Permanency in fostering: a briefing for foster carers Permanency aims to provide security for a child through to adulthood, as all children and young people benefit from living in a predictable and stable environment with as much certainty as possible. A permanent foster placement provides a child with a fundamental commitment from the carers to the child for the rest of their childhood and the opportunity to: • Build and establish relationships with adults that will last into adulthood and throughout life • Be cared for in a stable and safe environment with physical, emotional, psychological and social needs met • Maintain a direct relationship with members of their birth family, as appropriate • Build self-identity and self-esteem through the provision of a stable and settled family life

A child’s psychological and emotional health is compromised each time a child moves. By promoting permanency planning and providing permanent placements, we are helping to improve positive outcomes for looked after children and young people. Foster carers also benefit from permanent placements. They provide the opportunity to permanently integrate a new member into their family. A child’s psychological and emotional health is compromised each time a child moves. By promoting permanency planning and providing permanent placements, we are helping to improve positive outcomes for looked after children and young people. Foster carers also benefit from permanent placements. They provide the opportunity to permanently integrate a new member into their family.

Things to think about Carers often form strong relationships with the children and young people they foster. These relationships make real and lasting changes to a child’s life and future. Those relationships may be short term where there is a clear, time-limited plan but often they develop over a period of many months, into years. You may be thinking about offering permanent care for a child or young person, or you may be asked to consider permanency by the local authority directly. There is a lot to consider: • What exactly does it mean? • What will change? • How does it happen? • Is it right for the child or young person? • Is it right for me?

What is permanency? Permanency has three elements: 1. Legal - the child should be legally secure in the family unit in which they live. The adults who care for them should have the power to make decisions in the child’s best interests and to support them to enjoy an ordinary life. 2. Physical - the child should be able to trust that they can stay where they are, and receive consistent care from consistent people. 3. Emotional - the child should be able to develop a sense of belonging, to become an established part of the family and to forge reciprocal caring relationships that endure through success and difficulty. Permanency should support the child or young person to lead an ordinary life, promoting their own personal identity and development, and to be as free as possible from the intervention of reviews and regulation and the constraints of ‘care’.

Care planning for permanency

All care planning must be done with the individual child or young person’s long-term welfare in mind. The plan must aim for permanency and the local authority is required from the beginning to identify the best route. Permanency could mean being: • At home with birth parents • With an extended family member • With an unrelated person or family that has been • Identified as meeting their long term needs The local authority may consider that the foster carer with whom the child or young person is living is the ideal person to provide permanency for that child. They should be making that decision positively, with the best interests of the child at heart and not only because the child is ‘already there’. However, there will be other factors that may contribute to planning for permanency which include the financial responsibilities of the local

authority over a long period. The child may be best matched with their carer from an independent fostering provider, but this places financial commitments upon the local authority. These factors may affect the proposal for the child to remain in their current placement and how the local authority wishes to proceed.

“I would like them to stay”? Your options If you are interested in offering permanency, or are asked to do so, it will probably be on the basis of a long term fostering arrangement or a Special Guardianship Order. It is less likely to be through adoption but may be in some instances. A court must make a judgement as to which of these suits the best interests of the child. Adoption is “the irrevocable ending of a child’s legal relationship with their birth parents and the beginning of a new legal relationship with the child’s adopters”.

provide a firm foundation on which to build a lifelong permanent relationship between the carer and the child or young person, while preserving the legal link between the child and the birth family. The order would be accompanied by proper access to a full range of support services, including where appropriate, financial support.” (Adoption and Children Act 2002)

In Special Guardianship, the Special Guardian’s wishes and decisions have greater power than those of the birth parent. A parent may apply to the court regarding a A Special Guardianship Order (SGO) is a specific issue, such as contact. An SGO can “middle ground, created between the be linked to other orders or be amended absolute termination of birth parent/child ties where the court sees fit. It is intended to and the full continuation of parental rights. It provide permanence for children for whom gives the carer clear responsibility for all adoption is not appropriate, in a lifelong aspects of caring for the child or young relationship between the carer and the child person, and for making the decisions to do or young person. It is most likely to be used with their upbringing. The child will no longer for older children who do not wish to make be a looked after child. The order would an absolute legal break with their birth family.

Long term fostering is a statement of intention that a child or young person will remain in their foster placement for as long as it serves their needs. It is not a legal order as such, and does not give legal authority to the carer. However, the carer of a child in a long term foster placement should be trusted by the local authority to make most everyday decisions without consulting anyone else.

Remember... Children and young people can be challenging to look after at times, especially given permanent separation from their families. What support is going to be available to you in an SGO or long term arrangement if their legal status or your approval is changed? An SGO may be in the child’s best interests in the long run. However, is it being suggested now on the basis of cost? Is this too soon? There may be financial support for that SGO, but it is likely to be less than a fostering agency placement would cost. Is this a factor? If their long term placement with you seems dependent on you becoming approved by the local authority, then what use might they make of you in the future? What might your approval be, and will it be limited?

You may believe that transferring to the local authority or seeking an Order is the only way to keep caring for those children. Remember that if permanence with you is in the child’s best interests, a child can only be moved if the arguments are strong enough to do so, and your fostering provider will support you to stay with them if you prefer to do so. What to do: • You need to talk it through with your supervising worker • You need to ask the local authority to talk to your fostering agency first, if they approach you directly • You need to talk it through with your family • You fostering agency will help you make timely decisions in the best interests of the child and your family, not pressurised ones under emotional strain

What’s the difference between?

Who has parental responsibility (PR)?

Adoption

Special Guardianship Order (SGO)

Residence Order

Long term fostering with a local authority

Long term with an independent fostering provider (IFP)

The adopter(s) acquire limited PR once the application is made, and full, exclusive PR when the adoption order is made. The birth parents and the local authority lose PR when the adoption order is made.

The making of the SGO gives PR to the Special Guardian. The SGO discharges any Care Order a local authority has in relation to the child, also removing their PR. Without the consent of other parties with PR, the Special Guardian cannot:

The order gives PR to the applicant, which is equal to the PR of any other party with PR. The child’s main base will be with the person with the Residence Order but they may live elsewhere at times.

The foster carer does not acquire PR. An agreement about ‘delegated authority’ identifies who has permission to make decisions and any limits on foster carers. Decision-making in significant issues will usually require the consultation and agreement of the local authority and the parent. Care planning guidance explicitly states that for long term carers, there should be substantial delegation to support a child’s experience of normal family life.

The foster carer does not acquire PR at any point. An agreement about ‘delegated authority’ identifies who has permission to make decisions and any limits on foster carers. Decisionmaking in significant issues will usually require the consultation and agreement of the local authority and the parent, and the IFP will manage the consultations and liaison. There should be substantial delegation to support a child’s experience of normal family life.

Generally equal role in decisionmaking on significant issues.

Possibly a significant role, depending on the circumstances. The local authority may define contact.

Possibly significant. The IFP will advocate in matters affecting the placement and the relationship between child and carer.

• Change the child’s name • Live abroad for more than 3 months • Agree to the child’s adoption

Role of the birth parents

No care role, but contact arrangements may be expected.

Minor influence on the care provided, but respectful consideration would be expected. Contact is likely to be ongoing.

What’s the difference between?

Assessment and approval process

Support Services

Adoption

Special Guardianship Order (SGO)

Residence Order

Long term fostering with a local authority

Long term with an independent fostering provider (IFP)

For a child to be adopted, there must either be consent formally given by the birth parents, or a placement order granted by the court. Once the plan for the child is adoption, and either consent is given or a placement order made, the local authority must seek a suitable adoptive placement. Any person who wishes to adopt must be assessed regarding their suitability and this assessment is considered by an adoption panel. Foster carers wishing to adopt a child in their care (where the child’s care plan is adoption) should notify the child’s local authority of their wish, and request an assessment. The child’s local authority will usually require that the foster carers attend training in respect of adoption. The local authority will make arrangements for the assessment. The assessment is presented to the adoption panel, and a decision made about the foster carers suitability to adopt. The match between the carers (now approved as adopters) and the child is also considered by the adoption panel.

Application to court by parties set out in SGO guidance (including foster carers). Fostering Panels have no role in SGOs. The local authority must prepare an SGO report, detailing:

Guided by the local authority but less likely to be sought by foster carers for the child.

The care plan for the child will identify long term fostering as the preferred route to permanence. No regulatory requirement to approve a foster carer specifically for ‘permanence or long term’, but many local Authorities wish their Panel to approve carers as ‘long term’ to be able to agree the match. A IFP carer will be assessed and approved by the local authority who will stipulate any terms of approval, including the carer’s availability to foster additional children to the child in long term placement. The carer will cease to be used or have any connection with the IFP once approved by the local authority.

The IFP approves carers to foster and make matching recommendations according to their skills. Permanence is a ‘matching recommendation.’ Some local authorities may wish the IFP Panel and Agency Decision Maker (ADM) to specifically approve carers for permanency. The IFP will continue to consider the carers for further placements, according to their wishes and capacity.

An adoption support plan will be agreed with the Local Authority at the point at which the placement is considered by the adoption panel. This is dependent on the assessed needs of the child, and may include financial support (means-tested adoption allowance); access to therapeutic services; specialist education provision etc. There is variation in what is offered dependent on the Local Authority.

The local authority must stipulate a support package to the family, which may include financial support. Any financial support will be subject to review. Support often includes mediation in establishing contact arrangements. Previously looked after children may be eligible for leaving care support.

Foster carers will be supported by the placement service of the local authority and receive financial and practical support defined by their procedures. Leaving care and ‘Staying Put’ policies will define the levels of service to be offered.

Foster carers and their families will continue to receive support according to their needs. Specific ‘leaving care’ training and guidance is available. Placement endings and transition to independence will be managed in the best interests of the young person. The IFP will advocate and mediate according to the procedures of the local authority.

•The circumstances of the child’s •Care history •The background and current •Circumstances of the applicants •The relationship of the applicants and the child •The motivation and ability of the applicants •The relative merits of orders

Report is prepared for court.

Support is possible, but there is no requirement. The local authority may make an allowance, subject to review.

What’s the difference between? Adoption

Special Guardianship Order (SGO)

Residence Order

Long term fostering with a local authority

Long term with an independent fostering provider (IFP)

Duration of the Order

Life long – it is irrevocable

Until the child reaches 18 years, or an application is made to the court to end the order by a party with PR or by the child, and the court agrees to end the order. Additional orders may be made that run alongside.

Until the child reaches 18 years, unless the order is revoked before that time.

For so long as the child needs the family placement, perhaps into adulthood, or until a leaving care/Staying Put plan agenda reviews the placement.

For so long as the child needs the family placement, perhaps into adulthood. The agency will seek to ensure the stability of the placement and secure access to the resources of the local authority for transition to independence when the young person is ready.

Implications for the child

The child becomes a full member of their adoptive family – their status is the same as if they had been born into the family. They take on the adoptive family’s surname, and their birth certificate is replaced with an adoption certificate. The adoptive parents are expected to retain the child’s first name, but may add another name.

A life that is, for all intents and purposes, like their peers.

A life that is, for all intents and purposes, like their peers, with the potential for some delay in decision-making and some limitations.

Life with adults who can make a lot, but not all, daily decisions, and where normal life can depend on the working relationship with the local authority and its confidence in delegating consent to the carer. The LAC review schedule continues. Family contact is regulated and reviewed by the local authority.

Life with adults who can make a lot, but not all, daily decisions, and where there will be consistent support and advocacy to encourage confidence in delegating consent to the carer. The LAC review schedule continues. Family contact can be regulated and reviewed by the local authority.

Contact

Provision for contact will be set out in the adoption plan. It may include direct contact, as well as letterbox contact. It will be negotiated with the adopters, but if a contact plan is presented to the court, it is expected that this is followed, and it should always be with the child’s interest as the priority consideration.

It is likely that there will be more contact than with an adoption order. A Contact Order may be made setting out the contact, or the parties may determine contact over the course of the child’s life.

Contact arrangements will be decided by the local authority with responsibility for the child. The foster carer’s opinion will inform the decision, but will not necessarily be the final decision.

Contact arrangements will be decided by the local authority with responsibility for the child. The foster carer, supported by their IFP, will contribute to the decisions, regarding management of contact.

A Section 8 Contact Order will most usually stipulate the terms of contact.

With many thanks to Nexus Fostering

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