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My nephew (brothers side) was taken into care as soon as he was born as his mum has learning difficulties and his dad had problems with his son from a previous relationship requiring Social Services involvement. His mum was given an opportunity to be assessed within a mother and baby unit. She went but then left the baby there after a few days. Therefore, SS were going to place him up for adoption, but approached me first to see if I''d take him on. I did! I had no children of my own and unlikely to be able to conceive anyway. And, I''ve always been very close to my other nieces and nephews and couldn''t possibly imagine a child of ''ours'' going into care. We were initially going for an adoption, but as both parents fought it, they then changed this to a Special Guardianship and then finally settled for a Residence Order. He was placed with me, on an RO in May last year, aged 6 months. I was basically advised to just bring him up as my own, be firm with the parents and left to it. There was no court order for contact so this was up to me to schedule and supervise as and when. I initially agreed to once a month which then I dropped to once every 2 months as my nephew seems to struggle with them and is extremely upset throughout. In January this year, my brother died. So, I''m just dealing with his mum now. She occasionally causes problems. She takes hundreds (seriously!) of pictures at her contact sessions and plasters them on facebook. As she also holds PR, I don''t know if I have any right to stop her taking pictures? But, it has resulted in strangers stopping us whilst out shopping saying "oh this is X''s little boy. How unfair that he was taken, he should be with her and love her and it''s such a shame that he hardly even knows her". I had to remind them that details of his case should be confidential and certainly not discussed in a shopping centre with him present!He really has no idea who she is at the moment. He''s now 20 months so unable to understand yet. We now have a strong bond between us (although took a good while to get there) and I''m happy to say I''m raising a very happy, content little boy whom I love dearly. I obviously don''t know what it feels like to have your own child, but he feels like mine!I would now like to go down the route of adopting him, or at the very least applying for an SGO. However, I worry that should I fail an assessment and IF it doesn''t go ahead, he''s be taken back into care and I''d lose him on the Residence Order also?Obviously, I don''t see any reason why I would fail, but you just never know what they pick up on and my trust in the legal system surrounding these cases isn''t very good! I really do need proper, legal permanence. The social worker I used to deal with just tells me not to worry as he isn''t going anywhere until he''s 16. But, I am realistic and things do happen! I am worried sick daily that something will happen that could put an end to our relationship - ie mum applying to have him back etc. I wondered if anyone here could offer any advice on the questions I raised above and can also give some more information on the whole process of applying for an SGO or Adoption and anything I need to know. Thank you in advance for your time