. We have changed as people. We are stronger as a couple and have met so many fantastic people along the way. The little ones that came into our lives, grew fiercely in our hearts and remain very much in our hearts and lives today. We have started on a journey of parenting and will continue on that journey.

Only you know what strength you have. What your hope is? What you want as an end goal? How soon you want that end goal? If adoption is the end goal and you want it in as smooth a manner a possible with limited heartache then concurrency is not the route. f2a is a much better less risky route. You will have gathered that I am an avid supporter of concurrency but for the right reasons and for the right people. The risks on us the adults are huge but the benifits on these precious little ones are so much more.

Hope my perspective helps.

I should add that in a true concurrent planning assessment the birth family will be getting intense support to make the changes they need. This is to ensure that the assessment and decisions are completed within the time frame of the child (usually around 6 months). This will mean the child will be taken to contact, usually by you the carer, up to three/four times a week ( although average is twice). The carer will do a five minute handover to the parents (supervised by social worker or family worker) and then the parents will do the same at the other end of contact. The carers are expected to keep a diary throughout the week of the child's activities, food, med's, accidents etc. Throughout this period pre decision making and PO carers have no parental responsibility and do have to consult family/social workers re things like hair cuts, medical appointments, when to start weaning, etc. This sounds daunting but in our experience not too bad. We worked very early on building a good relationship with birth family, ensuring we gave them their place, supplied them with regular pictures, little gifts from little one (art and crafts), made sure they were fully informed and sought their opinions on things like weaning but did it in such a way that they it felt like they were making the informed decision. I.e. The health visitor feels lo is ready for weaning. What do you think? Should I bring some baby rice to the next contact and you can give him his first feed and let me knew how he got on. Etc. We had no problems getting permission from family to do what we would have done if it was our own child. We were probably lucky though as both sets of parents were very nice to us and generally appreciative of what we were doing for them and for their child. I know many other concurrent carers and for some of them they found dealing with birth family very stressful. Often this was when the family know they were unlikely to get their child back. However I do know that many birth parents once they accept they are not getting their child back move quite quickly to accepting the decision providing it is the child's concurrent carers that will adopt them. They have built a relationship with them and at least know the person that their child will be growing up with.

Just wanted to add some thoughts on the practical side of concurrency.

I was thinking of posting something similar to pinklady saying that this is what we will be thinking of once our dc are older, and why, but pinklady says far more succinctly what i was thinking than i would have done! I think it comes down to you, OP, and how you think adoption should be.

If a placement went to adoption with us, i would also want to continue and manage the face to face relationship with the birth family as much as possible throughout the childhood.

One doubt in my mind was whether concurrent adoption was in fact a political toy to try bring about adoptions more quickly and pinklady's post has reassured me on that score.

Iamnotstinky your concern about the the political toy is a fair one. It think it depends on how 'true' a concurrency planning model is used. In a 'true' and unique concurrent planning project the assessment carried out on birth family should be intense and supportive. A social worker should have no more than two/four cases running together at one time. That is because they should be carrying out educative work and therapeutic work with the birth parent/s at least twice a week plus at least twice a week contact sessions with child where they are assessing their parenting skills. It is intense for the birth parents but it has the potential if the parents choose to buy into it of stopping drifting. They are being seen so regularly that when they have learnt something or made a decision to do something or to bring about change this is being followed up immediately meaning they are more likely to follow through with this. In a regular assessment a parent is lucky to be seen once outside of contact sessions and often this session is cancelled due to other social worker commitments. In both our cases the parents reached out and grabbed with both hands all the advice and support being offered. We were incredibly proud of them for this. I am however aware that some LA's are using concurrency title for what in essence is just a form of f2a and they really they are not carrying out any real assessment.

I am also delighted to read that you would open to continue on with direct contact post adoption order. This is becoming very common in some parts of the U.K. and is working well for many, although not all. Decision re. Direct ongoing contact is made on an individual basis depending on circumstances. Where it works it allows the child to gain a real sense of who their family is in an age appropriate way. It ends any false fairy tale image they have of their family, it allows them to have their questions answered as and when they arise and facilitates opportunity as they grow older to have an appropriate, under supervised conditions, more meaningful relationship with their birth family as opposed to unsoclicitated contact through social media. I believe that adopted children have two families - adopted and birth. For some children the abuse and neglect experienced in their early lives was so huge it would not be appropriate to maintain a direct relationship but for many children, particularly those adopted through some form of early permanency, their parents have done nothing to actually harm them (although may have harmed previous children in the past) but in actual fact due to addictions, severe mental health issues or poor parenting experiences themselves etc they are unable to bring their child up safely. We the adoptive parents have that privilege but this does not take away from the love the birth parent have for them and in my opinion adoption should not take this away from them and should not prevent any ongoing contact/relationship. Concurrency therefore provides a good foundation for this ongoing contact as you will have started to build a relationship with the the birth family pre adoption order. Fantastic to read your thoughts. You sound very much like a lady of my own heart. I hope you do go on to do concurrency when you little ones are up a bit.

pinklady it is so great to hear your views too. It sounds as though in relation to concurrent planning it comes down to the mindset of the particular authority.

In relation to contact, I agree with all you say, and I suspect the success or not of this is going to be in part linked to the mindset of the authority too.

I have noticed generally that there is inconsistency, with how the relevant issues are covered in training, to what extent research is explained, what sort of expectations are given to adopters.

In relation to contact, i have read elsewhere adopters commenting that they want more contact but need the support and advice about how to manage it from SW.

OP, what do you think?

Iamnotstinky, I agree very much. I am not even sure it is always down to individual authority mindset but more individual social workers. We have learnt through our experiences not to accept that the social worker is the expert and that what ever they suggest must be right because it will be based on expert knowledge, recent research and their vast experience. Often their beliefs/opinions are more based on individual opinions and experiences rather than more recent research.

I do believe that in time we are going to see more and more direct face to face contact becoming more common in adoptions. It is already very much part of the norm in Northern Ireland and some authorities in the UK are beginning to explore it and look at the research coming out of Northern Ireland. It does need to be supported and facilitated from local authority and in some areas resources may find this difficult to do.

Thanks so much for your input everyone.

pinklady your experiences are exactly the sort of thing I was hoping to hear. You must be very strong to have gone through that twice. I think we will be open to concurrent planning should there be a link with a child that requires that.

I'm off to read about the Northern Ireland research regarding f2f contact. I had no idea that was happening.