4.1 Permanence for Children Looked After |
RELATED CHAPTERS
Also see Care Planning Meetings and Permanence Planning Procedure.
Contents
1. Defining Permanence
For the purposes of operational arrangements within the Family Placement Teams and the Fieldwork Teams, the term “Permanence” is used in Knowsley to apply to any child for whom the planned legal outcome is adoption, a Residence Order or Special Guardianship
However, there are other outcomes for children looked after which may be part of the child’s Permanence Plan. This chapter seeks to describe the wide range of permanence options available, including returning home and long term fostering.
For the purposes of this chapter, therefore, Permanence is a framework of emotional, physical and legal conditions that gives a child a sense of security, continuity, commitment and identity.
Permanence for children has three particular aspects;
- Legal permanence (staying with birth parents who have Parental Responsibility or Adoption or Court Orders such as a Residence Order or Special Guardianship Order.
- Psychological permanence (when the child feels attached to an adult who provides a stable, loving and secure relationship, for example through Kinship Care)
- Physical or environmental permanence (involves a stable home environment within a familiar neighbourhood and community which meets the child’s identity needs).
2. Key Objectives in Permanence Planning
The objective of planning for permanence is to ensure that children have a secure, stable and loving family to support them through childhood and beyond.
The question “how are the child’s permanence needs being met” must be at the core of everything That is done, therefore when it is necessary for a child to leave his or her family,
- This should be for as short a time as needed to secure a safe supported return home or,
- If they cannot return home, plans must be made for permanent care with birth family members or within the network of family and friends for preference, or where this is not in the child’s best interests, through adoption, long term foster care, a Residence Order, Special Guardianship Order or independent living, depending on the child’s needs.
- 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.
Where it is clear that families and children are unable to live together, planning must be swift and clear to identify permanent alternative settings.
Wherever possible, care should be provided locally unless clearly identified as inappropriate.
Contact with the family and extended family should be facilitated and built on (unless clearly identified as inappropriate).
If Looked After placements are made and do not meet the above objectives, they will be for as short a period as possible.
The professionals involved will work in partnership with parents/families to meet the above objectives. The wishes and feelings of the child will be taken into account. The older and more mature the child, the greater the weight should be given to his or her wishes.
When undertaking permanence planning, all workers have a duty to promote the child’s links with his or her racial, cultural and religious heritage by
- Promoting placements wherever possible which means the child will be brought up within the same racial, cultural and religious environment as his birth family.
- Where this is not possible, ensuring a placement is identified which can promote links for the child with his or her race, culture and religion.
Practice promoting race equality according to the child’s assessed needs must therefore be evidenced within the Permanence Plan.
3. Options for Permanence
Care Planning Meetings and Permanence Planning contains procedures for permanence planning. The Options for Permanence are:
| 3.1 | Staying at Home |
| 3.2 | Placement with Relatives or Friends |
| 3.3 | Adoption |
| 3.4 | Long Term Fostering |
| 3.5 | Special Guardianship |
| 3.6 | Residence Orders |
| 3.7 | Long Term Residential Care or Supported Living |
3.1 Staying at Home
The first stage within permanence planning is work with children in need and their families 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. This of course has to be balanced against the risk of harm to the child.
3.2 Placement with Relatives or Friends
Also see Placement with Connected Persons Procedure.
Kinship Fostering should be considered only where an existing looked after child’s needs have been assessed as being able to be fully met by a close relative or their extended family. In cases where there is no necessity for the Local Authority to gain or retain parental responsibility, Residence or Special Guardianship Orders applications should be seen as the most appropriate outcome for the child and this should be supported and encouraged.
If the assessment concludes that the child cannot safely remain at home at this time, every effort must be made to secure placement with relatives or friends. This will be either as part of the plan working 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 what 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.
3.3 Adoption
See also Placement for Adoption Procedure.
An Adoption Order transfers Parental Responsibility for the child from the birth parents and others who had Parental Responsibility, including the local authority, 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.
An Adoption Order is irrevocable.
Research strongly supports adoption as a primary consideration and as a main factor contributing to the stability of children, especially if under four years, who cannot be rehabilitated to their birth or extended family.
Adopters may be supported including financially by the local authority and will have the right to request an assessment for support services at any time after the Order is made. See Adoption Support Services Procedure for detailed procedures.
Adoption has the following advantages as a permanence plan:
- Parental Responsibility is held by the carers
- There is less stigma than permanent fostering
- No future legal challenge is possible
- Decisions about continuing contact will be made by the new parents (on the child’s behalf) who are most in touch with the child’s needs.
- The child is a permanent family member into adulthood.
Adoption has the following disadvantages as a permanence plan:
- It involves a complete and permanent legal separation from the birth family of origin
- There is no review process
3.4 Long Term Fostering
See also Care Planning Meetings and Permanence Planning Procedure.
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 the local authority.
Long-term fostering has the following advantages as a permanence plan:
- The local authority retains a role in negotiating between the foster carers and the birth family over issues such as continuing direct contact
- There is continuing social worker support to the child and foster family in a placement which is regularly reviewed to ensure that the child’s needs are met
- 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:
- Lack of Parental Responsibility for the carers
- Continuing social work involvement
- Regular reviews, which are statutorily required to ask if rehabilitation to the parent is to be considered. This may be regarded as destabilising to the placement
- Stigma attached to the child because of being in the Looked After system
- The child is not a legal member of the family. If difficulties arise there may be less willingness to persevere and seek resolution.
3.5 Special Guardianship Orders
See also Special Guardianship Procedure.
Special Guardianship, which became available from 30 December 2005, address' the needs of a significant group of children, mainly older, who need a sense of stability and security but who do not wish to make the absolute legal break with their birth family that is associated with adoption. It will 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:
- Any guardian of the child
- A local authority foster carer with whom the child has lived for one year immediately preceding the application
- Anyone who holds a Residence Order with respect to the child or who has the consent of all those in whose favour a Residence Order is in force
- Anyone with whom the child has lived for 3 out of the last 5 years
- Where the child is subject of a Care Order, any person who has the consent of the Local Authority
- Anyone who has the consent of all those with Parental Responsibility for the child
- 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 are likely to replace the use of Residence Orders in many cases in that they offer greater stability and security to a placement - whilst they are revocable, there are restrictions on those who may wish to 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 clear responsibility for day to day matters without consultation with others. The parents will still have to be consulted and their consent will be required to the child’s change of name, adoption, placement abroad and any other such fundamental issues.
A Special Guardianship Order made in relation to a Child Looked After will replace the Care Order and the Local Authority will no longer have Parental Responsibility.
Special Guardians may be supported financially or otherwise by the local authority 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:
- The carers have Parental Responsibility and clear authority to make decisions on day to day issues about the child’s care
- 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 Order was made
- It maintains legal links to the birth family
- 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 local authority.
Special Guardianship has the following disadvantages as a permanence plan:
The Order only lasts until the child is 18 and does not necessarily bring with it the sense of belonging to the Special Guardians family as an Adoption Order does
As the child is not a legal member of the family, if difficulties arise there may be less willingness to persevere and seek resolution.
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 Residence Orders
See Care Planning Meetings and Permanence Planning for procedures for approval of this permanence option.
A Residence Order may be used to increase the degree of legal permanence in a placement with relatives or friends, or a Long-term Fostering placement, where this would be in the child’s best interests.
Where a Looked After Child would otherwise have to be placed with strangers, a placement with named carers may be identified as a preferred option and the carers may be encouraged and supported to apply for a Residence Order where this will be in the best interests of the child.
A Residence Order confers Parental Responsibility, to be shared with the parents, and may be seen as a more appropriate arrangement than Special Guardianship, which effectively allows the Special Guardian to have more authority.
The holder of a Residence Order does not have the right to consent to the child’s adoption nor to appoint a guardian; in addition, he/she 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 Residence Order remains in force, the aim will be to make arrangements, which are self-sustaining in the long run.
The making of a Residence Order can now be made until the child is 18 and will have the effect of discharging a Care Order.
The following people may apply for a Residence Order:
- A parent or guardian
- A party to a marriage (whether the marriage is subsisting or not) where the child was brought up as a child of the family
- A person with whom the child has lived for 3 years. (This need not be continuous but must not have started more than 5 years before or ended more than 3 months before the making of the application.)
- A local authority foster carer with whom the child has lived for 1 year.
- Where a Residence Order is already in force, a person who has the consent of those in whose favour the Residence Order was made
- Where the child is Looked After, a person with the consent of the relevant local authority
- In any other case, a person who has the consent of all those with Parental Responsibility.
Anyone-else who wishes to apply, including the child, must apply to the Court for leave to make the application for a Residence Order.
A Residence Order has the following advantages:
- It gives Parental Responsibility to the carer whilst maintaining the parents’ Parental Responsibility
- There need be no social worker involvement, unless this is identified as necessary.
- There is no review process
- The child will not be Looked After and there is less stigma, therefore, attached to the placement
- Any contact is likely to be agreed and if considered necessary by the Court, set out in a Contact Order
A Residence Order has the following disadvantages:
- 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 parents right to seek revocation without leave of the court.
- There is no formal continuing support to the family after the Order although in some instances, a Residence Order Allowance may be payable
- 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. (NB New applications to Court may be expensive to defend, and the carers would have to bear the cost if not entitled to legal aid).
3.7 Long Term Residential Care or Supported Living
For older children and young people, this option offers the best chance of stability, whilst at the same time, preparing the young person for independent living as part of their Pathway Plan.
4. Permanence and Local Placement
Where the Permanence Plan involves a long term placement, it is important that the child has access to the friends, family or community within which they were brought up and which forms part of their identity and their long term support network. For these reasons children must be placed in local provision wherever possible.
Any decision to place a child away from his or her 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 local authority, 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 Placement for Adoption Procedure), but should be carried out in relation to any permanent placement.
5. Assessing and Planning for Permanence
Social workers who undertake assessments of a child’s needs in relation to his or her Permanence Plan must
- Be outcome focused and
- Include consideration of stability issues, including the child’s and families needs for long-term support and the child’s needs for links, including contact, with his or her parents, siblings, and wider family network.
Social Workers must ensure the child’s Permanence Plan is clearly linked to previous assessments of the child’s needs.
Appendix One, below presents a brief, research-based checklist of considerations about Adoption, Residence Orders, Special Guardianship Orders and Long-term Fostering.
In all cases, full consultation with all family and community support networks must be considered as a possible method of engaging those who know the child best, or who the child is most attached to, in considering the child’s long term needs.
It may be appropriate to hold a Family Group Conference where the child (if appropriate), and family members can be involved in the decision-making process.
Harnessing family and community support networks in this way may be particularly effective, for example, for children from black and minority ethnic groups and for disabled children.
In all cases, the child’s own wishes and feelings must be ascertained where possible 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), which must be presented for consideration at the review.
Where the Permanence Plan includes a Twin Track Plan, the social worker must ensure that the parents are informed of the reasons why two plans (rehabilitation and alternative permanence) are being made to meet the child’s needs and prevent unnecessary delay. See also Public Law Outline Procedure.
6. Good Practice Guidance
The following practice guidance is not exhaustive. It is drawn from research and consultation with young people, parents, carers and practitioners.
For additional guidance in relation to contact (both direct and indirect) between a child and his or her birth family as part of a Permanence Plan.
6.1 Supporting rehabilitation to birth or extended family
Research points to:
- The importance of clearly communicating to the family what needs to happen so that the child can return home, and within what timescales
- The importance of exploring family ties and long term relationships with family, school and community, especially in the light of changing workers
- The use of Family Group Conferences as an effective way of facilitating both the above.
6.2 Identifying the best permanence option
Research points to:
- The importance of considering within the assessment process “how will stability for this child be achieved?” Refer to Appendix One below.
- This means considering long term stability in 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 may also be an important issue both for children who are going to stay in the Looked After system for a brief period before going home and for children who are going to need new permanent arrangements. Making every effort to reduce changes of placement, school, separations from friends and family, to minimise the number of uncertainties or unwelcome surprises a child has to contend with, may make a huge difference to the quality of the child’s life.
- The importance of giving attention to issues such as educational experiences, links with extended family, hobbies and friendships - all of which 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 then the less likely it is that the child will secure a permanent family through adoption.
- The larger the family group of children then the harder it is to secure a single placement that will meet all the needs of all the children.
6.3 Placement/Contact with Siblings - Issues to Consider
It is important to assess the extent and quality of relationships in a sibling group. Usually, and especially where there is a preexisting and meaningful relationship, it will be important to actively seek to maintain sibling relationships within any Permanence Plan, including those where an alternative family placement is sought.
Research points to:
- The most enduring relationships people have are likely to be with their siblings.
- The impact on separated siblings of losing vital support, a shared history and continuity affects stability in the placement
- More successful outcomes occur for children placed together with their siblings. Children should therefore be placed with their siblings unless there are exceptional circumstances, such as dysfunctional interaction that cannot be remedied, incompatible needs or where the lack of appropriate placement would lead to unacceptable drift. The immediate non-availability of a suitable placement should not prevent rigorous home-finding efforts within an agreed time frame, based on balancing the potential for success against the risk of undue delay.
- The importance of identifying strengths and difficulties in sibling relationships in order to make appropriate permanent placement decisions. It is important to ascertain the perceptions and wishes of the child and their family, to assess the shared experience of siblings and the children’s individual permanence needs. This involves thorough consideration of issues of gender, race, disability and identity.
- The importance of including regular contact between siblings within the Permanence Plan wherever possible, if they cannot be placed together.
6.4 Guarding against drift
Research points to:
- Unintended negative consequences of a ‘sequential’ approach, even where it emphasises the primacy of family reunification as a permanence option. Children who cannot return home often linger in foster care for many years, experiencing multiple moves before exploration of other permanence options begin.
- The prevention of such damaging delay occurring through ‘Twin Tracking/Parallel (or Contingency) Planning’ and ‘Concurrent Planning’.
6.5 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. Although ‘a sense of permanence’ can in itself be stated as an outcome, it can also be presented as a means to achieving particular developmental outcomes.
- Make timescales clear. These are about “having regard to the child’s age and circumstances, achieving a balance between a framework for an action plan to provide a sense of stability for the child and flexibility to allow for adequate changes in the parents or birth families circumstances” (Family Rights Group 1998).
6.6 Legal routes to permanence
For younger children unable to be returned home and up to around the age of 9 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 between about 9 and adolescence, each case will need to be considered on its merit. The decision between Special Guardianship, Residence Order, long term fostering and adoption will depend on the individual needs of the child set alongside the advantages and disadvantages of each legal route.
For children in adolescence, the issue is much more clearly one of negotiation and discussion between all the parties involved, bearing in mind that for some adolescents, security, a lack of stigma and a sense of permanence will remain their most pressing need.
6.7 Applications by foster carers for long term permanent care/fostering or adoption of child in their care
In some situations, foster carers form a close attachment to a fostered child and when adoption or long term fostering becomes the plan for that child, ask to be considered as adoptive parents or long term foster carers. This should always be considered carefully. Research indicates that such placements for permanence can promote the security of a child and encourage the development of a healthy attachment to the foster carers’ family.
Each case should be considered individually, bearing in mind the following factors.
- The assessment of the child’s needs and the foster carers’ ability to meet those needs via long term fostering.
- The availability of other permanent carers for the child, particularly for healthy young children under 3.
- The length of placement, quality of the attachment and risks to the child’s emotional well being of disrupting the attachment.
- The contact plans for the child. Any risk to the child from the parents having current placement knowledge of the foster carer.
- The foster carer’s intentions regarding continuing as short-term carers for other placements and the likely impact of this on the child needing permanence.
The child’s social worker has a role in ensuring that the placement will meet the long-term needs of the child. The foster carers’ social worker has a role to ensure the foster carers have considered the impact on themselves and their family of a decision to commit long term to a particular child.
Often the elements that would normally be considered to make a good match may only be partly present, e.g. the carers may be older than ideal. However the positive advantages of maintaining an existing relationship of quality, the perceived durability of this relationship, the benefits of maintaining existing networks of support are all factors that need to be considered and a balance of risks and rewards considered against the uncertainty of seeking to find an elusive “other “ placement that may never materialise.
Where the proposed match seems likely to meet the needs of the child applications from foster carers to be recognised as long-term carers for a child should be positively welcomed. The financial implications of such placements, particularly those involving other agency carers, require a clear analysis of risks and benefits along with prior agreement from the relevant budget holder to secure long term funding.
In all cases where the foster carer is considering a long-term commitment to the child the potential of this to be secured through the making of an Adoption Order, Special Guardianship or Residence Order must be thoroughly explored. Where a foster carer secures one of these Orders, financial support may be paid.
Appendix One - Identifying Permanence Options
| Residence/Special Guardianship Orders | Adoption | Long Term Fostering |
| Child needs the security of a legally defined placement with alternative carers, but does not require a lifelong commitment involving a change of identity | Child’s primary need is to belong to a family who will make a lifelong commitment | Primary need is for a stable, loving family environment whilst there is still a significant level of continued involvement with the birth family |
| Child’s relation, foster or other carer needs to exercise day to day parental responsibility and is prepared to do so as a lifelong commitment | Child’s birth parents are not able or not willing to share parental responsibility in order to meet their child’s needs, even though there may be contact | Child has a clear sense of identity with the birth family, whilst needing to be looked after away from home |
| There is no need for continuing monitoring and review by the Local Authority, although support services may still need to be arranged | Child needs an opportunity to develop a new sense of identity whilst being supported to maintain or develop a healthy understanding of their past | There is need for continuing oversight and monitoring of the child’s developmental progress |
| Child has a strong attachment to the alternative carers and legally defined permanence is assessed as a positive contribution to their sense of belonging and security | Child expresses a wish to be adopted | Birth parents are able and willing to exercise a degree of parental responsibility |
End