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Hi Deli, Not sure I've any helpful advice for you, but didn't want to read and run! That is a shock for sure. Does LO have contact with his siblings? Would they recognise him/you? Birth family ended up moving very close to us after LOs were placed but fortunately they don't know what we look like. It has meant that we have had to be much more security conscious than we otherwise might have been though... Have you spoken to your SW yet? (not LOs SW), they should be on your side and may be able to give you some advice.... What a difficult situation to put you in though Hope someone with more experience/advice comes along soon OSx

I would expect the address for a long-term foster care placement to be kept confidential from birth parents and for direct contact to take place away from the immediate area of the foster placement. Given that that's the case, I'm not sure what exactly the potential issues are which you think will arise for your family from this placement? Your son has older birth siblings growing up elsewhere, whether that's two miles or two hundred miles away. The Local Authority has a duty of care to your son's siblings and indeed they are probably significantly more vulnerable than your son (being long-term LAC rather than adopted and probably having suffered more harm within the birth family because they are older). As a children's social worker, I would want to respectfully address any issues you think arise for your family from this placement, but such issues would have to be very major to stop me wanting to go ahead if the long-term fc placement is otherwise a good match for two vulnerable children whose welfare the Local Authority is going to be responsible for throughout the rest of their childhoods.

Hi deli, Welcome to AUK. This is a lot for you to take in so early in placement, it's little wonder you feel overwhelmed. Our daughter was placed with us from within the same local authority as her birth family. We had reservations about this, however we felt it was such a good match that we went ahead (and I'm glad we did, our daughter is amazing). We were able to consider the implications of close proximity/sibling circumstance prior to placement though (something you weren't afforded). It perhaps feels a bit catastrophic at the moment, things will seem clearer (easier, I'm sure) once you've had time to reflect, and decide how you'll explain the proximity and the siblings contact to your child (and I appreciate that this is your concern, i.e. how you child is going to feel about this, because it was my concern too). Given the circumstances, I think you're within your right (and on behalf of your child, to whom your duty of care belongs) to seek reassurance that the social care staff involved won't lose sight of your child in all of this. If the siblings will fall under the same local authority as your child, then I'd ask them to pay particular attention to security and disclosure, and make sure it remains an important consideration for the different staff involved not just now, but in years to come. I make particular mention of security and disclosure because our local authority managed not only to disclose to birth family the address of our daughters foster placement prior to her being placed with us, they also managed to disclose OUR address and phone number – on paperwork – to a birth family member (whose children also happened to be in care). Social work produce a massive amount of paperwork for each child in their care, and siblings are frequently mentioned on this paperwork, which is how our address came to be disclosed. Thus it's incredibly important for the LA to keep sight of this. I understand how for you, as this child's parent, a short car/bus ride away feels a lot more frightening than a huge expanse of miles and land. This proximity, and also the siblings' circumstances being very different to your child's, puts a lot on your plate (and subsequently on your child's plate, perhaps not at the moment, but certainly as their life moves on). My daughter is just 3, she has been home with us for over 2 years now and we are still in the early stages of explaining adoption to her. She isn't ready yet for knowledge of where her birth family (physically) are, I have though planned for how I will explain this , you're welcome to PM me if you want any advice (I may not reply straight away, because I keep pretty busy, but I will reply). Something I AM happy to publicly say is that, as we've grown as a family, many of my early concerns have ceased to feel as important, and I am sure you will feel the same. Take care.

Maybe, I can think of loads of issues here - like going to the same GP surgery, where the foster kids will know the name of their sibling and maybe have pictures. Or when they get to school. Or in things like sports clubs and other activities. Especially if any of them have unusual names. But I have to say that I do think it's hard to see what the la will do about it - once you adopt your needs are not really taken into account, whereas the la will be focusing on finding a good placement for the other children. It's one of the reasons not to adopt from your own la as you can never be sure that they won't do things like this. You get plenty of benefits from adopting locally - but also some negatives, and here is a great example of why it sometimes doesn't pan out so well. Birth parents could end up living at the end of your street - cousins can start going to the same school etc etc etc. I adopted via a va and birth family is 160 miles away - that had loads of disadvantages, but one of the plus points is that I don't expect them to suddenly come to my town. My own la won't let people adopt local children for this very reason - this is why we had to look further afield. I do know people who have ended up moving because they didn't like to be so close to birth family, but it's a case of sizing up the risk, I think, and separating that from the emotional feelings which can crop up around this sort of thing. Good luck.