“In summary, the children’s difficulties are not isolated incidents but rather the direct, cumulative outcome of a deeply chaotic, unsafe, and emotionally neglectful early childhood, compounded by unaddressed trauma and parental challenges.”
“In summary, A’s psychological formulation points to a healthy and developing infant with an inherent capacity for secure attachment, currently thriving in a stable foster care environment. However, her early life has been marked by significant pre-and postnatal stressors, parental instability, and frequent transitions. The primary psychological concern for A revolves around ensuring the sustainability of a safe, consistent, and emotionally responsive environment that will support the ongoing development of her secure attachment and mitigate the potential long-term impacts of her early traumatic experiences. … As an infant, A’s well-being is entirely dependent on the stability, responsiveness, and emotional availability of her primary caregivers. Whilst no specific psychological or developmental concerns were noted for A, her early life has been marked by parental stress, severe family disruption, and periods of separation from her father. These factors could potentially impact her foundational attachment and early developmental milestones, as a secure attachment is crucial for infant development. … From birth, A has been subject to significant safeguarding involvement. … This high level of social care involvement is a primary psychological concern, as the instability and court proceedings can impact a child's early attachment and overall well-being.”
“For A, however, long-term foster care has been carefully considered and discounted. At just one year old, A requires permanence that is both legal and relational to support her healthy development into childhood and beyond. Long-term foster care, while able to provide stability in the short to medium term, cannot give her the lifelong sense of belonging and family identity that adoption can provide. Foster placements are not guaranteed into adulthood and carry a higher risk of disruption over time. By contrast, adoption would provide A with a permanent legal and emotional family base. At her age, A is at a critical stage of attachment formation. Research indicates that very young children are especially vulnerable to the long-term effects of instability, but conversely have the greatest potential to form secure, resilient attachments in the context of early adoption (Selwyn et al., 2015; Dozier & Rutter, 2008). Remaining in foster care would prolong uncertainty at a stage where permanence is developmentally urgent. Adoption offers A the best opportunity for secure attachment, emotional stability and identity development. Sibling relationships remain important for A’s identity and will continue to be supported through structured family time arrangements with her brothers. This balances her need for adoption with the importance of preserving safe and meaningful connections to her birth family.”
“Adoption for A Adoption is being sought for A because, at one year old, she is at a critical stage of attachment formation and requires legal and relational permanence to ensure her lifelong security and wellbeing. Foster care would provide stability in the short term, but it would not guarantee A the permanence and family identity that adoption can offer. Research consistently shows that timely adoption provides very young children with the best opportunity to form secure attachments, resilience, and stability into adulthood (Selwyn et al., 2015; Dozier & Rutter, 2008). Factors in Favour: • A is only one year old and at a critical stage of attachment development. Adoption provides her with lifelong legal and relational permanence. • Adoption offers the best opportunity for A to develop a secure base and consistent caregiving, which are essential for her long-term emotional and psychological wellbeing. • Early adoption maximises her opportunity to form stable attachments with adoptive carers, supporting resilience and reducing the risk of later placement breakdown. • Research indicates that timely adoption for children of A’s age is strongly associated with improved outcomes in terms of stability, educational attainment, and emotional security (Selwyn et al., 2015). • Adoption secures A a permanent family identity, something foster care cannot guarantee. Factors Against: • Adoption severs A’s legal ties to her birth family. • It reduces her day-to-day opportunities to have ongoing physical contact with her siblings, who will remain in foster care. • Her identity needs will need careful consideration to ensure she has safe, structured links to her birth family to make sense of her early life. Support that can be Provided: • A’s adoptive carers would have access to post-adoption support, including an allocated social worker, therapeutic parenting training, and access to the Adoption Support Fund for specialist therapeutic interventions if required. • Sibling and family time can be supported through a combination of direct and indirect contact. The Local Authority proposes biannual contact: one direct session per year with her parents and siblings, and one indirect exchange (letters/photos) to maintain safe links with her birth family. • Identity work will be central to her adoptive placement, ensuring she grows up with an understanding of her family of origin and safe ongoing sibling relationships.”
“The long-term plan of adoption will meet both A’s current and future needs by providing her with a permanent, legally secure family who can offer consistent care throughout her childhood. Adoption will allow her to form lasting attachments, experience the stability she has so far lacked, and grow up in an environment where her physical, emotional and educational needs are prioritised. The plan also ensures that her identity and sibling connections are respected, through life story work and continued family time with her brothers. This combination of permanence, stability and identity work provides A with the best opportunity to recover from past harm and to thrive into adulthood. … The arrangements for family time for A have been carefully considered in order to balance her need for permanence and stability with her need to maintain safe and meaningful connections with her birth family. A is a very young child and therefore requires a stable adoptive placement where she can form secure attachments without disruption. At the same time, it is important that she retains a sense of identity and connection to her birth parents and siblings.”
“If adoption is granted for A, it is proposed that A will have direct family time with her parents, once per year. This will usually take place in a supervised setting for a limited duration and will be supported by the Local Authority to ensure that it remains a safe and positive experience for A. In addition, there will be one indirect letterbox family time exchange per year, enabling the parents to send letters, cards and photographs to A. This arrangement is intended to provide ongoing safe links with her parents while minimising disruption to her adoptive placement. A’s sibling relationships are recognised as central to her developing identity. It is therefore proposed that she will have sibling family time with her brothers a minimum of four times per year. These sessions will ideally take place around significant family occasions such as birthdays, Christmas or school holidays, and will be supported and facilitated by foster carers or adopters to ensure consistency and emotional safety for all of the children.”
“66. (b) The children’s needs: A is 16 months old. She is White British. A needs carers that can meet her emotional and physical needs for the duration of her childhood. A is a healthy beautiful happy little girl, she is bright and meeting all her developmental milestones. A is very clingy to her foster carer, she likes to be constantly held and reassured. A will need carers that understand the possible impact of her early trauma on her emotional development and how this may impact on her further in the future. 67. A needs to be given the opportunity to grow up in a family who can meet her cultural, emotional and physical needs for the duration of her childhood. … 71. (d) Their age, sex, background, and any characteristics of theirs which the court considers relevant: A is 16 months old. It is imperative that decisions are made in respect of her future care plan without delay. The older A becomes, the harder it will become for her to make the transition to permanent carers since she will find the separation from her foster carer increasingly difficult. … 75. (f) The relationship which the child has with relatives, and with any other person in relation to whom the court or agency considers the relationship to be relevant and the likelihood of any such relationship continuing and the value to the children of it doing so: … A is already placed in a separate foster placement to her siblings, and she has been in her current placement since April. She has adjusted to the separation from her family, but she does very much enjoy spending time with her siblings and parents. She receives loving attention from her parents and her siblings. She is happy during family time. There is a close sibling bond between A and her brothers. There is no doubt that it will be a significant loss for A and her siblings to be permanently separated from each other. As A grows older and she understands her situation more, she may feel a great sense of loss being separated from her family. A will need help in understanding why these decisions were made and it will be very important for her to continue to see her siblings regularly and for the sibling relationship to be maintained as it is a lasting relationship that exceeds any parental relationship. 76. The plan is for A to have ongoing direct contact with her siblings and that this should take place four times a year for 60-90 minutes. This will enable A to maintain her relationship with her siblings as she grows up which will help her with her sense of identity. It will be important that this family time is regularly reviewed so that it meets A’s needs. 77. As stated previously, A knows her parents and she enjoys spending time with them. However, she is very young, and she will be able to adjust to not seeing her parents. 78. I have considered whether A should have direct contact with her parents if the plan for adoption is agreed. The Public Law working group published its report in November 2024 where recommendations were made in respect of reviewing adoption. There has also been recent research undertaken by Professor Elsbeth Neil at the University of East Anglia that considers post adoption contact. The research states that direct contact should be considered post adoption. An open approach to adoption can avoid children in later life building up an idealised version of their birth family. One of the key findings of this research was that face-to-face contact was not found to get in the way of the development of the relationship between the adoptive parents and the child where the placement is supported by the parents. Any direct contact needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis, and it would need to be carefully managed by professionals. 79. It is the plan of the Local Authority for A to have one direct contact for 90 minutes and one indirect letterbox contact with her parents if the plan of adoption is agreed. A will need to settle into her adoptive placement and direct contact will be considered after the Adoption Order is made. It will be important that the direct contact does not destabilise A’s placement and it will be important that her parents are supportive of her placement. 80. A’s family time with her siblings and parents should be gradually reduced once a placement is identified. A final visit then will take place with her parents. The parents will need to be supported as this will be a very emotional time for them. 81. Family time will also be reviewed at A’s child in care reviews until an adoption order is made which will consider her best interests.”
“163. In respect of A, I now look at the other criteria under theAdoption and Children Act 2002 which have not been replicated above. 164. The likely effect on the child (throughout his life) of having ceased to be a member of the original family and become an adopted person 165. I take the view that in A’s case this would be significant. Despite her young age, she is well bonded with her parents and her siblings. Her loss of them and them of her would be a very significant detriment to them all. It is a very significant factor in my view. I also take into account the quality of the contact between all family members. The plan is for A to be the only child amongst this sibling group to be adopted. She would be in a very different position to her bothers and would lose the connection to family that they would retain. 166. The relationship which the child has with relatives, and with any other person in relation to whom the court or agency considers the relationship to be relevant, including— (i) the likelihood of any such relationship continuing and the value to the child of its doing so, (ii) the ability and willingness of any of the child’s relatives, or of any such person, to provide the child with a secure environment in which the child can develop, and otherwise to meet the child’s needs, (iii) the wishes and feelings of any of the child’s relatives, or of any such person, regarding the child. 167. There is a strong bond between the parents and A and between the boys and their sister. They do not want her to move outside of the family. 168. This could be ameliorated by contact being directed and the court recognises that adopters are being encouraged to consider open adoptions with more face to face contact happening than would have been routinely directed in the past. However, whatever order I make at this hearing, [it] could not guarantee that such contact would take place.”
“183. In respect of A, I have another option to consider. Having decided that it is too risky for any of the children to live with the parents at this time, I am drawn to make a care order in A’s case for the reasons set out above. Should I go on to make a placement order? 184. I have given this very anxious consideration. I have considered the benefits of adoptions as set out in the evidence of the local authority and the Guardian. It would provide her with a forever family and stability. As a long term fostered child she would remain in the care system and be subject to all the bureaucracy and reviews with no certainty that her carers would remain the same. 185. However, she would cease to be member of her birth family. There would be no guarantee of contact with her siblings and parents. The bonds are significant (as pointed out above) and will be at real risk of being lost if an adoption plan is endorsed. 186. I have thought very carefully about these options for A. It’s been a difficult and finely balanced decision, but one I am clear about. 187. A’s interest in remaining a member of her family outweighs the benefits of a placement order in my view. I am unable to be satisfied that her important relationships with her parents and siblings would be retained if a placement order was made. 188. I will refuse the application for a placement order in A’s case and make a care order. I judge that the importance of the sibling and family bonds outweigh in her case the benefits of adoption. 189. That is my judgement.”
“40. … Whilst, when making a placement for adoption order under ACA 2002, s 21, a court will normally also make a care order, the placement application, and not the CA 1989, s 31 application, is the primary application before the court. It is not merely unnecessary for the court to consider the care application on its own, and before turning to the placement order application, it is wrong to do so and may readily lead to the error in the choice of statutory welfare requirements into which the judge fell. 41. ACA 2002, s 21(2) stipulates that the court may not make a placement order unless: a) the child is subject to a care order, b) the court is satisfied that the conditions in CA 1989, s 31(2) are met, or c) the child has no parent or guardian. The need for the s 31 threshold to be crossed is therefore expressly incorporated within the ACA 2002 process, and there is no need for there to be a separate evaluation by hiving off the CA 1989, s 31 application and dealing with this first. 42. Where a court has reached the stage of determining that a placement for adoption order should be made, and parental consent should be dispensed with, the grounds for making a care order will be plainly made out. As a placement for adoption order under ACA 2002, s 21 gives parental authority to the local authority (as an adoption agency) [ACA 2002, s 25(2)] the question may be asked whether it is necessary also to make a care order at that time. The established practice in the Family Court of making a care order alongside a placement order is, in my view, sound. Where a care order is made at the same time as a placement for adoption order, the care order will, in effect, be dormant and the dominant provision will be the placement order. Where, however, a placement order is not converted into an adoption order, but is subsequently revoked under ACA 2002, s 24... it is likely to be of benefit to the child and the orderly conduct of any future proceedings for the care order to be in place. Not to have a care order where one is required to control the child’s care arrangements following revocation of a placement order, would entail the local authority making a fresh s 31 application at that time.”
“I must therefore grapple with the competing options and give them proper focused attention. I need to assess the positive and negative factors and look at the options against each other and to ensure that every option is fully considered against the other options, focusing at all times on A’s welfare globally and identifying what outcome is most able to meet A’s welfare needs.”
“Having decided that it is too risky for any of the children to live with the parents at this time, I am drawn to make a care order in A’s case for the reasons set out above. Should I go on to make a placement order?”
“… the family court cannot dictate to the local authority what its care plan is to be, any more than it can dictate to any other party what their case should be. What the court can, however, expect from a local authority is a high level of respect for its assessments of risk and welfare, leading in almost every case to those assessments being put into effect.”