Questions about Early Permanence

[adopte]

My husband and I are looking to adopt through Adopt North East (Local Authority). We are looking into the options - i.e. traditional adoption vs. early permanence.
We both work full-time but my employer offers adoption leave/pay and just wondering how this works with early permanence?
As there's no timescales or guarantee with early permanence that it turns into adoption (or how long it would take if it did) - do you get fostering allowance from the local authority and take unpaid leave from work, and then submit your adoption leave if it becomes finalised?
I'd also love to speak to someone who has any recent experience of it all if anyone would be happy for a DM :)

Thank you

Hi We got a fostering allowance for the full time of fostering. Started the adoption leave when she first came to us, for 12 months, and then took unpaid leave for 7 months leave after the year was up, . We got an
additional allowance through the adoption team for the time on unpaid leave x

We had adoption leave (and pay) as soon as our daughter moved in when we did EP, you still get a matching cerificate of types that HR can use to get the ball rolling on adoption leave.

If you’re in England or Wales adoption leave is a legal right, so any employer claiming they don’t offer it is breaking the law, rates of pay are also the same.

Our daughters adoption was finalised about six weeks after our 12 months of leave ended.

@Pollylong that's great that they offered you additional financial support after the adoption leave. Can I ask if you went through a voluntary adoption agency or through the local authority? I would imagine things like that are a bit of a postcode lottery unfortunately :(

We went through the Local authority., so it was the same people paying us the adoption allowance as the fostering allowance it just came from a different pot. I imagine it can be a postcode lottery, but also if is taking longer than a year to resolve and going back to work isn’t viable then most cases they would be keen to support you to keep the placement in place x

@Pollylong it's so interesting that this was an option for you. I am considering a 3rd EP placement but a major factor is that in my first two it took way over a year to get a matching certificate (which is when I could claim adoption leave from work.) Up until matching certificate I was surviving off the Fostering allowance which was very little compared to my salary. Am I right in reading that there may be an option of topping this up by another means. One of my LOs took a very long time to get a matching certificate for and I was on my knees financially but nothing was offered. It's what is making me hesitant about doing it one final time as I'm well aware of the long time lines now. Thanks.

@EG88 you didn’t get any support, that’s rubbish! I was so surprised by your post that I had to double check with my husband that I hadn’t mis remembered, but yes the local authority definitely gave us a top up each month. can’t remember off the top of my head how much they gave us but he thinks it was about the same a
month that we currently get in an adoption allowance when she came back,

didnt cover all the losts wages but certainly help cover some. I think that our social worker said she would look into what they could do once it looked
like my husband wouldnt be able to
go back to work, and that this would cause some financial instability and then higher up approved it.

Although we were properly one of the first cases in the local authority where the case went beyond the 12 months, which might have been a factor in it, but it really does sound like a postcode lottery.

@Pollylong That's really helpful to read and something I will ask about as an option. I'm certain I'm also unique in my LA with the 3.5 year time line but no, appart from the fostering allowance I got nothing until matching certificate when I could claim my adoption leave pay. It was extremely difficult but given the situation my LO was in, at the time it was the least of my worries. Knowing there is a small financial safety net should that every happen again would be a huge help. I appreciate the information! x