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Hi, no I've nt heard of it before, what is it?

I think this has been discussed before. Maybe do a search.What you also have to consider is ongoing contact with birth family. How would you manage that?Concurrency can be a good option for the child but I would be wary with a child already in the family.

Have bumped up a post on the discussions board - foster to adopt.

Foster to adopt (at least as the plans seem to be currently) and concurrent planning are different things. Foster to adopt (or "fostering for adoption") is early placement of a previously fostered chid with the adoptive family. Concurrent planning involves the foster carers and the adoptive family being the same family - so no separate foster carers.I know that some people on here have done this and we are thinking of it. We have an adopted son but he was very young when placed (we adopted him from overseas). We are very keen on appropriate contact with birth family and we have direct contact with little boy's birth family. We know it's not safe in all situations and I know there are concurrent adopters who can't have this for safety reasons. During the foster period of concurrency the child/baby would have contact with birth family and one possibility would be for a SW to take the baby to contact rather than the FC. This would happen in some foster placements anyway. I am not sure we would want to do that, though, as I'm pretty sure it's not good for babies to be taken somewhere random to see someone they wouldn't know by a third party they don't know. I'm not sure we'd be able to work with a placement that was so unsafe we couldn't meet birth family ever.The other consideration is both your and your existing children's feelings regarding the permanency of the situation. I think you have to go into it, and explain to your children, that this IS a foster placement. And that's going to be hard, no two ways about it. But fostering is hard anyway. We originally applied to be foster carers and I think we'll just have to put those foster carer hats on again. I think that other foster carers will be able to talk to you more about how they cope with that with birth children.

Thanks for your responses & advice, I've not heard of foster to adopt before, but it sounds like it is a bit different to concurrent planning. My parents are long term foster carers, so I have some idea of the bc/fc dynamic, but I guess it's different when it's likely that you will adopt the child.

We fostered a child we intended to adopt, while his legal situation got sorted out. It saved him having extra moves round the system, worked for us, but we had been advised that no way would this child be going back to bf due to situation there, so it was just a question of time. And there was no contact obviously. I am not sure I could have handled much element of uncertainty or contact, some adopters do manage these things but they are braver than I am !!I think concurrency has more of an element of uncertainty to it, in terms of the risk that the child might not stay with you, it sounds quite similar to foster to adopt. I don't think our older ( and also adopted) child would have coped well with the risk of loss of his new brother, especially as he himself has had enough loss in his life, but even a birth child might struggle I think. It is one thing for the adults to take a risk of losing the child after investing their emotions, but I am not sure I would be comfortable about it with another child already in the family. But that's just me, others might feel differently.