Permanence Planning Guidance

1. Defining Permanence

Permanence is the long term plan for the child's upbringing and provides an underpinning framework for all social work with children and their families from family support through to adoption. It aims to ensure a framework of emotional, physical and legal conditions that will give a child a sense of security, continuity, commitment, identity and belonging.

There is no one solution to securing permanence. Children and young people can find permanence and stability:

• At home with their parents, returning home once the situation has stabilised (with robust reunification support in place);
• With friends or family under a legal order;
• In long-term care, including fostering or residential care;
• In an adoptive family.

It is not where or with whom the child lives that matters, it is that the child or young person knows that they will live in the same place, and with the same people, for the rest of their childhood and beyond.

1.1 Permanence Through Legal Orders

Where the child is not returning to their parents, legal orders provide more certainty for the child that the situation will continue for the rest of their childhood. Legal orders also ensure the rights of the child, the birth family and the potential carers are considered by the courts and allow all those involved to access legal advice.

• Children looked after under Section 20 voluntary agreements are particularly at risk of instability and changes to their living arrangements. Section 20 agreements must be reviewed every 3 months to ensure that they are appropriate and are not continuing to drift in the pursuit of permanence;
• Long-term foster care may be an appropriate option for the child or young person, but wherever possible, long-term foster carers should be supported to consider if a Special Guardianship Order would provide the child with more stability;
• Living with family and friends can happen under a number of different legal orders, or none. In some situations, the Family or Friend Carer will not have parental responsibility, and will need to ask parents, or the local authority, for permission to undertake everyday activities with the child. Where the plan is for children to live with family or friends in the long-term, carers should be encouraged to seek a legal order formalising their responsibility for caring for the child.

1.2 Permanence and Care Planning

Permanence is not just about where the child lives, or who has parental responsibility, but also about supporting the child to make and sustain relationships that will last their whole lives.

1.2.1 Contact

Where the child is not adopted, relationships with their birth family, including siblings and the wider family network, are important in supporting the child's sense of identity and belonging.

• Wherever possible, care should be provided locally unless clearly identified as inappropriate.
• Contact with the family, Connected Persons and extended family should be facilitated and built on (unless clearly identified as inappropriate).

1.2.2 Identity

Whilst it is important, when undertaking permanence planning, to promote the child's links with their racial, cultural and religious heritage, this should not be allowed to introduce delay in achieving permanence for the child. Note that due consideration no longer has to be given to a child's religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background when matching a child and prospective adopters (see also Section 5, Assessing and Planning for Permanence).

1.2.3 Life Story Work

Understanding their past is important for stability and security and a child's sense of identity. Life story work, explaining to the child what has happened, and why, should start as soon as a child enters care and continue at least until they are permanently settled. Carers offering permanency placements should be encouraged and supported to talk to children about where they came from, their birth family and their experience of care.

1.2.4 Transition to Adulthood

A young person's need for permanence does not end when they reach 18. Many young people experience disruption and dislocation when they leave care at 18.

• Early planning for post-18 support, including in Staying Put placements, and ongoing contact with carers gives young people a sense of belonging that is important for the transition to adulthood
• Young people with uncertain immigration status are at very high risk of instability and lacking a sense of belonging. Early action to clarify immigration status and establish residency is an important contributor to feelings of permanence for this group.

2. Key Objectives in Permanence Planning

Securing permanence for children looked after supports our vision for all children in Slough, that they are safe, secure and successful. Our commitment to permanence underlines that our duties to children looked after go beyond simply ensuring that they are safe, and they are also:

• Secure: children have a secure, stable and loving family to support them through childhood and beyond and to give them a sense of security, continuity, commitment, identity and belonging. They are supported to have contact with their birth parents, siblings and wider family, even if they cannot live with them;
• Successful: Carers for children and young people have the skills and resources to support the child's education and health needs, now and throughout their childhood, and can adapt their approach to caring to respond to the child's needs as they get older and progress into adulthood and independent living.

The question "how are the child's permanence needs being met?" must be at the core of everything we do.

Where it is necessary for a child to leave their family:

• This should be for as short a time as is required to secure a safe, supported return home; or
• If a child cannot return home, plans must be made for alternative permanent care. Family members and friends should always be considered in the first instance with the permanence secured through the appropriate legal order to meet the child's needs;
• Where it is not in the child's best interests to live within the family network, it will usually be in the interests of the child for alternative permanent carers to be identified and the placement secured through adoption, long term foster care, Child Arrangements Orders or Special Guardianship Orders;
• Residential group living is provided only when a need for this is identified within the care plan and when substitute family care is not appropriate;
• For older children arranging for their independent living must be considered.

Where it is clear that families and children are unable to live together, planning must be swift and clear to identify permanent alternative settings.

• Contact with the family, Connected Persons and extended family should be facilitated and built on (unless clearly identified as inappropriate).

3. Options for Permanence

The options for permanence are:

3.1 Staying/Returning Home

The first stage within permanence planning is work with families and children in need to support them staying together. Staying at home offers the best chance of stability. Research shows that family preservation has a higher success rate than reunification – keeping children at home is more successful in general than removing and then returning a child. This of course has to be balanced against the risk of harm to the child.

3.2 Placement with Family or Friends/Connected Persons

If the assessment concludes that the child cannot safely remain at home, every effort must be made to secure a placement with a family member or friend/connected person as their carer. This will be either as part of the plan to work towards a return home or, if a return home is clearly not in the child's best interests, as the preferred permanence option. It is very important to establish at an early stage which relatives or friends might be available to care for the child, to avoid the kind of delays that can happen during court proceedings where this work has not been done.

See: Friends, Family and Connected Persons Procedure.

3.3 Adoption

See: Placement for Adoption Procedure for detailed procedures.

Adoption transfers Parental Responsibility for the child from the birth parents and others who had Parental Responsibility, including Slough Children First, permanently and solely to the adopter(s).

The child is deemed to be the child of the adopter(s) as if he or she had been born to them. The child's birth certificate is changed to an adoption certificate showing the adopter(s) to be the child's parent(s). A child who is not already a citizen of the UK acquires British citizenship if adopted in the UK by a citizen of the UK.

Research strongly supports adoption as a primary consideration and as a main factor contributing to the stability of children, especially for those under four years of age who cannot be reunified with their birth or extended family.

Adopters may be supported, including financially, by Slough Children First and will have the right to request an assessment for support services at any time after the Order is made. See Adoption Support Procedure for detailed procedures. A child subject to an Adoption Order will be entitled to additional education and Early Years support. This will be accessed through the designated teacher in the child's school/Early Years setting (for further information, see Supporting the Education and Promoting the Achievement of Children with a Social Worker, Looked After and Previously Looked After Children Procedure).

Adoption has the following advantages as a Permanence Plan:

1. Parental Responsibility is held exclusively by the carers;
2. The child is no longer looked after;
3. No future legal challenge to overturn the Adoption Order is possible;
4. The child is a permanent family member into adulthood;
5. As a previously Looked After Child, the child is entitled to additional education support throughout their school career.

Adoption has the following disadvantages as a Permanence Plan:

1. It involves a complete and permanent legal separation from the family of origin;
2. There is no review process.

Family finding should begin as soon as adoption is under consideration, and before the Agency Decision Maker decides that the child should be placed for adoption or a placement order is made.

3.4 Fostering for Adoption, Concurrent Planning and Temporary Approval as Foster Carers of Approved Prospective Adopters

The Children and Families Act 2014 imposes a duty to consider placements with carers who are approved as both adopters and foster carers and where a child is placed in a fostering for adoption placement, the relationship which the child has with the person who is a prospective adopter must be considered by the Court or Adoption Agency alongside other relevant relationships the child has with their relatives or other persons. (See s.9 Children and Social Work Act 2017 amends section s.1(f) Adoption and Children Act 2002.)

(See Early Permanence: Fostering for Adoption, Concurrent Planning and Temporary Approval as Foster Carers of Approved Prospective Adopters Procedure.

3.5 Special Guardianship Orders

See Applications for Special Guardianship Orders Procedure for the detailed procedures.

Special Guardianship addresses the needs of a significant group of children, who need a sense of stability and security within a placement away from their parents but not the absolute legal break with their birth family that is associated with adoption. It can also provide an alternative for achieving permanence in families where adoption, for cultural or religious reasons, is not an option.

The following persons may apply:

1. Any guardian of the child;
2. A Slough Children First foster carer with whom the child has lived for one year immediately preceding the application;
3. Anyone who is named in a Child Arrangements Order as a person with whom the child is to live;
4. Anyone with whom the child has lived for 3 out of the last 5 years;
5. Where the child is subject of a care order, any person who has the consent of Slough Children First;
6. Anyone who has the consent of all those with Parental Responsibility for the child (e.g. anyone, including the child, who has the leave of the court to apply).

The parents of a child may not become the child's special guardians.

Special Guardianship Orders offer greater stability and security to a placement than Child Arrangements Orders in that, whilst they are revocable, there are restrictions on those who may apply to discharge the Order and the leave of the Court, if required, will only be granted where circumstances have changed since the Special Guardianship Order was made.

Special guardians will have Parental Responsibility for the child and although this will be shared with the child's parents, the special guardian will have the legal right to make all day to day arrangements for the child. The parents will still have to be consulted and their consent required to the child's change of name, adoption, placement abroad for more than 3 months and any other such fundamental issues.

A Special Guardianship Order made in relation to a child who is the subject of a Care Order will automatically discharge the Care Order and Slough Children First will no longer have Parental Responsibility.

Special guardians may be supported financially or otherwise by Slough Children First and, as with adoptive parents, will have the right to request an assessment for support services at any time after the Order is made.

Special Guardianship has the following advantages as a Permanence Plan:

1. The carers have Parental Responsibility and clear authority to make decisions on day to day issues regarding the child's care;
2. There is added legal security to the Order in that leave is required for parents to apply to discharge the Order and will only be granted if a change of circumstances can be established since the original Order was made;
3. It maintains legal links to the birth family;
4. The child will no longer be in care and there need be no social worker involvement unless this is identified as necessary, in which case an assessment of the need for support must be made by the relevant Trust;
5. A child subject to a Special Guardianship Order will be entitled to additional education support throughout their school career.

Special Guardianship has the following disadvantages as a Permanence Plan:

1. The Order only lasts until the child is 18 and does not necessarily bring with it the same sense of belonging to the special guardian's family as an Adoption Order does;
2. As the child is not a legal member of the family, if difficulties arise there may be less willingness to persevere and seek resolution;
3. Although there are restrictions on applications to discharge the Order, such an application is possible and may be perceived as a threat to the child's stability.

3.6 Child Arrangements Orders

Child Arrangements Orders were introduced in April 2014 by the Children and Families Act 2014 (which amended section 8 Children Act 1989). They replace contact orders and residence orders.

A Child Arrangements Order is a court order regulating arrangements relating to any of the following:

1. With whom a child is to live, spend time or otherwise have contact; and
2. When a child is to live, spend time or otherwise have contact with any person.

The 'residence' aspects of a Child Arrangements Order (i.e. with whom a child is to live/when a child is to live with any person) can last until the child reaches 18 years unless discharged earlier by the Court or by the making of a care order.

The 'contact' aspects of a Child Arrangements Order (with whom and when a child is to spend time with or otherwise have contact with) cease to have effect when the child reaches 16 years, unless the court is satisfied that the circumstances of the case are exceptional.

A person named in the Order as a person with whom the child is to live, will have parental responsibility for the child while the Order remains in force. Where a person is named in the Order as a person with whom the child is to spend time or otherwise have contact, but is not named in the Order as a person with whom the child is to live, the court may provide in the Order for that person to have Parental Responsibility for the child while the Order remains in force.

Child Arrangements Orders are private law orders, and cannot be made in favour of a local authority or Slough Children First. Where a child is the subject of a Care Order, there is a general duty on Slough Children First to promote contact between the child and the parents. A Contact Order can be made under section 34 of the Children Act 1989 requiring Slough Children First to allow the child to have contact with a named person.

A court which is considering making, varying or discharging a Child Arrangements Orders, including making any directions or conditions which may be attached to such an Order, must have regard to the paramountcy principle, the 'no order' principle and the welfare checklist under the Children Act 1989.

Interim Child Arrangements Orders can be made.

Where a child would otherwise have to be placed with strangers, a placement with family or friends/Connected Persons may be identified as a preferred option and the carers may be encouraged and supported to apply for a Child Arrangements Orders where this will be in the best interests of the child.

The holder of a Child Arrangements Order does not have the right to consent to the child's adoption nor to appoint a guardian; in addition, they may not change the child's name nor arrange for the child's emigration without the consent of all those with Parental Responsibility or the leave of the court.

Whilst support may continue for as long as the Child Arrangements Order remains in force, the aim will be to make arrangements which are self-sustaining in the long run.

As was the case with Contact and Residence Orders, any person can apply for a Child Arrangements Order. The following can apply for a Child Arrangements Order without needing the leave of the court. In addition, any person who is not automatically entitled to apply for a Child Arrangements Order may seek leave of the court to do so:

• Any parent (whether or not they have Parental Responsibility for the child), guardian or Special Guardian of the child;
• Any person named, in a Child Arrangements Order that is in force with respect to the child, as a person with whom the child is to live;
• Any party to a marriage (whether or not subsisting) in relation to whom the child is a child of the family. This allows step-parents (including those in a civil partnership) and former step-parents who fulfil this criteria to apply as of right;
• Any person with whom the child has lived for a period of at least three years - this period need not be continuous but must not have begun more than five years before, or ended more than three months before, the making of the application; or
• Any person:
  • Who has the consent of each of the persons in named in a Child Arrangements Order as a person with whom the child is to live;
  • In any case where the child is in the care of Slough Children First, who has the consent of that authority;
  • In whose favour a Child Arrangements Order has been made in relation to the 'contact' aspects and who has been awarded Parental Responsibility by the court (i.e. they would be able to apply for a Child Arrangements Order in relation to the 'residence' aspects);
  • Who has the consent of everyone with parental responsibility for the child.
• A Slough Children First foster carer is entitled to apply for a Child Arrangements Order relating to with whom the child is to live, and/or when the child is to live with that person, if the child has lived with them for a period of at least one year immediately preceding the application;
• A relative of a child is entitled to apply for a Child Arrangements Order relating to with whom the child is to live, and/or when the child is to live with that person, if the child has lived with the relative for a period of at least one year immediately preceding the application. (A relative is a child's grandparent, brother, sister, uncle or aunt (by full or half blood), or by marriage or civil partnership).

A Child Arrangements Order specifying with whom the child is to live has the following advantages:

1. It gives Parental Responsibility to the carer whilst maintaining the parents' Parental Responsibility;
2. The child will no longer be Looked After and there need be no social work involvement, therefore, unless this is identified as necessary;
3. There is no review process;
4. The child will not be Looked After and so less stigma is attached to the placement;
5. A child subject to a Child Arrangements Order will be entitled to additional education support throughout their school career.

A Child Arrangements Order has the following disadvantages:

1. It is less secure than Adoption or Special Guardianship in that an application can be made to revoke the Order. However, the Court making the Order can be asked to attach a condition refusing a parent's right to seek revocation without leave of the court;
2. There is no formal continuing support to the family after the Order is made although in some instances, a Child Arrangements Order Allowance may be payable by Slough Children First;
3. There is no professional reviewing of the arrangements after the Order unless a new application to court is made, for example by the parents for contact or revocation. (N.B. New applications to court may be expensive to defend, and the carers would have to bear the cost if not entitled to assistance with legal costs.)

3.7 Long-term Fostering

(Please see the separate chapter Placements in Foster Care for details regarding the appropriate making of long-term foster placements).

For those children who remain looked after an important route to permanence is long-term foster care. Where the permanence plan for the child is longer-term foster care this may be where the current short-term foster placement is assessed to meet the long term needs of the child for permanence or where a new placement is identified for a child as a result of an assessment and matching process.

This option has proved to be particularly useful for older children who retain strong links to their birth families and do not want or need the formality of adoption and where the carers wish for the continued involvement of Slough Children First.

Long-term fostering has the following advantages as a Permanence Plan:

1. Slough Children First retains a role in negotiating between the foster carers and the birth family over issues such as contact;
2. There is continuing social work support to the child and foster family in a placement that is regularly reviewed to ensure that the child's needs are met;
3. It maintains legal links to the birth family who can still play a part in the decision making for the child.

Long-term fostering has the following disadvantages as a Permanence Plan:

1. The foster carers do not hold Parental Responsibility and this may delay or complicate decision making;
2. Continuing social work involvement can be an intrusion into the child experiencing 'family life';
3. Regular Looked After Reviews, which, can, sometimes, be regarded as an intrusion in a long standing and stable placement;
4. Stigma attached to the child due to being in care;
5. The child is not a legal member of the family. If difficulties arise there may be less willingness to persevere and seek resolution;
6. Post care and/or post 18 the carers have no legal responsibility towards the young person.

4. Permanence and Local Placement

Where a child is placed with long term carers, it is important that the child has access to the friends, family or community within which they were brought up and which form part of their identity and their long term support network. For these reasons children should be placed in local provision wherever possible.

Any decision to place a child away from their community should be based on the particular needs of the child, and considered within the context of a Permanence Plan. Where an alternative family placement is sought in the area of another Trust, the likely availability and cost of suitable local resources to support the placement must be explored. In the case of an adoptive placement, this will be required as part of the assessment of need for adoption support services (see Adoption Support Procedure), but should be carried out in relation to any permanent placement.

See also: Out of Area Placements Procedure.

5. Assessing and Planning for Permanence

5.1 Roles and Responsibilities

The child's social worker is responsible for:

• Talking with the child to understand their wishes and feelings about where they will live in the long-term;
• Assessing whether reunification is possible, and with what support;
• Identifying potential family and friends carers;
• Explaining options for permanence to the child, parents and potential carers, including the financial and other support available through the different routes to permanence;
• Booking the initial Permanence Planning meeting;
• Recording the actions arising from the Permanence Planning Meeting on the child's file on ICS;
• Completing a permanence plan by the time the child has their second review (3 months).

The Independent Reviewing Officer is responsible for:

• Attending permanence planning meetings;
• Understanding the child's wishes and feelings in relation to permanence and ensuring these are given due consideration within the CLA review process;
• Ensuring a permanence plan is in place by the time of the second CLA review.

Representatives from placement teams (adoption and fostering, Family Finding team, SGO team) are responsible for:

• Attending the permanence planning meeting;
• Contributing their expertise to decision-making for the child;
• Identifying potential permanent placements.

The Permanence Panel is responsible for:

• Quality assuring permanence plans;
• Agreeing a change in the plan for permanence.

5.2 Timescales

The first Permanence Planning meeting must take place within 2 weeks of the child entering care. Where the child is subject to pre-proceedings work, the outline permanence plan must be completed before the case reaches court.

Permanence Planning meetings must take place at a minimum of every 6 weeks until permanence is achieved, including when the case is before the court. Subsequent PPMs will be booked in every six weeks, or in accordance with the timetable set at the first PPM.

The Permanence Plan must be completed by the time of the second CLA Review (3 months after entering care).

5.2.1 Timescales for different types of permanency

Work to identify potential family and friends carers should begin before the child enters care, through a Family Group Conference and the completion of genograms and ecomaps as part of the Child and Family Assessment. Potential family and friends carers must be identified and assessed before the completion of care proceedings.

Making a foster care placement long-term should only be considered once the child and the carer have got to know each other and the child has settled into the placement. This allows the child to develop and express their view about whether the placement should be for the long-term.

Family finding should begin as soon as adoption is under consideration, and before the Agency Decision Maker decides that the child should be placed for adoption or a Placement Order is made.

5.3 Process

When the child enters care, or the social worker receives authorisation from the Legal Gateway/Planning Meetings to being the pre-proceedings process, a Permanence Planning meeting (PPM) must be held within two weeks of the child entering care.

5.3.1 Before the Meeting

The social worker:

• Completes the initial PPM form. This can be found under Operational A-Z > Forms;
• Ensures the child's Genogram/EcoMap and Chronology is up-to-date;
• Reviews the child's journey and background to the case;
• Reviews any current or recent assessments – in house or expert.

5.3.2 Booking the PPM

To book the meeting, the social worker sends the completed PPM forms to the PPM Coordinator, and the social worker will be notified of the time of the meeting via an appointment.

• Cancellations should be notified as soon as possible and a new meeting reconvened;
• Booked PPMs are recorded on the timetable and circulated to all involved to ensure no PPMs are missed;
• Subsequent PPMs will be booked in 6 weekly unless there is a need for tighter timescales which will be discussed during the PPM.

5.3.3 Meeting Arrangements

• Permanency Planning Meetings are held at set times each week. The PPM Coordinator can advise on days and times;
• The meetings are based on approx 30 minutes per child, with a meeting of no more than 1.5hr for (larger) sibling groups;
• PPMS are chaired by identified managers within Slough Children First Invitees should include:
  • CSW;
  • SW;
  • IRO/Chair;
  • Guardian;
  • Fostering Team (attend on a rota basis and will cover all PPMs);
  • Adoption Team (attend on a rota basis and will cover all PPMs);
  • SGO/F&F assessor;
  • Foster Carer (any reasons why this may not be appropriate please discuss with the chair);
  • Family finder;
  • Supervising Social worker;
  • Virtual Schools;
  • Clinician (or Jennifer Wallis if required for advice and support).

5.3.4 Actions, Outcomes and Minutes of the PPM

• Minutes of the meeting are taken by PPM Coordinator and recorded directly on to an ICS form. Actions will be emailed out to all those attended and whom sent apologies immediately within one working day of the PPM;
• Full minutes will be available on the system 5 working days of the PPM.

Following the meeting, the social worker must talk to the child and the parents about the proposed permanence plan, or any changes to the plan as decided at the Permanence Planning Meeting.

The social worker must ensure that the child is entered on the relevant permanence tracer spreadsheet so that the case can be monitored to prevent drift.

5.4 Content of the Permanence Plan

5.4.1 Assessments

Assessments of a child's needs in relation to their Permanence Plan must consider:

1. The desired outcomes for the child, and the support needed to achieve them;
2. The child's wishes and feelings about their future;
3. Stability issues, including the child's and family's needs for long-term support and the child's needs for links, including contact, with their parents, siblings, and wider family network;
4. Any need for therapeutic support to help the child recover from harm or trauma that they have experienced;
5. Support the child and parents need to understand the different options and their implications for parental responsibility and contact.

Social workers must ensure the child's Permanence Plan is clearly linked to previous assessments of the child's needs, and sets out the skills and support that alternative carers will need to meet those needs.

For more resources in choosing long-term placements to meet children's needs, see the Research in Practice briefing 'Comparing placement options to meet children and young people's current and future needs: Strategic Briefing (2017)'.

5.4.2 Contact with Family Members

The choice of permanence options will affect the contact that a child or young person has with their family. Wherever possible, options should be explored that:

• Allow siblings to be placed permanently together;
• Maintain contact with birth parents;
• Support relationships with the wider family network.

The assessment and plan should set out the benefits and risks of family contact, and how, if appropriate, direct or indirect contact can be supported through the choice of permanent placement.

Sometimes permanence plans will not be able to support family connections. Sibling placements may be inappropriate for safety reasons, or because the necessary delay would have a significant impact on one or more siblings, or because the ideal placement for one sibling does not have capacity for other children.

Where adoption is the plan, and family ties are broken, the plan must set out proposals for direct or indirect contact that must then be agreed with the adopter.

See also: Slough Children First Voluntary Adoption Agency Procedures Procedures.

For further resources on contact after adoption see Research in Practice website Contact After Adoption.

5.4.3 Avoiding delay in Achieving Permanence

Permanence plans may be uncertain in the early stages of planning, and may change as a result of new information or new circumstances (for example a previously unidentified family member presenting for assessment during care proceedings). The risks of disruption to permanence plans can be reduced by:

• Direct work with the child and birth family to identify potential carers using the genogram and eco-map tools;
• Family Group Conference being held at an early stage;
• Parallel planning and robust contingency plans;
• Regular reviews of progress towards permanence and flexibility to accommodate a child's changing or emerging needs.

5.4.3 The Court Care Plan

A court in deciding whether to make a Care Order, is required to consider the 'permanence provisions' of the Care Plan for the child:

1. The provisions setting out the long-term plan for the upbringing of the child - to live with a parent/family member/family friend; adoption; or other long-term care, and
2. The plan's provisions in relation to any of the following:
   1. The impact on the child concerned of any harm that he or she suffered or was likely to suffer;
   2. The current and future needs of the child (including needs arising out of that impact);
   3. The way in which the long-term plan for the upbringing of the child would meet those current and future needs.

(See S.8 Children and Social Work Act 2017 amends section 31(3B) Children Act 1989).

For further resources supporting preparing evidence for court see the Research in Practice briefing Evidence Matters in Family Justice: Resource Pack.

Appendix 1: Identifying Permanence Options presents a brief, research-based checklist of considerations about Adoption, Child Arrangements Orders, Special Guardianship Orders and Long-term Fostering.

In considering the child's needs, full consultation with family and community networks should be undertaken to establish the child's attachments and supports.

In all cases, the child's own wishes and feelings must be ascertained and taken into account.

By the time of the second Looked After Review, the child must have a Permanence Plan (incorporated into the care plan), to be presented for consideration at the review.

Where the Permanence Plan includes a Parallel Plan, the social worker must ensure that the parents are informed of the reasons why two plans are being made to meet the child's needs and prevent unnecessary delay.

6. Family Finding Process

See:

• Family Finding Process Form;
• Permanent Fostering (including Family Finding Process) Flowchart;
• Family Finding Referral Form;
• Fostering Permanency - File Audit Tool 2018 – Child's File.

7. Good Practice Guidance

The following practice guidance is not exhaustive, it is drawn from research and consultation with young people, parents, carers and practitioners.

7.1 Supporting reunification with birth or extended family

Research points to:

• The importance of clearly communicating to the family what needs to happen to enable the child to return home, and within what timescales;
• The importance of exploring family ties and long term relationships with family, school and community;
• The use of Family Network Meetings as an effective way of facilitating both the above.

7.2 Identifying the best permanence option

The permanency planning process, informed by multi-agency contributions, will identify which permanence option is most likely to meet the needs of the individual child, taking account of their wishes and feelings.

Issues to consider:

• The assessment process must ask how stability for this child will be achieved;
• Long term stability means the sense of a permanent home with the same family or group of people, as part of the same community and culture, and with long-term continuity of relationships and identity;
• Short or medium term stability or continuity will be important for children who are going to stay in care for a brief period before going home and for children who are going to need new permanent arrangements. The quality of a child's attachments and life will be detrimentally affected by uncertainties, separations from what /who is known and changes of school and placement;
• Educational experiences, links with extended family, hobbies and friendships and support to carers, contribute to guarding against disruption and placement breakdown;
• The importance of carefully listening to what children want from the placement, helping the relationship between carer and child to build, making thorough plans around contact with family, providing vigorous support during crisis times and taking a sufficiently flexible attitude to adoption by carers;
• The older a child is, the less likely it is that the child will secure a permanent family through adoption;
• The larger the family group of children, the harder it is to secure a single placement that will meet all the needs of all the children.

Additional resources to support choosing and planning for different permanence options:

• NSPCC Reunification Framework provides information and advice on supporting children to return home;
• Research in Practice Adoption and Fostering website provides summaries of research on permanence, attachment and a range of permanence options;
• Research in Practice briefing 'Assessing and Supporting Family and Friends Care'.

7.3 Twin Track or Parallel Planning

Social workers are encouraged to consider working to this model; working towards a child's return home whilst at the same time developing an alternative Permanence Plan, within strictly limited timescales.

Where children's cases are before the court in Care Proceedings, the Court require twin track planning to be reflected in the care plan - see also Care and Supervision Proceedings and the Public Law Outline.

See also Early Permanence: Fostering for Adoption, Concurrent Planning and Temporary Approval as Foster Carers of Approved Prospective Adopters Procedure.

7.4 Clearly communicating the Permanence Plan

• Communicating a Permanence Plan effectively involves setting it out clearly and concisely as part of the Care Plan, in a way that acts as a useful reference to all involved during the Review process;
• Good quality Care Plans set out clear, concise statements about intended outcomes;
• Make timescales clear.

7.5 Legal routes to Permanence

For younger children unable to be returned home where adoption is the plan, a Care Order and placement order are likely to be necessary unless parents are clearly relinquishing the child and are in agreement with the plan and the placement choice.

For children for whom adoption is not appropriate, each case will need to be considered on its merits. The decision between Special Guardianship Order, Child Arrangements Order and Long Term Fostering under a Care Order will depend on the individual needs of the child set alongside the advantages and disadvantages of each legal route.

Appendix 1: Identifying Permanence Options