Sunderland families can 'change a child’s life' with Early Permanence adoption

Early Permanence involves fostering a baby or young child initially, with the hope of going on to legally adopt them. It removes the need for the child to be placed with a separate foster carers while they wait for the court to decide their plan, reducing disruption and uncertainty for them.

Vicky Davidson Boyd, chair of the project, says Early Permanence is much more “child-centred” than other traditional methods of adoption.

Adoption agencies have embraced it and are combining their efforts to encourage more people interested in adoption to consider this route.

The organisation says it offers greater security for the babies and children and leads to less moving from one home to another in the care system.

It aims to allow for a child to be placed with potential long-term carers as soon as possible, to bond more quickly.

Early Permanence admits an “element of uncertainty”. Children are often placed early, before all assessments on birth or extended families have been completed and the final care plan is known.

This means there is a chance that the courts may decide it’s best for the child to be placed back with his or her birth family or extended family before the adoption takes place.

Carers are fully supported throughout this phase and fully trained for reunifications back to birth family, they are involved in all care planning decisions as soon as they are made.

However, Adoption Matters parents Rachel and Paul say the uncertainty was worth taking when they adopted three children through Early Permanence.

Rachel said: “Something just clicked and we really felt that whatever happened, knowing we’d had a part to play in such a vital time of a child’s life would surely help with the difficulty of a reunification.

“The training is rigorous and because of the early permanence route we’d chosen; there was even more as we were to be approved as foster carers as well as adopters.”

To find out more, visit: www.adoptionmatters.org/ep, or call free on 0300 123 1066. Other members of the project include www.arcadoptionne.org.uk.