Early permanence/ Concurrency

[Baebaconandeggs]

Has anyone had any experience of this? My husband and i have 2 DS (biological) and we are wanting to adopt our 3rd child. We are booked onto 2 info events, one from an agency and one from the council. The SW I spoke to on the phone said any child.placed with us would be 12.months and under which is what we are wanting.
I guess what Im saying is do most babies go on to be adopted by the current foster family in this situation or do they go back to their BF and how likely is it we could adopt a baby from birth?
Many thanks

So early permanence takes many forms: foster to adopt and concurrency are the two main ones. To be honest the answer to your questions vary from area to area, region to region etc! In answer to your first question it is fair to say that the majority of children placed in some form of early permanence scheme do go on to be adopted by their foster carers. However, not all! The percentages of children who are returned vary according to the type of early permanence being used.

Concurrency, as the name suggests is often used when some form of parenting assessment is still being carried out with birth family, but at the same time Social Workers feel there is a strong probability that adoption will become the plan so plans for adoption are running concurrently alongside. Long term care plan will not have been decided at this stage so rehabilitation with birth family (parents or kinship) could still be a possibility.

Foster to adopt is often used when really no assessment is being carried out but the paperwork and court proceedings still have to happen to achieve a placement order or freeing order depending in where in the UK you are.

Statistically around 95-98 % of foster to adopt placements result in adoption however this is significantly lower for concurrency at 90%.

Whilst these statistics do swing largely in the the adopters favour the question that I always put to prospective adopters is “if you are one of the 10%, somebody will has to be statistically, would you have it in you emotionally to support a rehabilitation of a baby that you had been caring for and fallen in love with? That was the question put to us when considering concurrency, and because of our strong faith we realised yes it would be hard but we knew if it came to it we could! In the end we were that 10% and had to rehabilitate a beautiful lo home to BM after almost a year! It was incredibly difficult but also totally right for the little one. I honestly believe you can only consider it if you know you can cope with a child not staying with you. If you can, then the risk will pay dividends for you, your family and the child in the end. Early permanence by far is best for the child although does not preclude them from the risk of developing attachment difficulties.

Your second question, are you likely to get a young baby. You have a much higher chance of getting a young baby than with adoption but now early permanence in some area is used for older toddlers as well. However, if a very young baby is something that is important than this is your best route.

Why are you thinking a young baby? What age are your birth children? There age will lately determine the age range you need to look at. Social workers usually like a minimum of two years between any child being placed and any child already in the house. The adopted child, usually being the youngest.

@Thepinklady77
Thanks for your reply, really helpful my boys are 3 and 4 years old. So to be able to adopt a very young baby would be ideal for our family as my husband and I have no plans on having anymore naturally. I basically had my boys one after the other and now I'd like to add to the family again with a.fairly small.age gap

I think you need to explore early permanence a bit more. You may want to consider how your children will deal with a child being rehabilitated. Too be honest though I know many who have done early permanence with birth or adopted children. They helped the children understand fostering and did not focus on adoption until they knew what was happening. I do know one family that had to rehabilitate a child home with a birth child. She coped fine with it because in her eyes they were only fostering the lo, she was not ever presented as a new sister. I think children are fairly robust and can cope with loss better than adults if supported in the right way.

I think with the age of your boys, really you can only go up to 2 (presuming your youngest will be almost 4 by the time you are approved). However, without going down early permanence you are still fairly likely to get matched to an12-24 month child. This is still young enough.

Our own children came to us at 2&3 after we had rehabilitated our first baby home. The two year old still felt like a toddler and was a good age. We had a good understanding of their emerging needs before they arrived. With young babies there is a huge risk in what issues may arise. I know there is no guarantees with birth children either but there are significantly higher risks with adopted children - attachment disorder, even if removed at birth and come straight to you, the nine months in the womb can be hugely damaging for many many reasons; alcohol/drug issues; ADHD etc. My children, dispute their significant early trauma and multiple moves in the care system, are actually much easier children to care for than some of my friends who adopted babies that came to them at birth through concurrency. Many of their problems only began showing at 2 or 3.

I am a big fan of early permanency and it is always best for the child, but I don’t always think enough is done to make people aware that there is still a high likelihood that the child may still have significant issues.

Good luck with your journey. Feel free to pm me if you have more specific questions.