Hi Haverer, I adopted both my children after previously fostering them. The oldest one had a very similar story to yours, but was much younger than your children. It obviously varies from LA to LA but I'd imagine considering the ages of the children that the LA would be quite open to the possibility of looking at SGOs. I know of long term carers locally who have been heavily encouraged towards SGOs rather than continuing as long term foster carers. I agree with Donatella that it's likely they'd be less supportive of adoption due to their ages.
Moving to SGOs can have all sorts of benefits for children, but be aware that it also has benefits for the LA as well, in terms of reducing the numbers of children looked after, and especially financially. Most LAs have a cut off point for allowances following the change to SGO after which they might be means tested, or only offered on the grounds that children have exceptional additional needs. The level of social worker support would likely decrease and you may find that any ongoing contacts with birth family members become your responsibility to organise and support. On the plus side, you would have parental responsibility and could say goodbye to delegated authority, which would likely give your whole family more freedom. I certainly don't want to put you off at all, but just to flag up that if the LA is very enthusiastic about the idea, it's likely to be at least partially because it will benefit them in some way as well.
The change of legal status for the children would also alter some of their entitlements - some for the better, some for the worse. As previously looked after children they would be entitled to Adoption Support Funded support, which is not available for looked after children. Whether this is positive will largely depend on the quality of the support offered to fostering families by your LA - it looks like you already have a therapeutic package in place which is excellent, so if they are willing to continue this, that's a good thing, but they might seek funding from ASF in future to pay for it rather than doing out of their budget. In school, the Virtual School will play much less of a role - they offer "advice and guidance" to families of previously looked after children, but the specific offer varies from place to place. The additional funding that the Virtual School receives for looked after children (PP+) would still apply but would go directly to the school instead of the Virtual School, so it will fall to you to ensure that the school is using it wisely - this can be a point of contention. The PEPs that are statutory for looked after children are not statutory for previously looked after children, so those termly meetings would end and most schools do not offer an alternative plan. In short, you'd probably need to be more proactive with school as a guardian than as a foster carer, but as you are both teachers, you are in a good place to do this.
Finally, and this is not my area of expertise, you might want to look into the support offered locally for care leavers in education, housing, etc., especially considering the age of your oldest. I'm fairly certain that children with SGOs are not classified as care leavers on coming of age so whatever would have been available to them as a looked after child 'aging out' would not be available to them once the SGO was in place. I might be wrong about that, but it's worth checking it out and seeing if that might have any implications for your children. Adopted children are definitely not entitled to support for care leavers.
As for how long it might take, well if adoption was the route, it would take a while. You would need to be approved as adopters at panel - they would probably approve you as adopters and approve the match at the same panel. It would probably be a shortened version of the approvals process as you are already approved foster carers but I wouldn't expect it to happen in less than 6 months, and you will probably need to have all those interviews again about your life experiences, financial situation and so on because your situation is changing now. Once approved, you would be able to apply for the adoption order. New adopters have to wait a certain length of time after the children have moved in before applying to the court, but in your case, the time the children have already been living with you in foster care would count towards that so you would be able to apply straight away and then it just depends how backed up the courts are.
My understanding is that the SGO process can be quicker but I think it can vary from LA to LA and there will still be an assessment process, paperwork to prepare for court and waiting for a court date. Again, as you are foster carers and are already caring for the children, the assessment process is likely to be shorter.
