Speeding up adoptions

[fostering]

Does anyone have any good ideas about how LA's could speed up the adoption process.

I understand there are legal constraints but what has worked in practice for any of you out there that other LA's could try?

Thanks nananina for your comments. We went through a full assessment and we had a fantastic social worker. We had contact from the very beginning. We went through thorough assessment process as you have stated, and were passed initially as foster carers. Gs moved in permanently with us at four months old but I had daily contacts from supervised to unsupervised to increased hours to overnight stays. I was the only person turning up to arranged contacts. The process I felt was long but reading everybodies posts on here it was actually short. We are a stable family I am married and have been since I was 20 and now I am 41. We are young Grandparents and really the age of parents. We have good family values and we are proud of our own children and gs. The problem really was the maternal family which have BIG problems. My son is happy with the situation he likes to see his son but it is like it is his brother. We have set up a life story photo book for gs. We are called Grandma n Grandad, he knows who his parents are. I am so glad that we were considered for sgo as for us the loss would have been like a death. I have no regrets and speak positively to him of his parents, and he has supervised contacts. We treat all our children with respect and teach our children to do the same. Families are so diverse these days. My point really is that I am glad for us we were considered and given the time. Our foster carer was very difficult to deal with. I just would like to see families not pre judged by foster carers and taking it for granted that adoption is the best thing. To not generalise that all birth families are drug users, alcoholics, and not able to care for a child. Both me and my dh don't drink or have ever taken drugs. Each family deserves an open mind. Having said that I am sad for the child that is messed about by birth family and ending up back in care. Then not being able to be adopted. That is terrible and needs addressing. I have been told by our sw that dealt with our case that we should have had gs from the day of birth but they were so lacking in resources that they were unable to assess any earlier.

Hi Fostering your comments below,

I can understand a 15 year old not having the maturity to work with social services to prove his parenting ability but on the other hand, do you recognize that, if you had been assessed to adopt in normal circumstances some may view your own son's behaviour as unfavourable with regard to your own parenting skills and would be unhappy about a LO being placed with yourself?

What will your GS be doing with his life at 15? Will you be a greatgrandma at 54 or will he be at school working hard towards GCSE's?

In answer to the above, my son met his gf who was housed by social services leaving care team. They knew my son had moved in and refused to come home. He was dealing with gf who was domestic violent towards him and he suffered terrible abuse from her. She was a damaged girl after being failed by her parents and the care system. I don't really want to go into to much personal detail. My son was and still is extremely clever and achieved all his GCSE'S. He is extremely clever and articulate. He was flagged up at Nursery for his intelligence. In Primary he achieved Level 6 in his sats. His Head teacher told me when he was in year 6 that he was way more mature than his piers, and basically outgrown primary school.
He was then put into the gifted and talented at secondary school. He did very well at school and his teachers liked him a lot, he was popular with lots of friends. He is now working and we are very proud of him. My son's behaviour was not looked on as unfavourable, we had a very positive outcome. As you have commented on such a personal level, I must say that as a foster carer you really should leave the decisions to the qualified professionals. As to my gs he is also very clever and I hope that he achieves just as well as his daddy. The world is his oyster. And remember fostering Only for the grace of God go I!

PinkChoccy

The point is in this case you were there to take care of your GS. Very often SW's are presented with difficult decisions.

What if SS have been alerted that a 16 year old herion addict, who is displaying violence to her 15 year old OH, is neglecting her baby. They will have no choice than to protect the child and take him into care. They will inevitably look to family to care for him long term.

If there is no family willing to take the baby on and the parents are opposed to the baby being adopted the child will have to remain in foster care until court proceedings have concluded. Very often this is not within the time limit for the child.

The instance you speak about was relatively simple. Social Workers are faced with many, many, different and difficult scenarios.

Personally I think the adoption process is way too long. Social Workers are damned if they do and damned if they don't. And I am not particularly a great fan of Social Services but Social Workers have a very difficult and unrewarding job.

Pinkchoccy, I do leave all the decisions to SW's and I have said throughout these threads that I am more than plesed it worked out for you. My original post was how to speed things up when it is an uncontested case of a relinquished child.

However, I know I shall be damned to generalize, but it is often the case that parent's and family assessment drags on for so long that when children are finally released for adoption by the courts the child is "too old to adopt".

Having met recently with a group of carers a new placement has arrived at 5 years having already been through 6 homes (both family members and foster carers). He is disruptive at school and tricky to deal with and love. The system as it stands has not helped him and it lets many others down too.

I do keep my fingers crossed for my own sons as I am well aware of the influences they are surrounded by.

It sounds like you were very lucky that your son continued with his studies despite having an abusive girlfriend. Believe me, you do not fit the stereotype parent, foster carers see every day. Your son's girlfriend sounds much more typical of a looked after child profile!

Hi fostering,

I agree with you, but I am so glad that things weren't speeded up for us and that we were given a chance. I hope that families that are decent and capable are given a chance to. I felt some comments were harsh, but fair comment and it is frustrating to hear and prove yourself when something like this happens to your own family. You are probably right that we are not the stereotype family. The situation was also unusual as we are the paternal grandparents, usually a teenage girl would be looked after by her Mother. Shame that this was not the case. Mum of gs has come through a lot and has overcome a lot of difficulties. She is doing very well and things are much more positive for her.

Hi Dorie I understand if a baby is being neglected etc that it is very important to protect them by taking them into care. It always when the court proceedings have finalised that the decision by the judge concludes wether a child should be adopted. This is the process anyway because it is usual for parents to disagree, even if they don't turn up. My grandsons parents didn't turn up at court hearings but their own solicitor's fought each of their corners. We must have good social workers in our area because ours did not mess about or allow things to continue. For us the hearings took about 16 months to final hearing. Gs moved in with us from foster care at 4 months old but we had contacts for full days everyday progressing to overnight. So things went very well for us.

I am a Childre and Families Social Worker and believe me we are robust in our language when challenging parents. We work with the police on every cp case and the police make the decision if there should be a criminal prosection, which does happen sometimes.

Our teams are short staffed with a very high staff turnover. If the government could address some of the reasons local authorities are unable to retain staff this would help the adoption process as there is delay as a result of high caseload and high numbers of staff leaving. The average length of employment of C & F social workers in our council is 2 years.

Hi slipperandpjsmum I am really glad that the adoption process wasn't considered and that time was taken with us. The process was still too long but at least gs was with us from as soon as was possible after giving parents the chance. I understand that adoption needs to be quicker for other children who do not have supportive or unable families. It is a sad state of affairs.

Well said - slipperandpjsmum - thank god I am retired now after 30 years - I retired in 2004 but worked independently till 2009. Am still in touch with sw colleagues and cannot believe how bad things have got and likely to get worse with the cuts that this damn coalition are bringing in. I am just amazed that there are any child protection social workers left.

I do sometimes get very frustrated on these threads because so many people criticise sws without having the feintest idea of how unbelievably stressful this job is and how the cp system works. Not this thread particularly as it is quite sensible but the ones that really get me are the "sws snatching babies from decent parents for adoption" - think my blood pressure must be dangerously raised at these posts. Oh god hope that doesn't bring those sort of people on this thread!

Agreee with you nananina we had two fab social workers. The fcarer that we dealt with called our social workers to me all the time, felt very unprofessional of her tbh. Our gs had his first immunisations well over due because she wouldn't chase these up with sw because sw was pulled out on time factor and papers needed signing. She would just say that she was waiting for sw to sort it out, but not reminding her. I was the one ringing to chase. Our foster carer was receiving huge sums of money too as she was a private one and she was being paid on a mother and baby placement. It was discussed at court the £650 a week payments she was receiving. On that kind of money you would at least try to work together. Or maybe she had prejudged us as one of the families described on this thread. Or maybe not used to anybody fighting for their family member.

not really sure why you mentioned how much the foster carer was erring same old same old

if and when you ever become a foster carer then you will know £££ is no comfort when a child is defecating on your kitchen floor or your up till gone silly o clock with a drug withdrawing baby or you left to raise a teens baby while their whooping it up with some bloke 3 times their age

if anything we should get paid more and to be honest your daughter in law didn't sound like a bundle of laughs and you said your self both your son and her not Turing up to meetings ect

and if she felt you difficult or was concerned then i am not sure why she wouldnt contact the sw

i actually fuming right now this is a thread for how FOSTER CARERS would like to change to get adoptions speed up we are all aware that for a minorty of children going to a family memeber is a good choice but

i really am not interested in how much the fc earned as if it werent for her were would your grand son have been remember it was YOUR SON AND DAGHTER IN LAW ISSUES THAT LANDED HIM WITH THE FC IN THE FIRST PLACE
IF PARENTS WERE ABLE TO PARENT THEIR WOULD OF BEEN NO NEED FOR FC TO BE PAID 650 A WEEK

you have up set me no end as if our work doesn't justify the wage and fyi la fc never get paid that much but i wouldn't begrudge any one who dose because as someone who fosters i know how hard the job is and that idfc take on hard to place children

i wont BE REPLYING TO YOU AGAIN

I have read this thread with interest. My LA always twin track. When they have a Care Order the LA go down the route of assessing parents to have the child returned to them or family (If this is what the parents or family wish) and at the same time they look for suitable adopters so that if the child, for whatever reason, does not go back to his family the adopters have been found and assessed so there is not so much waiting time for the child.

I am a bit shocked at the stance of pinkchoccy stating the amount a foster carer recieved for looking after her daughter in law and grandson. Pinkcoccy Do you realise that the foster carer actually had TWO placements (Your DIL and GS)? As an LA carer I receive £120 child allowance per week plus £150 Carers Allowance so £650 for an IFA carer for TWO placements does not seem OTT. I am wondering why pinkchoccy did not offer her DIL and GS to live with her so she could teach her DIL parenting skills for free TBH, thus relieving SS of the financial burden of foster care for her family.

The foster carer didn't have grandsons mother for more than two weeks. She left due to the foster carer not being helpful but more taking over. She didn't feel comfortable as she is from a very humble background. The foster carer had a massive house and was considerably well off. Her children all attending private school etc. My grandsons mother isn't married to my son as he was 15 years of age and suffered terrible domestic violence. She was very damaged having come through the care system and been through the most traumatic childhood. She was drinking, taking drugs, self harming etc etc. Social Services moved Grandson as an emergency placement to us, and told us he should never have been placed there. It was due to lack of staff and time why our assessment wasn't completed so he went into fostercare. My grandsons mother was homeless, had no family to support her. There is no way that she could have lived with us we have four children and my youngest was 3 years old. My family are not qualified to take on that kind of a problem. The financal burden as you put it was nothing to do with us, it was because social services didn't have the time to assess us thoroughly before birth. I have never needed foster care for any of our family and in usual circumstances the mother of a daughter would do just what you have stated corsa100. You have obviously not read this through properly! I thought the costs / burden what ever you like to call it paid to fostercarer was absolutely ridiculous and a waste of money because we were already planned carers but lack of time and resources were the cause. Outrageous!

Thanks slippersandpjsmum, you have given a very useful reason why adoptions take so long.

Our teams are short staffed with a very high staff turnover. If the government could address some of the reasons local authorities are unable to retain staff this would help the adoption process as there is delay as a result of high caseload and high numbers of staff leaving. The average length of employment of C & F social workers in our council is 2 years.

This is a very real cause for concern and worth looking into. Can you name what support SW's need to stay with CP work? (I'm already thinking more money, I'd want to be very well paid to do their job).

Corsa100, thanks to you also, twin tracking I'm sure works well - does the same social worker assess parents and also search for adopters? I've often wondered why new borns aren't placed with adopters from birth in cases where the outcome is practically a known from the outset, given they would have to sign away rights until the courts process all the paperwork, but so lovely for the baby and the adopters.

Nananina, I really don't think that there are any foster carers that believe children are snatched from good parents. We are all well aware how hard it is to remove a child and place it in care. That is just headline grabbing in newspapers. Don't let it get to you. We really do know what the real children are like who are in social care.

Pinkchoccy, we all get the picture, we understand your situation and how you feel about foster carers. But you are not actually a foster carer are you?

Ponkchoccy.

You were not able to have your grandson and his mother to live with you during their time of crisis. For whatever reason social services placed them in foster care for the baby's protection and for the mother to learn how to look after him.

I am not sure what you think social services should have done with your grandson and his mother??

Yous say your family are not qualified to take on "that kind of problem."

You have described the child's mother as violent, damaged, drinking and drug taking. Do you think a foster carer should care for her and her baby for free, however long it took for the baby's grandparents to be approved? Or do you think the child and his mother should have been placed with the mother's mother - the very person who caused damage to the girl in the first place?

And BTW it is hardly the FC's fault the baby's mother felt out of place in a big house is it?

Fostering It is the Adoption Dept who look for and assess prospective adopters. Adopters are placed on a National Database. It is the child's social worker and independent assessor who assess the child's birth parents/family. Our LA have been twin tracking for around 8 years now. I have had three children go on to adopted parents in this time. Two have gone to birth family and 7 have remained in care. I cannot comment on babies as my age range is 3-15. I know that relinquished babies are placed in foster care as the mother has 6 weeks to change her mind. I have always wondered why babies cannot be placed for adoption much more quickly too. Maybe NannaNina can help?

I've looked after one of those babies who's a "dead cert" to go for adoption as all possible assessments had just been carried out for a sibling. At the last minute an estranged Aunty came forward and he now lives with her and is able to remain in contact with his other siblings.

Until this happened I was one of the people shouting the loudest about how ridiculously long adoption takes!

corsa100 my grandson was placed in foster care giving his mum a chance and rightly so. Social services had no time to assess us in time if the need arised for us to be fall back carers. I think social services should have placed mum and baby in a mother and baby unit. In a caring and nurturing environment. We visited baby and mum when gs was born and all my family wanted to support. Social services wouldn't allow this. I am not qualified and to near the problem at the time to help as my son was grandsons dad. Social services didn' want us to be involved with the problems and told us strictly not to be. Our social worker informed us that gs should have been placed with us, not foster care but they couldn't assess in time. Mother didn't stay with foster carere for more than two weeks. Our feelings were that we would look after gs financially as we could afford to. So waste of money for social services. Money didn't come into it for us. No interest in the money just number one priority our grandson it's as simple as that.
It is the foster carers job as she is being paid to help and show mum how to look after baby not make her feel incapable. Our family helped mum and dad by buying clothes, gifts etc. The day gs left when I picked him up he left with two plastic bags of clothes and that was it!!! Where was his things ? Social services said she should pass them on she didn't? It was her job to make sure he received his immunisations, but she refused to chase them up as she said social services should have this under control. When he came to live with us I sorted his immunisations out. She would verbally call the social workers to me when picking gson up for contacts. Made me feel very awkward and uncomfortable is that professional? He was throwing sick out with reflux all the time where he smelt and his clothes were always wet through. I mentioned this all the time to her. She did nothing. When he came to live with us I mentioned this to health visitor she said he had a reflux problem changed his milk and he was fine. On a contact he was screaming, he had a long hair fastened tightly around his little finger. It was swollen and red. It took great care to remove he was so distressed. Thank God he came to live with us.
I found the situations with the foster carer very difficult, mum didn't stand a chance.

Gs is a very happy child in his birth family.

Pinkchoccy

I am very pleased that things worked out well for your gs in the end. I am sure most people, including FC's would prefer to see all damaged mothers and their babies go into specialist mother and baby units. The problem is they are are full and cost considerably more than £650 per week.

It appears from your postings that the FC's role was to support the mother in how to care for her baby. The mother did not want this support. Therefore a stand off position took place.

Reflux is a condition which makes a baby vomit up his milk in large quantities. This would happen whatever milk he was on. My close friend has a baby at this moment with reflux. She has tried all milks including soya and goats milk etc He still has reflux and still throws up his bottle within minutes of him taking it.

The baby smelled of vomit. For all we know the FC may have suggested to the mother that the baby's clothes need to be changed. If mother refused the FC cannot force her to change her child's clothes. At the end of the day mother had PR and as all foster carers are well aware mothers decision is final.

It is part of a FC's role to discuss difficulties with the SW. And from what you are posting this did, indeed, seem to be a difficult placement.

corsa100 mum left placement it was foster carer caring for the child not the mum. The reflux had a name that I can't recall. Milk changed and it didn't happen again. Point is she didn't do anything about it.

I am not saying that all foster carers are like this, but I found it difficult with the fc and I was 38 not 17 years of age.
I understand from the posts on here now why you would like adoptions speeded up. Just glad it didn't become an option for us.
This has been interesting.

Hi I just wnted to say I had a baby relinquished at birth. The baby was placed in foster care for a period of 3 months in case the mother changed her mind. Adoptive parents were found. In the meantime the baby's family (brother of the mother and his wife) wanted the baby to live with them. A lengthy assessment was done and it was found they were not suitable. By this time baby was 2 and a half. We applied to adopt and were approved by SS. Then the birth father decided he would like to care of his child with his new partner. Assessments were done on them. SS were in favour of him and his partner. Court Guardian, Independent assessor, psychologist and child psychiatrist were not.

We reapplied to adopt. By this time child was 5 years old. Birth granparents then asked the child to live with them. Again assessments were done but they were found to be not suitable due to grandfathers past history.

Then came a lengthy court case in which SS, birth father and birth mother (who had since arrived back on the scene) were afforded a solicitor, barrister and, later, QC. We had to pay for legal representation.

Last week we were granted the Adoption Order. The child is 8.

What an absolute waste of LA funds and everyones time!

My job is to now put the child back together after the trauma this process has caused her.

Hi littleflora that sounds absolutely horrendous. I am starting to understand these views a lot better and what has obviously promted this thread in the first place. How bad of the LA to let this go on for so long!
At least now you are able to adopt and your child has you and the security of you always being there from the beginning.
I didn't realise this could be allowed to go on for so long. I was comparing this to our own family situation which was pretty quick considering what you have said.

Littleflora, sadly your story is all too familiar.

The spread of costs is also unfair. I think it amazing that you stuck with the child, at least your continuity of care and love will be proof to the child of just how much you love her.

The legal system definitely does not have any child's best interest at heart. It isn't the LA who let things drag out but the courts who have instructed the LA to continue with so many assessments.

What a ridiculous system we have! I really think there should be very rigid timescales when family members can then be ruled out to give children the best chance of finding permanent adoptive families.

Fostering I agree totally.

The Children Act should be about the child rather than the parent. The Childrens Act 1989 states that children are better off within their birth families, and to a certain extent this is true - WHERE POSSIBLE! Unfortunately SS and the Court have to give birth parents the chance to prove they are unfit parents, before the child can move on with his life. Sometimes it is too late for the child to have a chance to be adopted by the time birth family are ruled out.

Sometimes I feel there is no scope for common sense when deciding what is best for the child.

I don't agree a child in care is always better of than a child living in a abusive or neglectful home.

Children are only Better off if their families are providing good parenting

Makes me so mad my child mum has a negative parenting assessment the ss don't support her the guRidan dosent support her And lo dosent want to live with her but yet she is still being allowed to wAist time in appealing lo has been in care for years while mum takes it to higher and higher courts its been so long now family finders have judged lo to old to be adopted gurr.

Do you know fostering that it is the LA that presents to the court what they wish to happen, and the court then agrees. It is the judge who decides but it is the social worker that presents their case. The judge just re-schedules more time for the social workers to carry out the assessments etc. Social workers seem to have a lack of time to complete within timescales.

Pinkchoccy

Where there are several proffessionals involved in the assessment process they each take their own findings into Court. If, for example, SS are saying the parent does not show good enough parenting skills but the Independent assessor or CG are saying that given time the parents MAY be good enough the Judge has to direct that the parents be given further opportunity to prove themselves, or even give them enough rope to hang themselves.

It is not always SS who allow the child to languish in care until too old to be adopted. There are many different scenarios where this has happened. It is not always SS fault.