Matching to approval to placement timeframes

[ClArabelle67]

Hi

What are your experiences of the above?.... what were your experiences re how long from approval at panel to placement and the. To adoption hearing?

Did anyone have continued contact with family members during this time and how did it support/hinder the placement ?

We first heard about ours in Month 1
Matching Panel Month 3
Intros Started Month 4
Moved in Month 5
Adoption Hearing Month 19

They had their 'goodbye visit' between panel and intros iirc.
I would have thought that continued contact during intros would be highly unusual, though I could be wrong.

@UnderTheNameOfSanders. Thank you for your reply. Re continued contact during intros, for what reason do you think it would be unusual? Did yours little people have continued contact with foster carers after they were placed with you? Do you know why there was a 14 month gap from placement to adoption hearing? I’m aware they have to be in placement for 10 weeks, so 14 months to permanency seems excessive?

seeing birth family during intros just wouldn't happen, way too confusing for a child. The plan for us was direct contact but that didn't happen until 5 months.
The current thread about seeing FCs shows how varied contact can be and why. My son was a lot older and had been with FC for nearly 4 years , he called them a few times in the early days and we saw them after 3 months. I tried to maintain contact but FC wasnt forthcoming.
The 10 weeks is a minimum. We didn't get our adoption order for 13 months. Even in you put the papers in after 10 weeks you still have to wait for court dates, there could be delays for reports, birth family contesting, all sorts of reasons.
We had delays because paperwork wasnt in order, the judge wanted more info about something. His SW was a disability SW and inexperienced with adoption. At 10/12 weeks we had a huge deterioration in behaviour - partly caused by her not recognising how disruptive her visits were. She wouldn't support me putting the application in, I really had to fight her over it.
Some families delay applications whilst getting support packages in place.
Lots of reasons. A year to AO probably isn't that unusual, though many will take a lot less.

One of ours was 8 when placed. Because of that the LA wanted a longer time before going for adoption order. Then when we did apply the BF wanted to contest the proposed contact arrangements (a previous SW had 'promised' something they shouldn't have) which delayed things.

We did have some meets with the FC and we are still in contact at Christmas time.

We were 14 weeks from placement to court hearing, the DC had final contact with birth family about 3 months before being placed with us so basically when the permanence order was granted. In Scotland they need to be in placement 13 weeks and 1 day so we were in court pretty much as soon as we could.

Pfft.... both situations sound unnecessarily stressful.....re continuing contact with BF, I guess it will always to judged on the level of positive attachment and the willingness of the BF to support the placement. But it also sounds like there’s is a parallel assumption that attachment to FC is given some sort of recognition. Sounds like the system really doesn’t work on a research based model.

@Ted27, I recall from a previous thread your boys fC was ace and really advocated for him. Was there a clear plan there re staggered down contact?

It must be stressful for adopters to be left hanging so long for the final adoption order?

@, not sure if it’s just swifter in Scotland or because of your professional background ( so you were all over it ) yours happened in a tight time frame?

@Ted27, what makes you say continued contact with BF would be way too confusing? I’ve taught attachment theory and practice and putting aside abuse etc, if there’s a strong positive attachment then it’s easier for a child to make secondary attachments if they see the adults together?

At your final adoption hearing were any of you given a copy of the judgement re placement ?

Hmmm...I'm interested in why you're asking?

You’re right in thinking I was all over it, and permanence had already been agreed so parental rights had been removed so the hearing was purely about agreeing the adoption. I also chose solicitors I knew to be specialists who really knew what they were doing which meant they petitioned court in time for an early hearing and kept on top of the curator ad litem, they had good pre-established relationships with the social work departments and knew the quirks of their systems. Definitely a case of knowing who to use and why - the solicitors weren’t cheap but we’re worth every penny to get things settled quickly.

In saying that, depending on the legal status of the children it can take a long time to get an order through - not unusual for it to take 18 months plus here, hence the reason for wanting the POA in place before intros and choosing my solicitors wisely. Basically from matching I had things in place for a quick hearing, but it often doesn’t work that way.

@haha, your so on it, but other adopters must flounder with this stuff?? . did the LA not pay for your legal re the final adoption, arent they supposed to do that, given they’ve placed the LOs with you?

@EightWellies, I can’t give specifics because I don’t want any chance of identifying the LOs... just trying to get my head round what has occurred in our situation and if that’s ‘normal’.

In my situation the placement order was made in month 4, I was told a match ad adoption pa el approval was made in month 7, at which time contact was stopped, ( the plan agreed in court was for an open adoption... then on matching the SW stated it was ‘normal’ for no contact for 12 months)...the final adoption hearing was month 10... but I’m not sure that would have happened if I’d not been all over the LA in terms of info about permanacy.
I’m aware my LA were instructed to provide a copy of the judgement within a week, and made no application for 5 months, which was a misfile, and they only re applied for it after I again engaged a lawyer. Re the final adoption application, again,,I was kicking off re the LOs status so the application for adoption went into court in month 8; 1 month for representations to appeal, etc, the. Status granted in month 10... so maybe swifter than some have experienced.

That sounds pretty typical tbh assuming everything was in place. And no, the LA aren’t responsible for legal fees for straightforward adoptions in Scotland, they’ll take over the fees/appoint their own lawyer if the family contest but usually the new parents are responsible for court fees.

I didnt say continued contact with birth family would be confusing, I said contact during intros would be too confusing.
I'm one of the few adopters on here that does have direct contact with birth family. It is quite frankly fraught with difficulty and has caused both me and my son huge stress, as it is at the moment. My son has been devasted by his dads inability to maintain contact. Its heartbreaking to see.

Direct contact is all very well in theory, the reality is very different. Co incidentally we were talking about it tonight. It grieves me to see how sad he is. After his GCSEs he wants to see his dad - he has some questions, I suspect the result will be that he will decide for himself that he doesnt want to maintain contact.
I'm a bit confused as to the processes you are describing, its up to the adopters to decide when to put court application in, not the LA.
I think you may be describing processes before adopters are involved. There may well be lengthy court processes to determine that a child should be adopted. Unless its a foster to adopt situation, these are concluded before adopters are in the picture. It used to be called a freeing order. Its completely different to adoptersr making their application for an adoption order.

@ted why would it be confusing if the BF are supportive?... wouldn’t that help a child through the transition? Of course it depends on the bf ability to commit to supporting the placement, but I personally would have done everything possible to ease that; but I understand that’s my position. It’s heartbreaking when parents can’t be consistent, as is your case.

The research evidence on attachment is simply not born out in the practice, attachment is a nuanced thing and if it’s positive it should continue while a child develops a new primary attachment. ... I understand that it’s always dependant on the particular circumstances, but blanket policies should not be applied.

I thought adopters shared PR with the LA during placement, and therefore take their lead from the LA re app.ying for a final adoption hearing... maybe it is their choice/right to decide when, but I had the impression CS lead them on this... maybe. I got it wrong?

Fair enough CIArabelle67 . I wasn't looking for specifics on your kids, I just thought the tone of your posts was unusual.

We are in Scotland and have had our legal fees paid both times round for non-contested adoptions.

I would say that the idea of transferring attachment is a myth. We all do have an attachment style, developed through our earliest experiences, which sets a pattern of how we're likely to form future relationships.

The whole process of applying for the AO was definitely our call, rather than the LA.

Morning,
My LO's adoption order was granted a year to the day after I was first emailed about a possible match, although there were legal complications along the way. Contact with BF was stopped before intros started.
I chose when to put the AO order forms in.

Home visit - late Sep 2018
Matching by SW - early Oct 2018
Matching panel - mid Nov 2018
Introductions with children - early Dec 2018 (2 weeks after panel)
Placement - early Dec 2018 (7 days after introductions)
Submission of adoption order - Feb 2019
Court order approved by court - late May 2019

I thought adopters shared PR with the LA during placement, and therefore take their lead from the LA re app.ying for a final adoption hearing

This very much depends on the legal status of the child and is quite complex because, unless the LA go to court to have parental rights removed the birth parents retain parental responsibility until the adoption order is granted. So you could have a child where birth parents, LA and adoptive parents all have some degree of parental responsibilities for a child. While we refer to parental rights, they only extend as far as they enable an individual to parent a child so more accurate to talk about parental responsibilities.

If a child is freed for adoption through a court process, the birth parents no longer have parental responsibility (or the rights that go with that), so it’s the LA and foster carer/prospective adopter who has those responsibilities and contact with birth family will usually have ended because they no longer have parental responsibilities. If the child has been freed for adoption it is the adoptive parent who brings the court action to adopt the child and they can do that when they are ready subject to minimum time limits.

If the child has been placed with a plan for permanence but the child hasn’t been freed for adoption, the court process will be to both free the child for adoption and grant the adoption order at the same time. This is the situation where birth parents, LA and prospective adopters all have parental responsibilities to some degree, so birth family contact would continue until the court date, the process is much more open to challenge and appeal, and can mean the adoption order takes longer because the court needs to deal with removing parental responsibility as well as granting the order, so two processes in one. In such a situation the LA and the prospective adopters lawyers will work together - the LA bringing the petition to remove parental responsibilities and the prospective adopters bringing the petition for the adoption order. In reality the LA solicitors will often deal with both and seek a contribution from the adopters in the unlikely event that the LA doesn’t cover the whole bill.

Concurrency planning and foster to adopt have their own quirks to bring to the party in terms of early permanence planning.

In short, law around parental rights is very complex, law around adoption is equally complex - throw birth family, adopters, foster carers into the mix and it’s even more so, with lots of heightened emotions into the bargain. There’s no one single process in moving children through so you’ll get a huge range of experiences all of which might be perfectly reasonable given the specific circumstances of the child and family.

Hello sorry I have skipped the other msgs so not sure how helpful or relevant this will be now but our experience was approved in February 2019. We were initially matched in may and placement would have been due to begin in the August. Unfortunately for complicated reasons this match broke down in late June and we didn't proceed which was an awful time. We were quite quickly then re-matched to our little boy who is with us now in the July. We went to matching panel in the October and introductions began in November. There are so many variables it's extremely hard to advise but once you have a match I think a fairly typical timeframe can be 3/4 months to move in but don't quote me on it! Xxx

Sorry just to add we lodged our adoption order application as soon as we could, so 10 weeks after placement which took us to mid January. We have our first hearing in April and have been told that in most instances adopters should prepare for at least 2 initial hearings for BPs followed hopefully by a celebration hearing where adoption order is granted. Generally speaking we've been told to expect a month in between hearings This can run to a third hearing though and also time-frames between are very much dependent on availability of the courts c

We where approved on a Tuesday & our LOs family finding social worker contacted us on the Sunday. By the Monday we'd done all the nessessary emails (via linked in) and had a date booked for our initial meeting, in 3 weeks time due to 3rd party holidays.

Fast forward 3 weeks (early June - the wait was torcher) they came, told us there and then they wanted to progress (which is completely unknown generally, but they where that impressed).

We where immediately placed on the next available matching panel (Early August) it wasn't a long enough gap for July placement to fit all the paperwork & requested "bump intos" in from initial meeting & July panel.

From the initial meeting, we organised two bump intos (mid & late July)

Panel first week in Aug, intros started 2nd week of Aug. LO moved in beginning of the 4th week Aug.

From approval panel (and having no avenues of prospective children) to LO moving in 14 weeks.

I was approved in nov, initial visit about the children was feb half term, matching panel beginning of April and they were home by mid April less than 7 weeks later. Our celebration hearing was Feb the following year because of delays in paperwork.