Adoption - Birth Family and Social Services

[bookcall]

We are currently waiting for our adoption order to go through. Since AS came home I've realised how messed up the system is from matching onwards. I don't understand why children are still LAC once they are placed in an adopted home and if they are LAC then why aren't adopters paid the same in that period as foster carers. Also I don't see understand why birth families have right to appeal and still have PR once child is placed. Surely legally this should all be done and dusted (perhaps at matching) so that there isn't a hiatus for adopted families. I totally agree there should be a right to appeal but it shouldn't be once the child is in the adopted family.
This part of the process has really put me off adopting again as I don't feel SW were upfront with exactly how this part works. Also, for me once the child comes home, they are your child. Surely leaving it open makes disruption more likely (from a psychological perspective) as they are still LAC and the birth family has PR.
Anyone agree? I think a change in the law should be made to make the transition cleaner and more favourable to the new family.

I completely agree with you op. The system is not set up with the best interests of the child at all and it does add an extra strain on adopters and children at what is already a hugely stressful time. The system is legal and I agree it does not take any emotional issues into account. It does need to catch up and this will probably happen but in many years to come. In the mean time the process seems to be focused on the birth parents losing parental responsibility not on the child being properly freed up to have a new life.

The system in England and Wales is different from Northern Ireland and I think Scotland. I am not sure if the English legal system changed in latter years to move away from freeing orders to placement orders. Something in my head tells me it did. In Northern Ireland the legal system is still very old and not fit for purpose. We do have freeing orders. This means that technically a child can not be matched with an adoptive family until they have a freeing order. The freeing order is just that, it frees the birth parents of PR and transfers it to the Local authority. They can then match the child and place them for adoption and straight away deligate PR to the family. A freeing order can be appealed but I don't think an adoption order can be. There is no uncertainty when a child is placed with a freeing order. Here is the catch though. It is an incredibly difficult and long drawn out process to get a freeing order. This is only right as a decision to remove a persons PR for their child should be taken lightly, but in NI the average length of time for a freeing order to be granted from the point the child enters care is anything between 18 - 36 months. This meant children were languishing in foster care for years. So for the last decade a form of foster to adopt has been very common in Northern Ireland to stop this long wait for children in foster care. This is far from ideal and really does put a huge uncertainty and stress on the adopters. The majority of adoptions here start as a foster to adopt case (dual approval). I feel your system, whilst it does put some stress on the adopters is a far better system than the one we have. From my analysis of the system your children are being placed with adopters at a much earlier stage. This is much better for the child. I know there have been one or two cases were a placement order has been over turned but these are very rare. Once a child is placed with their adopters to all intense and purposes they are going no-where. If it means children are going to their forever homes so much earlier is it not worth a little stress from the adults perspective. I will give you an example, i know a few adopters in England. Their lo's came home at around 7 months with a placement order. That same child ( I knew a little of the case) if born in Northern Ireland and was waiting for a freeing order in order to be matched would have went home at around 24 months. I am sorry if I am wrong in my reading of the situation in England but believe me you don't want what is in place in Northern Ireland either.

I am currently editing my 7 page letter o the government about this.... Do not get me started

In short I don't think the current system benefits anyone, child, adopter or birth parent.

While our system isn't perfect, if you compare it to most EU countries, it is actually one of the least 'birth parents' rights first and foremost', and one of the most 'child centred'. Yes, it has faults, and could improve, but actually, when you look at the systems in place elsewhere, where adoption is rare, and so BPs retain, and abuse, their PR, and the child never gets permanence, etc, our system looks good.

As a parent, I'm glad it takes a lot of PR to be fully removed, with plenty of time to appeal.

Once they come home, they're yours. Ideally, everything would be wrapped up legally overnight, but that's not how things work, and I think any other system is worse. And at least if the child remains LAC in the early days, the LA has some responsibility for you all. If the child was signed over to APs immediately, the LA would not be seen for dust!

In Scotland it’s possible for the child to be freed for adoption and parental rights removed from the birth parents before matching. Our placement was on this basis which meant that contact with birth family had ended and we had shared parental rights with the local authority from day one. Our court date was 14 weeks after placement (the legal minimum is 23 weeks and one day, so we were quick off the mark).

I think it’s a more expensive legal process to do permanence first and then adoption order and our legal fees weren’t cheap (and we had to carry the cost for the adoption hearing) but it was quick, easy and pretty stress free.

OK, Jelly, that does sound good! But how long do children wait before placement for adoption?

I'm also quite ethically opposed to the idea that APs need to be rich enough to fund legal fees. Not saying this is at all in your case, but requiring people to be wealthy to adopt makes me worried adoption is used as social engineering by some governments.

Ours were in foster care for 3 years but from decision about them needing adoption to freeing for permanence took about a year I think, but it took that long to find adoptive parebts for them.

In terms of expense, I’m guessing the LA would have covered the legal fees if it had been a barrier to placement on a means tested basis, we would never have passed a means test. I know it’s happened elsewhere that the LA have covered court costs.

My husband and I wrote to the minister for children about this via our MP. He replied with an explanation of how the system worked which of course we knew (better than he did as we were experiencing it!) We wrote a second time to point out her had avoided all points are merely told us what we already knew and got a very vague response in return.
I truly believe the parental rights of the birth family should be removed before the child is placed. It is so hard to bond with a child amongst all the uncertainty.

We finally got our adoption orders in February this year - the children were placed in 2013!!!!! That's 4 and a bit years of LAC reviews, SW visits, and my DD having a tantrum every time her legal last name was used by officialdom. 4 years of eye watering court costs, legal aid for BM's legal team, barristers for the LA, extra reports being commissioned and paid for - I am scared to try to add it up but I have a strong suspicion that getting my children legally adopted has cost the public purse well over £1million.

There were so many hearings in the family court, with long delays between each for BM to get more evidence/legal advice/whatever, that it took over a year to get to the point that her request for leave to appeal the making of the adoption orders was refused. She appealed that decision, and the case was then heard at the court of appeal four times, with even longer delays between each hearing, for BM to get another refusal, before it could go back to the family court for the orders to be made.

Leaving aside the incredible stress for me, as well as the detriment to BM of believing she might have the children returned for so long, the best interests of the children were definitely nowhere to be seen. Literally years were spent in legal wrangling over the wording of a report, without any part of the legal circus even once looking at how the children were cared for, progress they'd made, what they wanted for their future - the magnitude of removing BM's PR pushed the children's best interests out of the window.

I fully realise that what happened to us is not typical, we were basically incredibly unlucky, but the fact that its possible and legal for this to happen in my view shows the system isn't fit for purpose. In what other scenario would the most important thing in your life be decided in court without you being represented (the adopter isn't actually a party to the case despite, y'know, parenting the children), without you having any voice or any part of the process? At least if you abuse or neglect your children you get legal representation and your day in court. I got neither. For four years. The system definitely has room for improvement.

My goodness that’s a bloody nightmare - how awful for all concerned and no, not fit for purpose at all.

In our situation we were represented at court, in fact because the permanence order had already been granted the only people in court were us and our solicitor. The birth family were informed the court date and technically could have attended but because the only issue for decision was the finalising of the adoption, there was no point in them paying legal costs to attend. I do think we got the lucky end of the stick but I don’t understand why more local authorities don’t separate out the removal of parental rights from the granting of the adoption order.

Because they can't separate out the removal of parental rights from the granting of the adoption order (in England and Wales). The birth family can oppose at placement order stage, AND at the granting of the adoption order. It's the Children's Act, not the choice of the LA.

I'm not sure that a freeing order vs placement order followed by adoption order necessarily means one takes longer than another. But LAs and judges in England and Wales are supposed to make sure that cases are decided within 26 weeks, and are (sometimes) held to account.

It came about in order to try to stop the drift in cases - making everyone in the system understand that 6 months is a long time in child development, especially for a young child.

Sorry, I was referring to Scotland where it’s still relatively usual to do the whole thing together - often dragging out the adoption order for months and years after placement.

In Scotland children are often placed even before their POA is granted, which means that they are placed befor pernenance has even been decided. This makes it much more nerve wracking for potential adopters but it also means that kids usually spend less time in care.

I wouldn't support placement being the point at which legally a child is the responsibility of the adoptive parents. LAs would be very likely to practically abandon APs at that point, whilst APs have absolutely got to be able to end the placement if there are insurmountable issues (including where significant concerns were not shared fully with the APs during the matching process)

Completely agree with @OlennasWimple

I agree, I don't think full PR transfer at point of placement is best.

I also don't think a L A having sole PR at any point is a good plan, either, in that my experience is that the LAs we have dealt should not be trusted having full PR. As things are, there is always one set of parents to keep the LA theoretically in check, albeit imperfect.

It's a system with nobodies best interests at heart, least of all the child's.
I'm a birth mum who relinquished at birth and it still took well over a year. Born in the May, AO finally granted in the November of the next year. 18 months of utter rubbish. I was in support of him being adopted, didn't appeal anything, wrote supporting statements and attended in person. In fact the only time I had cause to complain was the children's guardian falsely describing LO in her report - totally different hair colour, eye colour etc.
I had a conversation with LOs social worker when he had been with his parents a few months about how utterly exasperating the system is.
At that point I'd met his mum and genuinely really liked her. I could absolutely see how much of an amazing fit they would be together but the legal side of things massively slowed things down. The court knew i was supporting but still gave me every chance to appeal even 16 months down the line. It actually felt a bit to me that they didn't want to grant the AO which given circumstances involved was ridiculous.
Meanwhile another child suffered further uncertainty. He had 5 social workers due to staff changes which didn't help.
I can only imagine how hard that time is for adopters, but as a birth parent it was as frustrating and infuriating. At one stage I said in court they needed to stop "bloody faffing about and protect his future". That went down like a sack of spuds.

I think the 18 months is way to long. I do know of a birth mother who did change her mind but not sure at what point.

I do think @Anxious123 that the system could be tightened up on situations like yours. Ours was sorted within about 6 months.