Foster to adopt

[scarlet5tyger]

m.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18724999

Has anyone seen this article? Any thoughts?

Although I'm hugely in favour of foster carers being more easily able to adopt I don't see how concurrency can work - how can birth parents be given a fair chance if the foster carer is automatically biased against them? And what effect would it have on a foster carer if a child they hoped to keep was then returned to a birth parent?

I see the reasoning behind it but I expect it could be v difficult to change over to.

Isn't this all part of Cameron's bill ? The theory is to speed up adoption process by placing lac with potential adopters prior to a court decision. How does this fit in with the golden rule of aiming to get the child back home? And what about the whole process of contact, relationship with birth parents, ensuring the correct match etc ? If i've got this right then I have grave reservations that fairness to birth parents and best interests of the child's future are at heart. It smacks of political points scoring

I wondered how they manage secrecy about where the child goes if fostering has to be local ( gov article couple of weeks ago) and adoption needs to be further away.

I know Harriet, all the families of the children we look after have our address unless there is a good reason to not have it.

What about adopters? I wonder how many would be prepared to do this. It could be either wonderful for them or very painful.

Whatever happens the present system is wrong.

I think it is a good idea. My friends have adopted two children. Both children were placed in care from birth and both had older siblings that were also adopted. Our friends were not placed with the children until the children were 2 years and 18 months. Whilst it was reassuring to know that the children were placed in loving foster homes it was a huge upheaval for the children as they would have bonded with the foster parents and I am sure that it would have been in the interests of the children to have been placed with their adoptive parents from day 1.

Thing is the secrecy surrounding these proceedings. It gives too much power to SS and GAL who often work closely together. Also SS often have alternative/extra agenda such as adoption targets to meet.

I think concurrrent placement is an excellent concept for the best interests of the child. I desperately wanted the LA that I worked for to do a pilot project and offered to lead on it but there was insufficient committment.

Childatheart I can't stand DC and this coalition is scarey and taking us back to the 1930s I'm sure, but this is nothing to do with him. The concept has been around for 10 years or more (I have been retired for 8 years) and it as certainly around well before I retired.

I know about Cameron and his wanting to speed up adoption but it isn't possible to place a LA child with potential adoptors, as they have to be placed with approved foster carers. I suppose in theory they could be placed with approved adoptors but I think this is most unlikely. If children are placed in the extended family the law allows them to be in placement for 6 weeks before the family are assessed and approved (or not) though these 6 weeks often go into 6 months, or more.

On the issue of getting the child back home, this is something that has to be considered all along, and birth parents are assesesed by social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists (if there are mental health problems) and a guardian is appointed, who in turn commissions a lawyer to act for the child in court, even though guided by the guardian of course. Every LA child has to have a care plan and that can change right up to the final hearing, but every sw knows that before the final hearing they must be able to evidence why the child will not be safe with the parents. Parents are legally represented and these lawyers cross examine sws and guardians (if they have the same view) for anything up to 3 hours.

This is one thing that isn't political point scoring.

BB children can't be placed with adoptors from day 1 because of the process I have outlined above. A child cannot be placed for adoption until a Judge at the final hearing has made a Placement Order, which means that the child is not to be returned home and can be adopted.

MM care proceedings are confidential and so they should be in my view as why should people know all the details of the innocent party in these matters, child or children. Sws and Guardians do sometimes reach agreement on the best interests of the child, but very often this is not the case, and all those matters are played out in court in front of a judge.

I'm afraid I do get irritated when people talk of secret agendas because of adoption targets. Firstly there is no way that anyone can have secret agendas in these matters because everything a sw writes in a court statement (and any other professional for that matter) has to be evidenced and believe me all sws know this before they go to court. It simply is not possible for a child to be removed from the birth parents unless it can be proven in court that the child is suffering from significant harm. I wish some people who think it is about secret agendas could actually see what goes on in court in these proceedings which can be over 5 days of court time. That is the only reason I would want proceedings not to be confidential.

Incidentally there are not targets for adoption any longer.

OK back to concurrent placement. Yes it's a big ask because approved adoptors who enter into this arrangement are very carefully assessed and they have tobe able to co-operate with the plan to return the child to the bps if at all possible, but if the court agrees after hearing all the evidence that it is not safe for the child to be returned home, then he/she makes a Placement Order and the child remains with the adoptors, rather than having to be moved from a foster placement and then to adoptors. In my view this is giving the child the very best start in life, to be with the same family and not moved from home to foster carers and then on to adoptors.

Clearly it is not something that all approved adoptors will want to do, but there are many who do, though I don't have any figures on numbers of children placed or those that remain with the adoptors or are returned home.

nananina the statements sw write are not evidenced based and when they contain alleged discussions between them and people not within court arena (such as family members), these cannot be checked or questioned due to confidentiality. I know this has happened. I also know that there was an agenda for adoption in this case when the grounds for care proceedings weren't due to harm but due to mothers PND and the mothers fears. In the end (purely because the couple split up as it was (as told by but denied) that or lose child to adoption, for which a family had aleady been found) after over 2 years in courts, father was awarded residence purely due to amount of time lapsed. Mother had recovered and both parents equally fit. The amount of lies, the fact that the gal was personal friends with the only expert witness who was a child psychiatrist and not an adult one, and that the adult psychiatrist who thought the whole situation was Barmy wasn't allowed to be heard as GAL complained that they said it was Barmy that the child had been removed and that the mother was suffering from PND. and that after all this he was right and the court finally saw this. The sw involved left case midway thro for a promotion elsewhere and new sw had direct experience of working in MH and said this whole situation should never have happened. That the mother was then asked to have her boy back full time within months of final hearing. The mother now has 3 children altogether, remarried the eldest one that was the baby here is happy well and in secondary school. Still sees his father regularly. School have never had concerns. The mothers mental health has been stable ever since and she trained as aerial health nurse beginning her course on the actual day of final hearing.

The aw and GAL reduced her contact with her child to 1 hour supervised once a week, the down to a fortnight so as not to disrupt placement. Never once did the mother cry or become upset infront of her child during contact or handover. Never ever ever was that child hurt. The baby was still bfing when he was taken, literally in the night due to a trainee doctors view that she could not maintain mothers safety in hospital. The dr is not a rated dr amongst her profession and afaik did not stick in psychiatry (thank god).

So yea sometimes they get it wrong and it's impact can be devastating. This baby boy came from a home with no drug or alcohol issues, no abuse, hitting all milestones, healthy and bright. He would have been cherished I am sure by an adoptive family but not half as much as he is cherished and loved by his own family.

So yes this really does happen. Can it be spoke about in a public forum to highlight the failings here? Not really as the whole thing is shrouded in secrecy. Is this family to scared to speak up for fear their baby girl and their other son might be removed? Absolutely. I wouldn't actually believe this if I didn't know it was true.

I have found your post somewhat difficult to follow MM and I obviously can't comment on the case that you are talking about. I would never say that social workers don't make mistakes, that would be silly, and yes sometimes they get things wrong. The thing about care proceedings though is there are a great deal of checks and balances to ensure that children are not removed from their parents without good reason.

I know the issue of care proceedings being in closed court or in secret as you put it, is something that concerns a great many people. I am still convinced however that it would be wrong for members of the public to have such confidential information about the child at the heart of the proceedings because in my view the child has a right for this information to be confidential.

Yes child must be protected but this shouldn't be to detriment of the child. And at times it is IMO. Sorry you couldn't follow my post I reread it and although my spelling and grammar aren't great, I still
Though it was comprehendable.

Thought