Children, Families & Cultural Services
May 2015
Position Statement :Waiting for Adoption /

Current arrangements

·  The Nottinghamshire Permanence Team consists of 12 social workers who work with children to progress adoption plans and make on going assessments of children’s needs. The team has been operational since August 2011.

·  The Permanence Team, Court Team and County Adoption Team work together to track children who are likely to need an adoption plan. These Adoption Tracking meetings take place monthly, with managers of the above teams, and homefinding staff. Adoption Tracking meetings discuss children where the preferred option decision has been made at a Looked After Review, the Independent Reviewing Officer sending this outcome directly to the Permanence Team. There is also a link into this meeting from Legal Planning Meetings to identify children who are likely to require an adoption plan at an early stage e.g. Foster to Adopt cases.

·  We discuss children, where an agency decision has been made, at monthly Home-finding meetings. We aim to have identified adopters for a child who will be ready to start the matching process as soon as the Placement Order is made. This process has enabled us to adapt adopter recruitment priorities in line with the needs of children, we also have strong partnership links with external adoption agencies so we can be responsive to the needs of children and make placements as quickly as possible. The highest number of children with adoption plans being discussed at these meetings was in September 2012 when 118 children were discussed, 68 of whom were in a match. This number has reduced as we have successfully identified placements for children, some of whom had been waiting a considerable time. In September 2013 80 children were discussed 42 of whom were matched, 22 were waiting for adopters to be identified and 16 were waiting for Placement Orders to be made. In August 2014 55 children were discussed 35 of whom were in match, 4 were waiting for adopters to be identified and 16 were waiting for Placement order to be made. In April 2015, 42 children were discussed, of whom 27 had an identified match, and 9 were without any identified match- these are the children we consider to be waiting, and all possible homefinding activity is undertaken. We use adoption link and have had great success with this, but we concurrently use adoption activity day, local profile events, consortium profile events, register exchange days- Nottinghamshire County Council is always in attendance at these events.

·  Through development of the permanence team and having close links with the County Adoption Team both services have been able to be responsive to the needs of children with adoption plans. Between April 2011 and March 2012 81 adoption plans were made and 51 children were matched. April 2012 to March 2013 104 adoption plans were made and 81 children were matched. This increase in plans reflects the activity in progressing adoption plans for children who had been looked after for some time. Nottinghamshire experienced one of the most rapid growth of looked after population in the Country from 2008 to 2013,( from 455 LAC to over 900), and at the time care plans were not progressed in a timely manner. From April 2013 to March 2014 61 adoption plans were made and 91 children were matched.

In 2014-15 96 adoption orders were made, and 66 new plans, 84 children were matched, (48 with NCC approved adopters) and 55 adopter households were approved. We now regard these figures to be our expected and predicted work flow, and expect NCC approved adopters to almost be sufficient to match all children, recognising that there will always be matching considerations which require the use of other agency adopters, but also being able to balance this with placements in to NCC approved adopters.

·  We prepare our children well for moving to adopters. The Permanence Team social workers (PTSW) undertake life story work with children using a range of creative techniques. They also make a life story book for each child. We work with carers on helping children to build attachments. A number of Social workers in the permanence team have been trained to use Theraplay techniques in building attachments. We also work with CAMHS to build attachments for children prior to placement and when they move to adopters. We encourage Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy (PACE) as a parenting style.

·  The PTSW’s write good quality child permanence reports, which are on our own template, and are fit for purpose of agency decision, court, homefinding, and background information which then forms the basis of later life letter. We have had positive feedback on these from adoption panel and from independent adoption agencies.

·  The PTSW continues to assess the child’s needs to ensure that appropriate adoption support plans are made. We have developed close working relationships with colleagues in Health to ensure detail from medicals and CAMHs work is assimilated into the plan. We have worked on planning with the Support After Adoption Team, particularly with the introduction of the adoption support fund,

·  We have developed and participated in a wide range of Home-finding activities including being part of the initial Adoption Activity Day pilot from 2011. The PTSW prepares a good quality profile of the child to begin Home- finding. All PTSW’s now have mobile working devices which can be used to assist in work with children and in matching with adopters to show recent photographs, DVD of the children. The County Adoption Team have Home finding workers who work closely with the PTSW, foster carers, children and adopters to support the transition period when children move to their adoption placements.

·  We work with birth parents to help them support their children moving on to adopters and ask that they contribute to life story work. We try to make contact a positive experience while a child is waiting for adopters to be identified and keep the level of contact under review. Feedback from those who use the independent birth family counselling is very positive, and where resource allows we encourage extended family members to participate, and offer counselling beyond the adoption order where possible.

·  We continue to make assessments to inform the child’s permanence plan. Permanence Planning meetings are held and feed into the LAR process to determine if adoption remains the right plan where Homefinding has been unsuccessful.

Strengths

·  A specialist team work with children who have adoption plan. The PT are well trained and motivated .Children are worked with in creative and therapeutic ways to understand their life stories and are prepared to move on to adopters and build attachments.

·  We have had success using a wide range of home-finding activities for children including sibling groups and older children. In the last 3 years we placed 6 sibling groups of 3 children. In the last year most children matched have been under 5, but 6 were 6, one 7 and one 8, we matched17 sibling groups of 2, one of 3,and 4 children with disabilities.

·  We hold tracking meetings from the point an adoption plan or parallel plan for adoption is made. From agency decision we consider matching these children with adopters at Home finding meetings.

·  We work to put in place supports if a child is placed outside Nottinghamshire involving colleagues in health and education where necessary.

·  We help children understand the plans that are being made and include them in this process .We support them to have farewells to birth family but to maintain important links. We aim to place siblings together and undertake assessments of their relationships and attachments. Children are supported to move on to their permanent families and Introductions are planned around the needs of each child.

·  Our children’s profiles are detailed and of high quality allowing adopters to make early fully informed decisions on proceeding.

Identified areas for improvement and how these are being progressed.

·  We continue to strive to identify adopters more quickly once Placement Orders are made.

·  We have developed a faster system to share PAR/CPRs, both internally using shared space, and with external agencies.

·  A policy has been developed related to Foster to Adopt placements, and our use of fostering for adoption increases each year, now including children placed at birth.

·  We have worked on a tool to seek the views of children in the adoption process.

·  We have plans to establish an adopter focus group.

Case Study

Child A age 6 and Child B age 1 (half-siblings, they share the same birth mother)

White/British ethnicity

Social Care first became involved with this family in November 2011 having received a number of referrals regarding concerns around both parents illicit drug use, including heroin, domestic violence incidents between birth parents and the children suffering from neglect as a result of the chaotic and drug taking lifestyle . The referrals received were from professionals during the course of one year, eventually leading to an initial child protection conference in June 2013, the children were subsequently placed in foster care on 8th July 2013, following on from a significant deterioration in the care birth parents were affording the children, this was following on from the birth of child B. The concerns were around poor home conditions, escalating drug use, non engagement with professionals and non accidental injuries identified on child B during medical examination.

The children remained together with the same foster carers until they moved to live with their prospective adoptive parents.

The case was transferred to the court team and parenting assessment was completed, which was negative. There was not any relatives identified whom would be able to offer safe care to the children.

Care and Placement Order’s were granted on 21st August 2014. The case was fully transferred to the permanence team social worker.

Whilst the case was being worked in the court team, it was allocated to a social worker in the permanence team to co-work with the court team social worker to complete a Child Permanence Report for child A and B.

Work undertaken/home finding activities

Prior to the completion of the care proceedings, the permanence team social worker completed a home finding profile for child A and B so that home finding activities could start immediately.

During this time direct work was undertaken by a student social worker and a referral had been made for an adoption support worker to support with the direct work and preparation for adoption.

Before the care proceedings finished A and B had been discussed in tracking meetings and then home finding meetings, home finding activities commenced immediately after the granting of the care and placement orders, and searches were made nationally for adopters for the children. During this time a link was put forward with the County Adoption Team.

The prospective adopters met first with the Permanence team social worker and Adoption Social Worker on 3oth September 2014 to consider the link further with prospective adopters from the County Adoption Team. This meeting was a very positive with information shared about child A and B and the prospective adopters and social workers sharing information and asking questions to ensure that this was the right match for child A and B. During this meeting prospective adopters were also given information about birth mother’s pregnancy, baby was due January 2015. Following this both parties had some time to consider the match before making the decision to progress the link.

Prior to identifying this match, the children’s names were put forward to attend the adoption activity day scheduled for 14th October 2014, the children attended the day as planned and this provided the prospective adoptive parents the opportunity to meet with the children at this event.

The adopters then met the foster carers, a life appreciation meeting was held on 5th November 2014, which was well attended by previously involved professionals.

A matching panel was booked and arranged for the 4th December 2014, this match was agreed by the ADM on 16.12.15. The children’s life story books were completed and presented to the panel ready for when the children moved to their adoptive home.

A planning meeting was held on the 6th January 2015 and the children moved into their adoptive home on the 15th January 2015 after a period of introductions with their adoptive family that took place over a period of nine days.

At the time of writing this report, the adopters are in the process of lodging their application for the adoption order and plans are being made to place the children’s younger, baby sibling , child C, with his siblings in the adoptive placement and there is a matching panel booked for 10th June 2015. The care and placement orders were granted on 20th April 2015 for child C. There has been a small delay in placing of child C due to ill health experienced by child A, who is now fully recovered.

Outcomes

·  Home finding activities have taken place in a timely manner resulting in a match being identified within a timescale of 4 months from Placement Order to child being placed.

·  The permanence team worked well with the court team and the County Adoption Team which enhanced the timely manner that the children were placed for adoption.

·  Once a match was identified for the children the adoption match was quickly progressed to prevent any delay.

·  Both children will be provided with the opportunity to have information about their birth family.

·  All three siblings will be brought up together in the same adoptive family.

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