Looked After Children

Permanence Options for Looked After Children

January 2025•14 min read

What is Permanence?

Permanence means providing children with a stable, secure, and loving home where they can develop and thrive. For looked after children, the care plan must address permanence from the outset—where will this child grow up, and with whom?

Delay in achieving permanence is harmful to children. Early planning and decisive action are essential.

The Options

Return to Family (Reunification)

The first consideration should always be whether the child can safely return home:

  • Parents have addressed issues that led to care
  • Risk is manageable
  • Child's wishes favour return
  • Can be with support in place

Family and Friends (Kinship Care)

  • Placement with wider family or connected persons
  • Maintains family connections
  • May be as foster carer or under SGO
  • Requires assessment and support

Adoption

  • Legal transfer of parental responsibility
  • Child becomes full member of new family
  • Severs legal ties with birth family
  • Irrevocable

Special Guardianship Order (SGO)

  • Legal order giving carer parental responsibility
  • Child doesn't become looked after
  • Birth parents retain some parental responsibility
  • Often used for kinship carers

Long-term Fostering

  • Matched placement intended to last to adulthood
  • Child remains looked after
  • Regular review and oversight
  • Support from fostering service

Key principle: Each child's permanence plan should be based on their individual needs, wishes, and circumstances. There is no hierarchy of options—the right plan is the one that best meets that child's needs.

Comparing Options

Adoption

Advantages:

  • Complete legal security
  • Full family membership
  • Lifelong relationship
  • No ongoing LA involvement

Considerations:

  • Severs legal ties with birth family
  • Contact usually indirect
  • Irrevocable
  • Older children may not want adoption

Special Guardianship

Advantages:

  • Legal security
  • Maintains family connections
  • Parental responsibility to carer
  • Less disruptive than adoption

Considerations:

  • Birth parents can apply to discharge
  • Support may be less than fostering
  • Complex family dynamics

Long-term Fostering

Advantages:

  • Ongoing support and monitoring
  • Financial support for carers
  • Flexibility with contact
  • Child remains connected to LA

Considerations:

  • Less legal security
  • Child remains "in care"
  • Carer doesn't have full parental responsibility

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The Permanence Planning Process

Assessment

  • Consider all realistic options
  • Assess birth family capacity for change
  • Explore extended family options
  • Consider child's attachment relationships
  • Assess child's wishes and understanding

Twin-Track Planning

Often necessary to pursue two plans simultaneously:

  • Work toward reunification
  • While planning alternative permanence
  • Clear timescales and decision points
  • Avoids delay if reunification not possible

Decision-Making

  • Permanence planning meeting
  • Agency Decision Maker for adoption
  • LAC review endorsement
  • Court approval if in proceedings

Adoption Process

Key Stages

  1. Decision that adoption is the plan
  2. Placement Order application (if contested)
  3. Matching with adopters
  4. Adoption Panel matching recommendation
  5. Introductions and placement
  6. Adoption Order application

Social Worker Role

  • Child's Permanence Report (CPR)
  • Life story work
  • Later life letter
  • Support during transitions

Contact in Permanence

Adoption Contact

  • Usually letterbox (indirect)
  • Sometimes direct contact agreed
  • Contact plan part of matching
  • Sibling contact important to consider

Long-term Foster Care Contact

  • Can be more flexible
  • May include regular face-to-face
  • Reviewed at LAC reviews

Timescales

Avoiding Delay

  • 26 weeks for care proceedings
  • Family finding should start early
  • Parallel planning reduces delay
  • Track and avoid drift

Conclusion

Every looked after child deserves a permanent home where they can thrive. Consider all options, involve children in planning, and act decisively to avoid harmful delay. The right permanence plan changes lives.