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I don't think I have ever heard of a child that had been freed for adoption go back to the birth family. That is a child for whom the legal procedures had been completed before they were placed.

Foster to adopt is a different matter but even then it is rare.

Thats not to say that birth parents don't challenge, they do, but in reality they have little or no chance.

Just to be clear, all children in care are the responsibilty of a local authority. Adoption agencies do not 'have' children. If you are assessesd by an agency, which I was, when you are approved they can look at children across the country on the registers.

There is also a lot of misunderstanding of the term 'hard to place'. A child can be hard to place because of their age, sex or ethnicity. It doesnt necessarily mean they are harder to parent. My son ticked every hard to place going, we have had our challenges but no more than others and a lot less than some

Hi Maguire

Are you asking because you are a prospective adopter/thinking of adopting and you are worried about having a child placed with you which is then removed and put back with birth family?

If you are going through what I would call a normal procedure, before a child would be placed with you they would have gone through court proceedings and given a Placement Order by the court which means they are able to be placed for adoption. Once they are placed with you they have to be living with you for 12 weeks (I think this is the length of time- it is a few years ago since we went through this). Then you are able to apply for the Adoption Order, which gives you full parental responsibility. Birth parents are free to contest at this point again when you apply for the Adoption Order if they wish to. However, from my experience from what I have head and read for this to disrupt the actual adoption being formalised would be extremely rare (i've never heard of it happening) - I think normally the worst that could happen at this point is that birth parents contest it and it makes it more drawn out.

There is more risk if you go through foster to adopt - if you go through this route the court hasn't formally decided if the child should be adopted or go back to birth family. But it is my understanding that LA's wouldn't place foster to adopt children in this way if they weren't pretty sure it would result in adoption. So I think there is a bit more risk but probably still quite rare.

If you are in the early stages of thinking I would read up as much as you can. There is a wealth of information out there to look at.

Good luck x

Hi,

Thanks for your replies. Yes, I'm at the very start of being approved as an adopter and I've been told about the Early Permanence programme. The idea is that the baby's move in with me would be the child's only move after being taken away from birth mum. I'm not sure if the Placement Order happens before or after the child moves in with me - good question. I read that the Placement Order can happen at the same time as the Care Order. Does anyone know?

Thanks

https://www.linkmaker.co.uk/forums/topic/99149?topicId=99149&postId=890285&jtp=1#post-890285-anchor

This is a recent post. Might help to explain

Hi Maguire

It depends on the situation of the child and the reason for him/her being taken into the Early Permanence, we have been told during our process (just approved last week) that it is very rare for a child to be removed from the Foster/Adopters Early Permanence Care after placed but that the courts often haven't formally ruled that the child is up for adoption (so to speak) hence why at that stage you are deemed a Foster carer not an Adopter. There will always be a slim chance that the child can be removed from Foster care and back to the birth family until the courts formally say otherwise but all the social workers we have met it has never happened to. (Much to echo Mum of Two above)

Practically this means paperwork to process about the child's development (just like a Foster carer would) and taking the child to a contact centre to allow the birth family to visit with their child, until formally ruled as adoption placement by a judge, The judge ruling normally takes quite a few weeks, I forget exactly how many as I sit here. This is to perform background on the birth family and birth extended family to see if the child can be cared for without the need of separation from birth relatives, for example they may have a legal guardianship order with a grandparent.

I saw another post you put about contact to so to follow up i would also say don't forget as a side note that with any adopted child it's likely the child will have some contact with birth family and siblings etc at least in the form of a letterbox even after they are adopted so you have to be open and prepared to not only adopt the child in question but in many respects their birth family to. It's unlikely that face to face with birth parents would happen again after adoption is formal but it may still with siblings also in care (to name but one example). Its just a small point worth making.

As others have said there are many good articles about Early Permanence and Adoption in general and AUK are a great resource if you are new to the process. I suggest having a good conversation with your social worker when you have one assigned and be very frank about your thoughts on the topic as that was what solidified our thoughts about going ahead with becoming possible Early Permanence Adopters and in our experience they are not here to witch hunt you out they want you to be open and honest, especially if you are having concerns and queries.

Thanks for the link. I'll find out if I'll be on the Concurrence path, or the Foster to Adopt path.

Your comments are encouraging, thanks x