Me – mummy, daddy, and our daughter who is now two.  My husband has two grown-up sons who live in their own houses.  Both our fathers are around plus lots of extended family and complicated family trees!

Was your agency a local authority or a voluntary agency?

Local authority called ‘Together for Adoption’ which was created by five boroughs who teamed up over the years. It covers most of the North West.

What was your biggest worry before you started?

That we would be classed as ‘not good enough or declined for a reason that was beyond our control. Covid happened and navigating through that unknown as well as the process when it was new to everyone while staying safe, was difficult. 

Why did you decide to go down the fostering-to-adopt route? 

We started on the regular adoption route, which had an introduction to the fostering for adoption section and gave us the option of more on another course.  We also went to an open evening meeting people who had experienced it and it seemed like we could take this path and we were a good fit for what they needed.

How did the matching process work? Did you look at lots of profiles?

The matching process is a little different to “traditional” adoption. There aren’t any profiles to look at or pictures as they are unborn, but the local authority already knows which babies are coming through the system and roughly when you are likely to complete your training and hopefully be approved. 

The matchmaker links you with an unborn child and their family. We then read the information to check were happy with everything before moving any further.  The first child recommended to us didn’t work out, but our daughter was mentioned a week later, and the rest fell into place.

How old was your child when they came home?

She arrived at our home straight from the hospital at four days old.

From your point of view, what are the main differences between fostering to adopt and a “normal” adoption placement?

You have the opportunity to give a child a stable and loving environment from the moment they arrive and help them with that first stage of life, which is so important to them for setting foundations.  You can give them consistency and know their story from as early as possible to be able to give them the answers they need as they grow. 

It is riskier for you as there is still a chance they may not stay with you. But a wonderful situation to be in for everyone when they do stay, by not being moved around.  You will be giving them the best start in life either way.

When a child is placed with you under a “normal” adoption plan, the court has already made the Care and Placement orders so there is very little uncertainty about the placement. But the child will have moved from at least one foster placement, sometimes a lot more.

How did contact work? Did you meet the birth family at each session or did a social worker take your child in?

We had a contact session from the Monday after she came home to us on the Friday.  This was for an hour, three times a week at a centre specifically for these types of meetings.  It was a 45-minute drive there and we handed her over to a trained social worker in a carpark within walking distance, and she would be returned an hour later. 

Her birth family weren’t able to know the drop-off/pick-up situation for everyone’s safety.  We would then make the journey home. 

Communication was done through a notebook. We also had a video call every Friday morning where they could see her but not us or where we were. This was all done during Covid restrictions which did make things a little trickier.  It was emotionally very hard for all involved but you have to just do what is right for your child.

How did you find the fostering to adopt process? 

We didn’t know what to expect even though we were prepped as much as possible.  It was raw, difficult and stressful. But the joy of having our little girl to care for was rewarding and wonderful and we knew we were doing it all for her. 

We had amazing support from the social workers, friends, and family. But looking back, we really needed specific fostering for adoption support. We have gone on to support others going through the process now to try and fill in those gaps for them. 

You can feel at times that you don’t have any say or some decisions but have to have faith in the process and learnt to be very patient.

How long was your child home before the Care and Placement orders were made at court?

Seven months for the care and placement orders. And then the adoption order was completed another six months later

How did adoption leave work?  

I ended up being lucky enough to extend my maternity leave at work. I initially took 12 months off.  We balanced savings and maternity pay and we were paid while we were fostering which helped.  I went back to work four days a week after 16 months off work.

Were you entitled to any allowance or payment as foster carers?

Yes, you get a weekly payment and expenses.  It helps with nappies and milk and keeping your life balanced.

What has been the most difficult part of the process?

Having others make some serious decisions for you and your child. Trying not to get too attached just in case but knowing you had fallen completely in love anyway. 

Hoping you were making the right decisions when the time came and making sure you have all the answers for them. Court dates changing and fighting for what you think is right or wrong was tough.

It was a lot to have so many different social workers coming into our lives and knowing everything about us, and then leaving. We really missed them as they became a part of it all.

Contact with the birth family, knowing their backgrounds and being comfortable with everything was challenging.  We learnt not to judge another person’s life or the reasons why this child is with you.

Have you needed to access additional help and support from your agency since your child came home?  If so, what and did it meet your needs?

Only for small things and they are always helpful. There are ways to stay involved with nurture groups and monthly catch ups with other families in similar situations.

What has been your best memory since your child came home?

The day she arrived and a few nights later when the shock wore off, we both realised just how brilliant she is. Getting her passport in the post was an amazing feeling! And seeing how settled she is and how much she’s thriving from our care and love.

If you could go back and have a conversation with yourself about the process before you started, what would you say?

Do it – a million times over. Some naivety is good as I don’t think some would do it if they really knew how hard it is. But isn’t becoming a parent hard no matter how it happens? It’s just different. 

Reach out. Find people who have been through it – it’s good to vent to someone who understands.  Keep the communication open in your relationships. You won’t parent the same way and you won’t deal with the process of fostering for adoption the same either. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

I’d tell myself to be forgiving.

Head to the adoption section to read more adoption stories.

At the end of Stage Two, your social worker will file your Prospective Adopters Report (PAR) which contains details of everything you’ve done during the assessment. The conclusion will recommend the number and age range of children they think you should be approved for. Although your social worker is the one who’s done the assessment with you and knows you very well, they don’t make the decision as to whether you are approved as adopters. This is done by the adoption Panel.

What is an adoption Panel?

Every adoption agency has an adoption Panel. Their role is to approve adopters and if the agency deals with matching, approve a match. The Panel is made up of people from a Central List of members who are asked to attend a meeting. For a Panel to be able to make a recommendation, there needs to be at least five or six members sitting.

Adoption Panels are made up from people who have experience of adoption, working with children in a medical or other context, those who have personal experience of adoption, adoption social workers with at least three years’ relevant experience, council members and the Medical Adviser. The Chairperson of the Panel is usually independent of the adoption agency.

Panel’s tend to sit monthly but extra dates can be added as and when they are necessary. Busier agencies may sit fortnightly or even weekly. Most meetings are now held in person. During Covid they moved to virtual meetings and may still be done that way in some circumstances.

What happens at an adoption Panel meeting?

Your PAR will be sent to each member who is going to be sitting on the day of your Panel. They’ll read the report before the meeting and then will take part in a discussion about you prior to you going before them. The Panel will always ask you questions, even if they’re happy with the content of the report. The type of questions will vary depending on what’s in your report and whether there’s something Panel want a bit more detail about.

They could be about how you’ll prepare pets for the arrival of a child or managing caring for children and elderly relatives. If you’re adopting for a second (or third) time, they’ll probably want to know ore about how you’ll manage the needs of children of different ages. If you’re got a medical condition, questions will probably be around how you manage it and how you’d cope with a flare-up.

The thought of going before a group of people you’ve never met before who will decide whether you should become a parent can be daunting. But the purpose of the Panel isn’t to “catch out” adopters and ask them questions they won’t be able to answer. Their role is to make sure all of aspects of adoption have been considered and the necessary preparation has taken place.

The format will vary with each Panel, but generally your social worker will go in first and discuss the report. Either they’ll come out and let you know what questions Panel have and help you think about how you’ll reply, or you’ll be invited in and you’ll be asked the questions by either the chairperson or one of the members.

Our experience

We’ve gone before two approval Panels. The first time we were asked a couple of questions. One was about my husband’s medical condition and the other was about my relationship with my dad.

The second time we were doing approval and matching Panel on the same day (which was very stressful!). Our social worker came out with some questions and we had some time with her to reply to them. I think they were about how we’d managed two children and again the relationship with my dad.

Possible outcomes

There are three possible outcomes from the Panel which are recommendation for approval, deferred or not approved. It’s important to remember that any issues or potential problems will have been discussed during your assessment. Your social worker is supervised by a manager who will be kept up-to-date with your progress. They also check the report once it’s completed so any issues should be picked up well before panel date.

Deferment usually happens if the Panel members think an issue needs to be explored a bit more, or if they need more information that can’t be obtained on the day.

It does happen that applicants are considered to be not suitable, but this happens very rarely. You won’t be booked into a Panel until your social worker and their manager are satisfied that everything is covered and there are no issues that would mean you’re not approved.

Matching Panel

As well as approving adopters, some Panels will also approve a match. For matching, you’ll go before the placing agency’s Panel which is usually a local authority. Again, the members will have read a report about you and will formulate some questions to ask. The format will be largely the same as for approval Panel. A common question for matching is “Why this child?”. I think that’s incredibly difficult to answer on the spot, so it’s worth thinking about that in advance. Other questions may be about managing particular issues or health concerns, and asking for help.

Ratification of the adoption Panel’s decision

The Panel can’t make the final decision about approval or matching. They make a recommendation which is then ratified by the agency’s decision-maker. The decision maker is someone who is nominated by your agency and has legal responsibility to make a decision. They’ll review the report and make sure that the Panel’s recommendation is in line with it. So, in the vast majority of cases, the decision maker will accept the Panel’s recommendation. This usually takes 10-14 days after the Panel date.

If you enjoyed reading this article, why not buy me a coffee to show your support for the magazine? If you’d like to read more articles about adoption, head over to the home page and have a look at what’s new.

Trying to get that tough balance of therapeutic parenting and education….

Hi, I’m Chris, have been a dad to an amazing little boy nearly four years. Trying to get the balance right between supporting your child and schooling can be so difficult. Adopted children often find school difficult due to the complex traumas they experienced in their critical developmental times.

This trauma, such as PTSD, impacts not only their mental health and wellbeing but also on their ability to form relationships, and on their learning. Not all adopted children will need additional support whilst in school but for many, the trauma they experience causes behavioural difficulties which obviously impact on how the react to learning.

These behavioural issues can lead some schools to label children as ‘difficult’. However, the behaviours are actually indicators that the child struggling, and it is their way of asking for help. It takes time for adopted children to develop a secure attachment to their new parents and for them going into a new environment with different routines, boundaries and rules will trigger stress leading to feeling of anxiety.

Finding the right school

For my family we have had good times with our son’s school as well as some low points. Shortly before we were formally approved to adopt him, my husband and I were advised to look at schools in our area as we would be asked about schooling during the matching panel meeting.

I spent a couple of hours searching through our borough’s website finding local schools that were a short walk or drive from home. I started by looking at their website and then looking at the school’s policies, ensuring that things like their SEND and child protection provisions fit with what we were looking for. Ensuring that inclusivity and diversity are represented in the school were also hugely important to us.

We gradually narrowed down the schools on our shortlist. Frustratingly, one school we liked and wanted to visit, wouldn’t let us come in to see them as it wasn’t within their visiting time frame. After a flurry of emails trying to arrange a visit, it was clear that this school were unwilling or unable to take into account our need to visit the school ahead of our matching panel.

This led me to question whether the school would be open to having a different approach to our future child. 

Visiting schools

We arranged a visit to the other school, which is our son’s current school. The moment we walked through the doors past the reception desk and saw the school, how happy the children were and how open the staff were with us, we knew this was the school for us.

We were given the opportunity to sit down with the headteacher and SENDCo to talk about the support they could provide for our potential son. This was amazing and filled us with confidence that they would be able to give him the right environment to grow. We found out about the school’s training and understanding on attachment as well as their experience with looked after children and previously looked after children.

The early years and KS1 years of my sons’ time at school were mostly fab. Over time this started to change so we met with his teachers to see how they could support him through this time. They were mostly receptive and put things in place like more check-ins with him or having a safe space for him to go to if he was struggling. They even implemented play therapy for him.

When there were problems, it took some time to get the teachers to tune in to him and find other ways of interacting with him when he was processing massive things like as the pandemic, life story work and reconnecting with his brother. This was frustrating and also causing me a lot of anxiety about him going into school when he was struggling as I wanted him to feel emotionally safe and secure in his environment.

Difficult times

The last two or so years have been quite difficult at times to get the balance of managing my little guy’s emotional and well-being needs and then his education. We have an informal agreement with his school that if he is struggling, we can try to get him in to school at some point during the school day whether this is half an hour later than the start of the school day or an hour before the end of the school day.

However, despite this informal agreement with the SENDCo and deputy head, we have frequently been notified of little man’s absence with quite tough letters, as well as him being on an attendance plan. His academic performance is amazing, and we are so proud of him for this. However, sometimes I feel schools in general, are focused on attendance and statistics rather than the child’s individual non-academic needs.

The need for a holistic approach

As a school governor, I do understand the reasoning for this. Funding is calculated on pupil attendance on a specific day in the year and all schools have targets to meet. But the one aspect that I will always bring up is that the reason for absence needs to be considered and that a holistic approach needs to be applied to support the child and their family.

Back in the summer my husband and I had a meeting at our son’s school with the SENDCo, Child Protection officer and the Virtual School to discuss how best to move forward and have a plan in place to support him with coming into school and dealing with any issues that occur during school times.

This academic year, despite some behavioural problems at school, he has been great. The deputy head in particular, has been incredible with him ensuring that little man sees school as a safe place and giving him a time in area and reassuring little man that he can always go to the office if he needs a chat. This has given our son the reassurance that he can seek help in school if he needs it, rather than his worries coming out in more troubling ways.

Communicating with school

What I have found helpful is to be open and honest with the school, remembering that you know your child better than the school. Children will often demonstrate their difficulties differently at home compared to other places as home and you, their parents, are their safe places.

It is so important to keep the lines of communication open with school, particularly when there are problems, as this will help in the long run. The virtual school have been incredible in supporting us to get the school on board with what needs to be in place to help with little man’s needs.

Charities such as Adoption UK, PAC-UK and First4Adoption are also amazing with useful resources for parents and schools. Young Minds is also fab for parents whose children have mental and wellbeing concerns; they also have great resources for schools.

Head over to the parenting section to read more articles about education and therapeutic parenting.

In the early days of adoption, up until the 1960s and 70s, the reasons children were adopted often stemmed from a child being born out of wedlock. This was particularly the case if the mother followed certain religions.

Adoptees story

My lasting memory from our preparation course was an adult adoptee who talked to us. His mother was Irish and her parents were strict Catholics. When she became pregnant, she was hidden away by her family until it was almost time for her to give birth. She was then taken to the North East of England to have her baby.

She and her child were looked after by nuns. One day, she was told to go to the hairdresser which she dutifully did. When she returned, her baby was gone. She was told he was going to be adopted and that she needed to get on with her life and forget about him.

I was horrified as he told us his story. I can’t begin to imagine how his birth mum felt. She was, understandably, completely devastated. But she wasn’t prepared to follow expectations and carry on as if nothing had happened. She didn’t go back to Ireland, deciding instead to stay in the North East to feel close to her son and hoped that one day, she’d get to meet him again.

In the end, her wish came true. I was in tears when he explained how he decided to look for his birth family. He’d been in the pub with a friend who commented that a man he was standing beside, looked the double of him. Lo and behold, a few months later when he knocked on his birth mum’s door for the first time, the man opened the door and turned out to be his brother.

The reasons for adoption today

The days of a child having to be adopted if they were born out of wedlock are, thankfully, long gone. Issues such as severe neglect, drug or alcohol abuse, violence, or sexual abuse, tend to be the reasons why children require adoption now.

As adoption has changed over the decades, the organisations that support children and families have changed too. However, one organisation that has supported children throughout is Coram. 

Adoption over the decades: Coram

Coram is the UK’s oldest children’s charity, and this year they’re marking 50 years of their work in adoption. They have been leaders in many new practices to help protect some of the most vulnerable children in our society.

Dr. Carol Homden, CEO of Coram, said: “As the UK’s first children’s charity, Coram has a long history of offering care to children who cannot grow up within their birth families. Over the past five decades, Coram‘s adoption work has been dedicated to putting children first and foremost to ensure they can grow up in safe loving families. We have pursued this aim by working with others across the sector through national programmes, forming progressive partnerships, and now leading one of the regional adoption agencies with local authority partners.  

“In the coming decade, we will continue to innovate in practice, in multi-cultural perspectives, co-production with adopted young people, and addressing contact issues in the digital era. With children waiting longer to be adopted, we will continue to champion greater use of early permanence and all available approaches to matching, so that every child who needs it has the chance to thrive in a loving adoptive family.”  

Over the years, Coram has supported many adopters through the assessment process and beyond. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing some of their moving and inspirational stories, starting with Nina and Steven who cared for two children through Coram’s early permanence scheme, going on to adopt their daughter Jasmine in October 2019.  

Nina and Steven’s adoption journey

Early permanence placements, pioneered by Coram, enable children under two to be placed with carers who are approved to adopt them later if the courts decide they cannot be cared for permanently by their birth family. Early permanence carers are approved as adopters but also receive additional high-quality and intensive training and support from Coram to help them prepare for the process of being a foster carer as well, which involves working with the professional network around the child, contact meetings with the birth family, and managing a return of the child to their birth family where this is the outcome.  

Nina and Steven’s journey with Coram began in 2016 when they started to explore the adoption process. Sadly, they had experienced four miscarriages and after some time spent travelling, decided it was the right time for them to look into adoption.  

They had started out by looking at ‘mainstream’ adoption but came across early permanence on the Coram website and felt drawn to it. The benefits of the scheme and its child-centred approach resonated with them, as Nina says: “We’d never heard of early permanence before but it touched something inside. We liked how respect and acknowledgment are given to the birth parents, and knowing we could meet them and understand the child’s background struck a chord with us. Knowing if the child had questions later on about their looks, hair colour, and so on, we can say we know because we met the birth family. It felt powerful.”   

Early permanence

After further discussion with the adoption team, Nina and Steven started the approval process to become early permanence carers. They were assigned a social worker and began a programme of training sessions, written work, and personal interviews. They say: “We found the training incredible and still think back today to things we learned. It completely sold us on the whole ethos of early permanence.” Steven adds: “A big part of the training was meeting other prospective adopters. It convinced me that we could do this too.”  

Shortly before they were jointly approved to foster and adopt, their social worker started to show them profiles of children they might want to look after. Very quickly after approval, in 2017, they considered a profile of a baby yet to be born who would most likely be taken into care due to the mother’s circumstances. Nina and Steven expressed an interest and when the baby was born a few months later, they became early permanence carers for that little girl, Leah.  

Nina and Steven first met Leah when she was two weeks old. She was still in hospital due to health issues at birth and they came to visit her every day. Nina and Steven describe the months that followed as “a rollercoaster ride” as they dealt with the huge uncertainties around Leah’s future, contact with Leah’s birth mother, and the outcome of numerous court hearings.  

Uncertainty

Leah was not able to be cared for by her mother, and there was uncertainty about Leah’s paternity, which the local authority were not certain would be resolved. However after Nina and Steven became Leah’s foster carers, they were told that Leah’s father had come forward and his paternity had been confirmed. This led to Leah’s paternal grandmother being assessed as a potential permanent carer.  

Nina says: “The uncertainty was so full on and confronting for us. You feel totally powerless at that point and you are fielding so much stuff. We just wanted to know that Leah would be safe. It was also very hard for our family and friends. We had to shield them a little bit from everything going on at that time. One of the best decisions we made was not ever calling ourselves ‘mum and dad’ through the process – we were really strict on that.”  

Nina continues: “The uncertainty was almost intolerable. But life goes on around you and you have to deal with everything else that comes up. You are also busy looking after a young baby, which is of course tiring and stressful. But the support from Coram the whole way was amazing. Our social worker was always at the end of the phone and so supportive, and helped us through day to day, through all the meetings with social services and all that they entailed.”  

Moving to birth family

Seven months after becoming Leah’s carers, it was decided in the courts that Leah would go to live permanently with her grandmother. Nina and Steven had been to many contact sessions with Leah and her grandmother organised through the local authority, with support from the team at Coram.   

Nina and Steven recall the handover meeting with Leah and her grandmother: “It was really heartbreaking but amazing. Coram’s contact supervisor had quickly established a great relationship with Leah’s gran and encouraged her to tell us she would keep Leah safe. She knew we had been worried. For us, this session with her turned things around. It all made sense and completed the journey. We knew Leah was going to be loved and cared for within her birth family, so we came out feeling positive.”  

Despite being an extremely challenging period, Nina and Steven felt it was “the best thing they had ever done” and say: “There were big ups and downs but it was incredible, a good experience and so worthwhile. We knew we had done our job. We had looked after Leah really well, kept her safe when she had needed it, and provided a calm oasis for her at a very uncertain time.”  

Nina and Steven are still in touch with Leah’s grandmother – they write to each other, and she sends photos of Leah. They say: “It feels really special. All our family and friends still ask about Leah too, she was very loved by everyone.”  

Grieving

Nina and Steven say they went through a period of grief after Leah left but after some time away, made the decision that they wanted to try adopting through early permanence again.   

They spoke to their social worker who wanted to be sure that they were doing the right thing and advised that Nina and Steven explore ‘mainstream’ adoption. However, they decided to go ahead with the early permanence scheme for a second time, aware that any child placed might not stay with them.  

Moving forward

One day they were told about a baby, Jasmine. Her situation was very unusual in that she had been relinquished due to her mother’s personal circumstances, which is rare in the care system today. Nina and Steven say they felt unsure at first but that their social worker helped them by talking it all through. Nina says: “We had a long think about it. There were lots of questions, would the mum change her mind? But then the learning from our training kicked in and you remember the most important thing – it’s a baby who needs looking after. You can’t second guess everything.”  

Jasmine’s birth mother is from a similar cultural background as Nina, which Nina says is a positive thing, as it helped her to understand the circumstances around why she wasn’t able to care for her.  

Nina and Steven said: “The contact meetings were really positive. It was good that Jasmine’s mother wanted to meet us and we felt she gave us a sort of ‘seal of approval’ to care for Jasmine, which we feel is something that will be really helpful for Jasmine later on. We will be able to tell her about her birth mum and share photos from our contact meetings.”  

Even though it seemed to be more likely that they would go on to adopt this time around, Nina and Steven didn’t take anything for granted and felt there was always a possibility Jasmine’s mother could change her mind.

Coping with uncertainty 

Nina and Steven say that the second time round was also quite hard for their friends and family: “We made a conscious decision to keep information about the process brief with them. Many of our friends and family had been shocked that Leah returned to her birth family and were worried we had chosen the same route with all the uncertainty again. They just wanted us to be happy.”  

They continue: “However, a lot of friends weren’t surprised that we chose to do it again and we even have friends now who have been through the process themselves – they said they saw everything we went through and how we came out the other end. So that’s been amazing to see.”  

In 2018, Nina and Steven were approved to adopt Jasmine, and say she is doing really well: “She is brilliant. She’s talking loads, she’s super-chatty, sweet, funny, and cheeky, a real adventurer!”   

Nina and Steven have started doing some life story work to help Jasmine understand her early life and say: “Coram has been amazing. We did a workshop to understand what questions Jasmine might have in the future. We know that being relinquished may bring up different kinds of questions about birth parents, and Coram altered a life story template for us to use with Jasmine and gave us pointers on language.”  

Training and support

The couple knows that training and support from Coram are there whenever they need it: “It was the ongoing support from Coram that also attracted us. We’ve attended stay-and-play sessions and the family picnic to meet other adoptive families. It’s a reminder that we aren’t alone. And Jasmine will have a network too – she’ll have access to high-quality support if she needs it. We’ve also made good friends with other adoptive families. It’s great to have someone else who understands what you’re going through and it’s really nice for Jasmine to know other adopted children as well.”  

Looking back on their journey now, Nina and Steven say: “We’ve learned that no matter what gets thrown at us, no matter how stressful and emotional, we can get through it as a couple. We realised you can love someone else’s child as your own, even knowing they might only be with you for a short time. It has made being parents all the more special to us – the story, how and why we did it.”  

Nina and Steven conclude: “Early permanence won’t be suitable for everybody. But if you keep the child at the centre and come at it from the right place, then it can be incredible. It’s a special way to give stability to a child when they really need it and an element of support for the birth family. It’s given us so much as well.”  

If you’d like to find out more about Coram’s work, click here.

Click here to read more articles from Coram.

The outcome for this type of placement is uncertain, until all of the assessments of birth family have been completed. It is then for the court to decide whether a plan of permanence is the only option for the child.

This article is written by Adoption Tees Valley, sharing what the process was like for two of their adopters.

Chris and Pete adopted siblings Matthew and Amber through Adoption Tees Valley, a regional adoption agency who cover the North East of England. Amber, their youngest child and Matthew’s biological brother, came to Pete and Chris under an early permanence placement.

Early permanence

Early permanence placements are where children, often young babies, are placed in foster care, with carers who are approved as both foster carers and adopters. The carers are able to work with uncertainty around the child’s future plan, while assessments are being undertaken. Early permanence carers will foster the child initially, but will go on to adopt them later if the courts decide they cannot be cared for permanently by their birth family.

The benefit of early permanence placements is that they minimise disruption to children’s lives and give them a chance to bond earlier with people who may go on to adopt them.

Pete talks about their experience

When our adoptive son was five, we received a phone call – he had a biological sister on the way. We were asked if we would consider caring for her on a ‘fostering for adoption’ basis. We didn’t have to think twice about our response. The opportunity to keep brother and sister together – even if just in those formative first stages – with the potential for early permanence, was a no-brainer for us.

We did, of course, have to be realistic and continually bear in mind the different potential outcomes. There was no guarantee this would be any more than a foster placement, and the little girl could be returned to her birth family if that was judged to be in her best interests. But even so, giving her that best possible start to life and allowing brother and sister the chance to get to know each other, was something we were resolute to provide.

During this time, it was amazing to watch their relationship flourish. The love and care they had for each other was clear for all to see. And it provided us with so much more opportunity to talk to our son about his identity, giving the photos and information in his life story book further and more tangible meaning.

Getting to know birth parents

It also allowed us a much greater insight into the children’s identity as parents/carers ourselves. We worked incredibly closely with birth parents. We met them through family time (contact) three times a week, attending medical appointments together and attending official meetings alongside the wide range of professionals there to support everyone. This gave us the invaluable opportunity to get to know birth parents as people – beyond the photos and pen portraits.

This was challenging at times, but all in the best interests of the little girl at the heart of the process – and we wouldn’t have had it any other way.

And now, three years on and an adoption order later, we have those memories and that learning as a family. We can talk to our son and daughter with genuine sincerity that we met their birth parents, that we knew them, and that we saw first hand how much they loved them and wanted the very best for them. That they had had to make some very difficult decisions; that they trusted us. And that ability to provide such an in depth and honest view of their history and identity undoubtedly makes us an even stronger family unit.

If you’re interested in early permanence and would like to find out more, contact Adoption Tees Valley on 01642 526 400, via email or have a look at their website.

To read more early permanence experiences, click here.

This type of placement puts the uncertainty and risk of disruption on adopters, rather than the child. If the plan for adoption is approved by the court, the child won’t have any moves. They’ll have been with their new parents more or less from birth. If they do move, it will usually be so they can live with their birth family, rather than into another foster placement.

For adopters, fostering to adopt comes with a degree of uncertainty. While court proceedings are ongoing, there is the possibility the child could move to their birth family. It does happen. That’s why if you’re considering fostering to adopt, you know exactly what it means.

I’m very grateful to @fpd5 for sharing her family’s experience of fostering to adopt. It gives a great insight into what the process entails.

Introduce yourself and your family

Hi, I’m Fleur – my family consists of me, my husband and our daughter A who we adopted three-and-a-half years ago. We are an international family with British, Kiwi and Dutch passports!

Was your agency a local authority or voluntary agency?

We went with the local authority we lived in.

What was your biggest worry before you started?

That I wouldn’t be able to meet the needs of the child(ren) we would end up adopting. The focus of the assessment process is the difficult aspects of children in care and adoption. Everyone needs to be sure that any potential adoptive parents will be able to cope. But I do think there could be some extra focus on the positive outcomes of adoption.

Why did you decide to go down the fostering to adopt route?

We didn’t actually 100% decide to go down this route. It’s something we discussed with our social worker during the assessment process. We had some reservations as we weren’t sure if we could cope with the possibility of a child being returned to their birth family.

However, when the situation arose, we realised we could give a child a really good start to their life in a warm and loving environment. This would hopefully put them in good stead if they were returned to their birth family.

How did the matching process work?

We were approved as adopters in March 2018. We looked at lots of profiles on LinkMaker and profiles that our social worker sent to us, and had expressed interest in a couple of children.

I work in pharmaceuticals where things move at the speed of light and everyone needs things immediately. I was getting frustrated by how slowly everything seemed to be taking.

Then one day in May 2018 I received a phone call from our social worker asking if we were interested in fostering to adopt a baby girl who was born the previous day.

She was born on the Wednesday, we had the phone call on the Thursday and she was home with us on the Friday. They offered a bridging foster placement in case we couldn’t be ready in time, but we went ahead with it. We wanted to keep the changes to a minimum for A and felt there was no point in her getting used to other people for a week or so then coming to live with us.

We literally had 24 hours to get everything we needed! Luckily a lot of our friends had had babies in the six months prior so I phoned them all, they clubbed together and lent us everything we needed. That helped a lot and we are forever grateful to them!

How old was your child when they came home?

She was two days old.

From your point of view, what are the main differences between fostering to adopt and a traditional adoption placement?

There is more uncertainty in a fostering to adopt situation. Less is known about potential development issues because these often come about over time. There is always the possibility that the child can go back to their birth family until the adoption order is granted.

For various reasons and hold ups, A’s adoption order wasn’t granted until just under a year after she came to live with us. Obviously it’s all consuming looking after a baby, but that tiny bit of worry would sometimes creep into my mind that she’d end up leaving us.

We’d obviously grown very attached to her and reminded ourselves that if she did end up back with her birth family, at least we had given her a good start to life.

How did contact work with birth family?

There was no contact with A’s birth family.

How did you find the fostering to adopt process?

Hugely positive so far. A has been with us since she was two days old so we’ve experienced nearly her entire life. When she’s older, we can tell her exactly what she was like as a baby (stubborn from the very beginning! )

How long was your child home before the care and placement orders were made at court?

Nearly a year. The adoption order was granted a couple of weeks before A’s 1^st birthday.

How did adoption leave work?

Given that I was only able to give my work 24 hours notice that I’d be going on adoption leave, very smoothly!

In the end, my husband & I did shared parental leave. I did the first nine months and he did the last three months. Both our companies had very generous policies, which helped financially.

I then dropped down to working four days a week when she went to childcare when she turned one, so we could have Fridays off together. She’s three-and-a-half years old now and we still have Fridays off together.

Were you entitled to any allowance or payment as foster carers?

Yes, we got a foster care allowance and a settling in grant as well.

What has been the most difficult part about the process?

I didn’t really find the process difficult. I think the difficult bits will come in the future when A realises the reasons for her adoption. She is beginning to understand what it all means, and obviously we are open and honest with her in an age-appropriate way.

We are big on talking about how we feel, so I hope this gives her the ability to talk to someone in the future (if not me or my husband then a counsellor) about how she feels about it all.

Have you needed to access additional help and support from your agency since your child came home?  

We haven’t needed anything yet.

What has been your best memory since your child came home?

This keeps changing. There are pros (and cons!) about each age we’ve experienced with A so far. She is a happy smiley girl and strikes a great balance of being obsessed with pink / princesses / unicorns (we did try to keep it gender neutral but the pink got her in the end!) and getting as muddy / dirty as possible when we’re in the park or painting etc.

She’s at a great age right now because we can have proper chats with her. She is stubborn as hell and reckons she’s right about everything. I really hope she holds on to these traits as she grows up because she will definitely become a strong, independent woman who can change the world.

If you could go back and have a conversation with yourself about the process before you started, what would you tell yourself?

To be patient and to just trust that what is meant to be will happen.

Obviously it’s not fair for A that she’s been adopted. No-one deserves the pain and loss of being separated from their birth family, no matter how young. However, she has been the perfect daughter for us and I hope the start we’ve given her in life will mean she has a happy life as she grows up.

We will support her 100% in whatever she wants to do when she’s older, and if/when she wants to find her birth family, we will be with her holding her hand the entire way.

If you’d like to read about more adoption experiences from adoptees, birth parents and adopters click here

The second route to adoption is concurrency. This places the risk on adopters and will often mean that a child moves in with them from hospital. To go down this route, adopters also have to be approved as foster carers. Until the court orders that it isn’t possible for the child to live with their birth family, the adopters are acting as foster carers. That means they have to do things like facilitating contact which wouldn’t happen in a traditional placement.

Concurrency, or fostering to adopt, carries with it a risk that the court could decide the child can live with their birth family. That obviously then means the child is moved from the adopters to live with their birth family. Today’s article is written by Hannah sharing her two very different concurrency journeys.

A bit about me

Hi, my name is Hannah and I’m a mum of two amazing, beautiful girls. If you can call them girls. They are more like complete Divas. But I wouldn’t have it any other way! My partner and I are lucky to have adopted them via concurrency.

I decided late last year after being asked quite a lot about our journey, to start my own blog about it. But with running a house, going back to work part time, running my own business and looking after two children under three, I just didn’t have the time. So I made a conscious effort after a live video went really well, to find the time in the New Year to put my head down and get started.

I’m already so glad that I have because the feedback has been that it’s helped people whether it be about adoption or just learning more about it. So, I thought I would tell you a little bit about our journey as we’ve had two very different concurrent adoptions. I hope it helps.

Our journey

We started the process in 2016. We did the standard paperwork which felt like forever. We also had the standard meetings which I really enjoyed. The meetings were a bit like free therapy. The difference with concurrency and “normal” adoption is that up until the adoption order is granted, you are foster carers. This means that there’s a higher risk of a baby placed going back to their birth family.

But the great thing is, if the adoption order is granted, you’ve been forming a bond with your child from birth. This meant so much to me. We’ve been very lucky that both of our placements got adoption orders.

The process for concurrency meant we had to do both fostering and adoption courses. We also had to do the mandatory fostering courses like first aid, how to keep children safe online etc. This also meant that we had to do two panels, one for fostering and one for adoption. Our local authority now have a course specifically for concurrency which also means just one panel.

I remember the day we got our first match. It was the first Monday of the summer holidays and a baby girl was due on the Friday. It was another two weeks until she finally decided to make her entrance. But the day the lovely social workers brought her to our front door, was a feeling I’ve never experienced before. We had the weekend to bond with her and have her all to ourselves until contact started on the Monday.

If I’m honest, I was upset that contact was happening to start with. Our contact was three times a week and birth parents showed up each time. Looking back now, I’m super grateful that they did because that enabled us to form a relationship. We bonded, which is an amazing thing to be able to tell my little girl when she’s older. If my life had taken a different path or I’d had a different upbringing, I could’ve been in birth mum’s situation. I have so much respect for both sets of birth parents for many different reasons. But mainly because they’ve given me my two beautiful daughters.

Although contact was a rollercoaster of emotions, I’m so glad she got the time to spend with her birth parents. The memories we have in her life story book shows how much they really did care and how much they love her and wanted her. But circumstances meant they weren’t able to provide absolutely everything she needed.

Being foster carers

With concurrency it’s quite hard to get your head around the fostering rules and having your foster hat on. You had to write daily records, tell the social worker if you want to go away or go to a different town. You have paperwork to say you can take them to medical appointments and make decisions about those, but you still have to let the social worker know about them.

I didn’t do this once with number two. She’d bumped her head so we took her to the walk-in centre. First thing Monday morning we had three phone calls from the social workers panicking!

With our second concurrent placement the stage one part didn’t take anywhere near as long. It was more updating the report and having a few meetings about how life has changed, how we will cope with two babies and just looking into the future really. This time I wasn’t so impatient. I wanted a sibling for my little girl more than anything. But circumstances meant that if we hadn’t matched before the September, we’d have had to wait until after May 2020 as we were going abroad to get married.

I think we’d got our head around the fact that we wouldn’t get a match and we would wait. But lo and behold, three days before breaking up for the summer holidays, I got a phone call from the social worker. I can’t repeat the words I said when she told me about a little girl who’d been born eight weeks premature. At that time she was three weeks old and ready to come home on the Friday. Keep in mind this was 3:00pm Wednesday!

We’d gone from three weeks notice to meeting our first little girl, to just over 24 hours to go and pick up our second little girl from the hospital. It was amazing that we were able to go to the hospital and bring her home. That felt really special. She was so tiny. I’ve never seen anything so tiny in my life.

Contact second time

There was a big difference with this concurrent placement as contact didn’t start. It was supposed to, but birth parents were unable to commit to contact at that time. We did meet them at three months old when they had two sessions. That was lovely. But I do wish we’d had more time to spend with them getting to know them, so that we have as much to tell number two as we do number one.

A lot of things felt different this time. There wasn’t as much involvement with social workers, support workers etc. I think because we weren’t at contact seeing them regularly, they just didn’t seem to be around as much as the first time.

Then 2020 happened and put a delay on everything. Court hearings were postponed and the adoption order took over 18 months. Birth parents asked for contact, then didn’t attend during this time. When they attended court, they were full of praise for us and said how grateful they were to us. They said they’d like one final meeting.

It was different this time because we had PR so it was our choice whether we agreed to a final contact. It was a huge decision but obviously we said yes. We met them which was super special. All the feelings we had about them before that, instantly went away. I remembered how important these people are to us.

They have given us another beautiful child and they were so thankful they even called us mummy and daddy which meant the world to us. I’m glad we saw them, and they saw us, and that they saw how happy number two is. I got to hold birth mum’s hand while she thanked me. I told her to look after herself, made her promise to look after herself and that was so important to me. We bonded as mothers right there and then.

My advice

Every concurrency journey is different. We’ve done it twice and they are both completely different. If you decide to go down that route, my advice is to try and enjoy contact and the meetings with birth parents as much as you possibly can because you’ll always have that to give back to your child when they’re learning about their life.

Concurrency is a big decision because of the risk. You have to make sure you’re strong enough to be able to take on the risk of the placement not continuing to adoption. But in saying that, nothing beats experiencing the bond between the baby and yourself when they’re such tiny little things. You are their everything. I can’t explain how amazing that is. It’s true love from the beginning.

Whatever journey you’ve been on or whatever journey you decide to go on, it will be the right one for you. There is a baby or a child out there which will be your perfect match. Just remember timing is everything. Enjoy the process. Relax as much as you can. Don’t fear the unknown and good luck.

If you’d like to read more adoption stories, click here.