Adoption order

[2dads247]

We found out today that birth family are contesting the adoption order. Help

Its pointless to say don't worry because you will. Are you sure its not leave to appeal at this stage.
Lots of birth parents try, its the last throw of the dice for them. I've never heard of an appeal being granted and a child returned to birth parents, unless its foster to adopt.

This was the first hearing for the actual adoption. Placement order has already been granted. We are not really sure what’s happening as LOs SW is on holiday. There is another hearing in Oct for them to prepare evidence.

If it is the first hearing then they are asking for permission to appeal ( called leave to appeal ). They cannot appeal unless they prove their case for that first and are granted the right to appeal from the judge hence the next hearing which will look at evidence about that. Only after that will they be able to present evidence opposing the adoption order being granted.
Even if leave is given it means nothing and Sometimes judges grant leave to appeal so parents have their final say and it leaves no wriggle room for anyone to challenge the legal process after the adoption order is granted.
All this drags it out but won't change the end result so really don't stress too much about it and let it rumble on in the background.

There are very few cases when an order hasn't been granted and they are always down to mistakes made by social workers. Most famously the one when the wrong man was identified as birth father. There's a heartbreaking case out there were birth parents had clearly made every effort to turn their life around and were doing really well but it still wasn't enough to get custody of their child back.

The reality is that parents not only have to show they have changed significantly, they also have to be able to prove they can sustain that change. As a general rule, if the placement order freeing your LO for adoption was less than a year old when you put your application to adopt in not enough time will have passed for them to be able to prove it.

It's hard. Our adoption was contested and the judge will hear any birth parent who turns up to apply for leave to contest even if they do it at the very last minute. If the judge doesn't allow birth parents the opportunity to do this then they could try to appeal any order any order granted under human rights legislation.

Once birth family say they want to contest then generally the following will happen

1. the judge will set a new court date to give birth family a chance to gather evidence to support their case
2. at the next hearing the judge will hear from the birth family and the placing authority arguments for and against granting the birth family leave to contest the order. This hearing is about deciding whether the birth parents can actually present enough evidence to the court to make it worth granting leave to appeal.
3. the judge will often adjourn the hearing and reconvene either on the same day or set another date to give their verdict. It is very rare that leave to contest is granted. 4a) leave to contest is denied, the judge grants the order and gives birth family 28 days to lodge an appeal. At this point, birth family have to follow strict legal procedures and cough up money. Simply sending a letter to the judge saying I want to appeal won't do. 4b) the judge grants leave to contest and orders the case be tried in full. It is very rare for the judge to not grant an order even when leave to contest is granted.

I think in all my frantic googling when I was in your situation I found 2 cases and it was the fault of social services both times. You won't find cases where children with placement orders are returned to birth parents because they don't exist. In most cases, the child's case is heard by the same judge throughout and a judge who granted an order placing for adoption is extremely unlikely to then turn round and not grant an adoption order for that child.

Like chocolate, I spent many a frantic hour googling when the same thing happened to us. NOTHING we can say here is going to stop you worrying as you will, but like the others have said there is almost 0 chance of it not going in your favour. It'll be fine xx

Thank you everyone. We have calmed down now.

😁

Sorry that was supposed to be a big grin not a grimace!!!

Where are you based, things work very differently in Scotland and England, so advice will be very different too.

England

Ours has been postponed last week as well as dad wants to oppose but for other reasons was unable to attend the hearing. We just have to wait for another date & I have no doubt it will go through but in the day it was upsetting! X