Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Lords: Select Committee on Adoption Legislation

Publisher: The Stationery Office

Published: 2012-12-19

Total Pages: 40

ISBN-13: 9780108493966

This report calls on the Government to widen the scope of a proposed new adoption measure. The Government's proposed 'fostering for adoption' duty is designed to encourage councils to place looked after children with foster carers who can then go on to adopt them, providing continuity and stability. The scope should be extended by creating a duty to consider a fostering for adoption placement for all children for whom adoption is the plan. The Committee does not find it necessary to remove any requirement to give consideration to ethnicity but recommends an alternative amendment to the legislation which accords ethnicity an equal place within the list of the child's needs and characteristics. Other recommendations from the Committee include: a wider application of the principles behind concurrent planning, which places children with prospective adopters while at the same time actively exploring rehabilitation to the birth family; earlier and more robust decision-making by social workers in establishing when rehabilitation with the birth family is no longer an option; a review of the Statutory Guidance on Adoption to ensure permanency planning is given serious consideration one month after a child enters care