annual report: child’s adoption journey april 2012-march ... - app 2 - kent... · annual report:...

Annual Report: Child’s Adoption Journey

April 2012-March 2013

Chloe Austerberry

Yashi Shah

Annual Report: Child’s Adoption Journey: April 2012-March 2013 2


Table of Contents

Summary statistics ...........................................................................................4

Introduction ......................................................................................................6

1. Children with a Plan for Adoption without a Placement Order ............................6

2. Placement Orders granted ..............................................................................7

3. Children waiting for adoptive placements .........................................................9

4. Timescales analysis for children waiting .........................................................12

5. Profile of children waiting for adoptive placements .........................................14

Ethnicity ......................................................................................................14

Age..............................................................................................................15

Sibling groups ...............................................................................................17

Developmental and health needs ....................................................................18

6. Children adopted..........................................................................................19

7. Children placed for adoption, not yet adopted ................................................21

8. Children placed for adoption .........................................................................22

9. Overall Service Activity .................................................................................23

10. Family Finding ............................................................................................24

11. Management Information............................................................................25

12. Role of Reviewing Service – Quality Assurance ..............................................26

13. Review of 7 Adoption Panels ........................................................................26

14 Recruitment ................................................................................................27

Conclusions .....................................................................................................27


Summary statistics

• On 31 March 2013, 29 children were in care proceedings with an agency

decision for adoption. There is some indication that the number of children in

court proceedings who are likely to require adoptive families is stabilising: 49

children were in the court process with an adoption plan in September, 47 in

October, 40 in November, 34 in December, 34 in January, and 29 in February.

• 190 children were granted a Placement Order in 2012/13, a 53.2% increase on

2011/12 (124 children). This makes it challenging for the service to reduce the

number of children waiting for adoptive families.

• On 31 March 2013, 135 children were waiting to be placed with an adoptive

family. This includes children who were matched or ‘linked’ with a family, as well

as those for whom active family finding was being pursued and those whose

plans were due to change.

• A potential family had been matched or ‘linked’ for nearly half of these

children (62), including 13 children linked to their current foster carer.

• 12 children’s plans were to be changed from adoption to permanent foster care

within the next month. It still remains a challenge to provide accurate

information in relation to change of plans. Therefore, it has now been agreed

that from April 2013, the Reviewing Officers Managers’ will quality assure the

data, and provide a report which will be incorporated into the report provided by

Coram.

• For the remaining 60 children waiting (44.4%), active family finding was being

pursued.

• 1 child’s parents have applied to revoke the Care Order and Placement Order

and the hearing is on the 21st of June. For this child, the local authority is

opposing the parents’ application and the plan remains adoption. However,

during this period of additional assessments of the parents, it has not been

possible to look for an adoptive family.

• On 31 March 2013, the majority of children waiting (116, 85.9%) were of White

British ethnicity; 2 were of ‘other’ White backgrounds. The children from Black


and Minority Ethnic (BME) backgrounds were not over-represented among

children waiting – a similar proportion of children of BME backgrounds were

waiting (17, 12.6%) to those that had been placed this year (17, 11.9%).

• A quarter of the 135 children waiting (34) were aged 5 or more; just over a-

quarter (37) were under two and just under half (47.4%) were aged 3-4.

• A relatively high number of older children were granted Placement Orders –

32 (16.8%) of the 190 Placement Orders granted in 2012/13 were to children

aged 5 or older. It is nationally recognised that these children are ‘harder to

place’ as fewer adopters come forward for older children.

• Fifty-two (15.5%) of the 135 children waiting had confirmed developmental

needs and 21 (15.6%) had health needs.

• Seventy-nine (58.5%) of the 135 children waiting at the end of March were in

sibling groups, including 44 children in sibling groups of two, 19 children in

sibling groups of three, 8 children in sibling groups of four and 8 children in a

sibling groups of six. Most of the children (62.0%, 49) have plans to be placed

together.

• Between 1 April 2012 and 31 March 2013 143 children were placed with an

adoptive family; on average 12 children have been placed each month. The

service placed 110.3% more children in 2012/13 than in 2011/12 when 68

children were placed.

• On 31 March 2013 97 children were placed for adoption but not yet adopted.

• The national average time between a placement and an Adoption Order is 9

months, although in Kent this has been reduced through speeding up processes

and through tracking and monitoring processes – in 2012/13 the average time

between a child being placed with a family and being granted an Adoption Order

was 8 months and timescales are improving.

• Between 1 April 2012 and 31 March 2013 105 children were adopted. This is

50.0% higher than the 70 adoptions achieved in 2011/12.


Introduction

This is an annual report, which summarises the performance of the Council in

relation to children’s adoption journey between 1 April 2012 and 31 March 2013. A

separate report summarizing the Council’s performance for April 2013 in relation to

the children’s adoption journey in attached separately.

The data used in this report was sourced from the information provided by the

Management Information Unit, and from tracking meetings and performance

surgeries.

This report contains the following information on the children:

• Children in court proceedings with a Plan for Adoption

• Placement Orders granted, 2011/12 and 2012/13

• Children waiting: timescales, ethnicity, sibling status, age profile,

developmental and health needs.

• Children placed for adoption, who are not yet adopted

• Children placed for adoption, 2011/12 and 2012/13

• Children adopted, 2011/12 and 2012/13

• Timescales

1. Children with a Plan for Adoption without a Placement Order

29 children were in the Court process on 31 March 2013, where the Agency Decision

Maker had agreed a plan for adoption but a Placement Order had not yet been

granted. This included 5 children (17.2%) aged over 5, 12 children (41.4%) aged 1 and

under and 12 children aged 2-4. Four children (17.2%) were from BME backgrounds

(see Figure 1).

Figure 1

Age Band White Mixed Other Total


Under 2 10 1 1 12

2-4 10 1 1 12

5 and over 5 0 0 5

Total 25 1 3 29

2. Placement Orders granted

Between 1 April 2012 and 31 March 2013, 190 Placement Orders were granted to

children in Kent County Council. On average, 16 new children have required an

adoptive family each month. This is substantially more than the figure for the

financial year 2011/12 when 124 Placement Orders were granted. Figure 2 illustrates

that the volume of Placement Orders increased in the second half of 2011/12 and

this increase has been sustained in the current year.

Figure 2

2011/12 N = 124; 2012/13 N=190

This presents a significant challenge for the Adoption Agency. The service is

simultaneously dealing with an increased number of new children coming through

and managing a historical backlog, though this has decreased over the year - the

plans for 167 children were reviewed by Coram between January and March 2012.

Capacity has been increased in the newly established Family Finding Team – and


this will be kept under review. It is more than likely that capacity will need to be

further increased.

It should be noted that increased productivity has prevented the number of

children waiting for adoptive families from escalating: if the family finding activity

had not nearly doubled the number of children placed in the current year compared

to the previous year, there would be at least 160 children waiting.

96 children were under 2 when they were granted a Placement Order (49 in

2011/12); 70 were aged between 2 and 4 (50 in 2011/12); and 24 were aged 5 or over

(25 in 2011/12) – see Figure 3.

Figure 3

N=190

163 children who were granted a Placement Order were White British, 3 children

were from other White backgrounds. The remaining 24 were of Black and Minority

Ethnic backgrounds (non-white): 15 were of mixed backgrounds, 3 were Black

African, 3 were Indian and 3 were of Gypsy/Roma heritage.

Under 2, 96Two - Four, 70

Five and

Over, 24

Age of children when Placement Order granted


3. Children waiting for adoptive placements

On 31 March 2013, there were 135 children in Kent County Council’s care waiting

to be placed with an adoptive family.1 This is lower than the number of children

waiting in most of the previous months in 2012/13 (see figure 4).2 The reasons for

increases in the numbers of children waiting at points in the year are well

established – a substantial increase in the number of Placement Orders has created

an extremely challenging situation for the adoption service – 190 Placement Orders

have been granted in the financial year 2012/13, compared to 124 in 2011/12. The

135 children were at the different stages of family finding as evidenced in the report.

Figure 4

These children were at various stages of family finding (see Figure 5):

1 This figure includes children with a Placement Order and a Plan for Adoption, or parallel plan where

one of the plans is adoption. The figure also includes relinquished children with an Agency Decision

for Adoption. 2 It is not possible to provide a longer trend analysis on this data. Tracking meetings have been

established to routinely collate detailed information on children’s family finding activity since April

2012. Prior to this, such information was not available. Further, monthly reconciliation of data

between the service and the Management Information Unit has uncovered several inaccuracies in the

ICS data that are manually revised each month. This means that information provided in previous

months may not be comparable to the information provided in this and future reports.


• for 18 children (13.3%) a prospective adoptive family was identified and they

were going through the process of being matched with the child;

• 31 children (23.0%) had been ‘linked’ with potential prospective families and

further work was being undertaken to determine whether a family could be

matched with the child;

• 13 children (9.6%) were ‘linked’ to their current Foster Carer with an

assessment underway; this included 2 children with a dual plan for whom

adoption as well as permanent foster care was being pursued;

• 12 children’s plans (8.9%) were to be changed from adoption to permanent

fostering;

• 1 child’s parents had applied to revoke the Care Order and Placement Order and

the hearing 1s scheduled to take place at the end of June. For this child, the local

authority was opposing the parents’ application and the plan remained

adoption. However, during this period of additional assessments of the parents,

it was not possible to look for an adoptive family.

• family finding was actively being progressed for the remaining 60 children

(44.4%) who had all been allocated a dedicated family finding social worker.

Figure 5

N=135

A comparison of the last 8 months of the financial year indicates that there has been

a steady increase in the number of children at any one time who have been linked to


a prospective adoptive family (including those who are linked to their current Foster

Carer) – see Figure 6.

Figure 6

A comparison also shows that there has been a recent decrease in the numbers of

children who have an identified (see Figure 7). In spite of this fluctuation, overall

numbers of children placed throughout the year has been very high and there have

been consistently high numbers of children booked into the adoption panel.


Figure 7

4. Timescales analysis for children waiting

Children waiting by time between Agency Decision for Adoption and Placement

Order

Timescales were analysed for time between an Agency Decision for Adoption and

Placement Order for the children waiting at the end of March 2012. Any delay in the

local authority has an effect on family finding and the child being placed in a timely

way.

The results show that in just over a fifth of cases (28) the Placement Order was

granted less than a month after the Agency Decision Maker made a plan for

adoption; for 56.7% of children waiting (76) it took 1-3 months to have a Placement

Order granted after Agency decision; and for the remaining 22.4% of children (it

took more than 3 months (see Figure 8).


Figure 8

N = 134*

*1 child waiting is not included in Figure 16 as their parents had applied to revoke the Care Order and

Placement Order.

Children waiting by time from granting of Placement Order

Of the 135 children waiting, 55 children (40.7%) had been waiting for 3 months or

less from the Court decision (Placement Order) for adoption. However, 18

children (13.3%) had been waiting for over 12 months (see Figure 9). One of these

children had been matched with a prospective adopter, 6 had been linked with one

or more prospective families, including 1 child who was linked to their current Foster

Carer; for 6 children a change of plan to permanent fostering was being considered,

for 1 child a parenting assessment was underway (for further details on the family

finding status of this child see ‘Children waiting for adoptive placements’) and for

the remaining 4 children family finding was pursued with urgency.


The names of all the children waiting for over 12 months continue to be given to the

Reviewing Service for them to review the plans and the family finding activity.

Figure 9

N=135

5. Profile of children waiting for adoptive placements

Ethnicity

The majority of children waiting (116, 85.9%) were of White British background, a

further 2 were of White Eastern European heritage. Children of mixed ethnicity were

the largest group of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) children: 8 (5.9%) children

were of mixed ethnic backgrounds; 3 children (2.2%) were of Black African heritage;

3 children were of Indian heritage; 3 were of Gypsy/Roma heritage (see Figure 10).


Figure 10

N=135

Overall BME children were not over represented in the cohort of children waiting

for an adoptive placement on 31 March 2013 - a similar proportion of BME children

were waiting (17, 12.6%) to those that had been placed in the current year (17,

11.9%). Of the 143 children placed by Kent County Council in 2012/13, 124 (86.7%)

were of White British background, 2 (1.4%) were of White Eastern European

heritage, and 17 (11.9%) were of mixed ethnic backgrounds. In 2011/12, 2 (3%) of

the 67 children placed were of BME background.

Age

Thirty-seven children waiting were aged 1 or under (27.4%), just under half of

children were aged 2-4 years (64) and a quarter were aged 5 or over (34 children) –

see Figure 11. Based on adoption research, over fives are considered ‘difficult to

place’. A relatively high number of older children have been granted Placement

Orders – 32 (16.8%) of the 190 Placement Orders granted in 2012/13 have been to

children aged 5 or older.


Figure 11

N=135

Further analysis shows that over half of the children waiting (79) had entered care

aged under 1 year old and just 9 were over 5 years when becoming looked after.

This suggests that timescales prior to Placement Order may be slow in the Council

for some children (see Figure 12, over the page).


Figure 12

N=135

Sibling groups

Of the 135 children waiting, 79 (58.5%) were in sibling groups (see Figure 13, over the

page).3 There were 44 children in sibling groups of two, 19 children in sibling groups

of three, 8 children in sibling groups of four, and 8 children from sibling groups of

six. 49 children in sibling groups had a plan to be placed together.

Separation of some siblings is planned for 30 children, including 8 children in sibling

groups of two, 10 children in sibling groups of 3, 4 children in a sibling group of four

and 6 children in sibling groups of 6.

3 Sibling groups are defined as 2 or more children of the same family who have a simultaneous plan

for adoption. This includes children waiting who have siblings with a simultaneous plan for adoption

that have already been placed. Children categorised as ‘single’ may also have siblings but they do not

have a simultaneous plan for adoption.


Figure 13

N=135

Developmental and health needs

In March 2013, 52 children waiting (38.5%) had confirmed developmental needs:

38 had developmental delay, including 10 with ‘significant’ delay; 3 had behavioural

difficulties, including 2 with ‘severe challenging behaviour’, 3 had emotional

difficulties, including one child with ‘complex emotional disturbance’; 2 children had

learning difficulties; 2 children were autistic; 1 child had feeding difficulties; and 1

child had attachment difficulties. 10 children had suspected developmental

problems but were awaiting diagnosis.

Twenty-one children waiting (15.6%) had confirmed health needs: examples

included, epilepsy, speech impairments, cerebral palsy, bowel problems. A further 2

children had suspected health needs and were awaiting diagnosis.


6. Children adopted

Between 1 April 2012 and 31 March 2013 105 children were adopted in Kent

County Council. The number of adoptions in 2012/13 is 50.0% higher than the

number of children adopted 2011/12 – 70 children (see Figure 14).

Figure 14

2011/12 N=70, 2012/13 N=105

Of the 143 children placed for adoption between 1 April 2012 and 31 March 2013, 51

had been adopted at the end of March. The majority of children placed during

the first five months of the financial year (between April and August) had been

adopted by the end of the financial year 2012/13 – 42 out of 49. Exactly one third

(8) of children placed (24) in September and October had also been adopted. In

addition 1 child placed in February had also been adopted (see Figure 15).


Figure 15

N=143

The children not yet adopted are being tracked through a number of mechanisms –

performance surgeries, tracking meetings and by reviewing officers. Monthly

information is also sent to managers to alert them to children awaiting an Adoption

Order. The timescales analysis indicates that the robust performance monitoring is

starting to impact on the overall timescales: of the 105 children adopted in 2012/13,

31.4% of children were adopted within 5 months of the adoptive placement,

compared to 18.8% of the children adopted within 5 months in 2011/12 (see Figure

16).


Figure 16

2011/12 N=70, 2012/13 N=105

7. Children placed for adoption, not yet adopted

On 31 March 2013 97 children were placed for adoption and not yet adopted: 19

(19.6%) had been waiting 1 month or less since placement, 29 (29.9%) had been

waiting 2-3 months, 30 (30.9%) were waiting for 4-5 months, 16 (16.5%), between 6

months and 1 year, and 3 (3.1%) had been placed for adoption prior to the start of

the financial year, April 2012 (a sibling group and a single child). A Court date has

now been set for May 2013 for the sibling group and for the single child, the support

package has been agreed. It is hoped that the adopters will now submit an adoption

order application.

The target set for the Adoption Service was that 109 looked after children leave

care through adoption in 2012/13 (number estimation based on the target of 13%).

The service met 96.3% of this target (105 adoptions). The full number could have

been achieved, however, the Court deferred hearings for 3 children and for 1 child


the Court was not able to provide a date in March – this child was part of a sibling

group – one of the siblings was adopted in March 2013. The Council is considering

making a complaint to the Court for the 1 child who should have been adopted

before March 2013, as the delay for this young child by the Court has been

unacceptable.

Twenty-nine (87.9%) out of 33 children placed between 1 April and 30 June 2012

were adopted (as of 31 March 2013). Thirteen (81.3%) of the 16 children placed in

July and August 2012 have also been adopted. In addition 4 children placed in

September 2012, 4 children placed in October 2012 and a child placed in February

2013 have also been adopted.

8. Children placed for adoption

Between 1 April and 31 March 2013 143 children were placed for adoption, on

average 12 children each month. There has been a 110.3% percentage increase on

number of children placed for adoption than in the previous financial year, 2011/12

when 68 children were placed (see Figure 17).

Extra focus on family finding was created through the establishment of the separate

family finding team with each child having a dedicated family finding social worker.

An additional social worker in the team specialises in early family finding from the

point of Plan for Adoption (before Placement Order).

Figure 17


2011/12 N=68, 2012/13 N=143

9. Overall Service Activity

9.1 Children’s planning:

Senior managers are aware that the current timescales between approving adoption

plans at review stage and the agency decision maker signing adoption plans off,

need to improve.

Permanency planning is now well established and is either chaired by Coram

associates or managers responsible for the planning.

Further work needs to be undertaken to ensure that the planning meetings take

place in a timely way and that the delay between a meeting and organising a

statutory review still needs to be minimised (this is in cases related to case where

the adoption plan needs to change). Currently Coram informs the reviewing service

of such concerns.

9.2 Life Story work and Later Life Letters:

It is acknowledged by senior managers that area of work requires strengthening.


9.3 Childrens’ adoption medicals:

A written process has been agreed with Health and Children’s Social Care and

workshops have been organised to launch this process. It is essential that birth

parents and social workers attend the first medical for the child so that the medical

advisor is provided with relevant information to undertake an adoption medical.

A template has now been agreed for medical advisors to ensure that relevant high

quality information is provided for the decision maker to agree to the adoption plan.

10. Family Finding

10.1 Family Finding Team:

A Team was established in October 2012. This team is continuing to have impact on

the family finding activity as evidenced by 143 children placed for adoption. The

team is also now concentrating on early family finding – i.e. linking and matching

children before a Placement Order is granted. 1 early family finding social worker

provides this service, and the plan is for another social worker to be recruited within

the next month.

10.2 Profiles and DVD’s:

Both national and local evidence suggests that adopters connect with children

through watching a high quality child centred DVD and reading profiles of children,

which make them “alive”. A post (funded for 1 year) specifically with the technical

expertise to produce high quality DVD’s has been advertised. The practice of family

finding social workers leading on write profiles and producing DVD’s is improving

but still requires further improvement. All the profiles are now written within The

British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) framework and focuses on

children’s interests and strengths rather than family background.

10.3 Visiting adoptive families:


It remains a challenge to visit adoptive families within 48 hours. Therefore this

timescale has been extended to up to 5 working days.

10.4 Inter-agency placements:

Funding for inter-agency placements has been made much more flexible including

before the placement order is granted. This has resulted in 20 children placed last

year – 10 with voluntary sector, 2 with local authorities, 8 with consortia.

10.5 Matching Meetings:

Matching meetings are chaired by Coram associates. Family Finding Social Workers

will chair the meetings from 1st of June to allow more ownership.

10.6 Adoption Activity Day and Family Finding activities

The Council is working in partnership with BAAF to pilot an innovative way to find

families for “hard to place children” – Adoption Activity Day – this is organised for

the 7th of July. It is hoped that the adopters approved by the voluntary agencies

(who have not had a child matched with them) will also attend – this will further

strengthen partnership working.

An information event with voluntary sector agencies took place on the 16th of

January – the feedback was very positive. Individual family finding social workers

are now linked with each of the voluntary agencies to strengthen partnership

working.

Coffee mornings have been increased from 4 to 6 per year.

11. Management Information

Accurate Management Information remains a challenge - examples include: five

children who had been granted a Placement Order in October-November 2012 were

not recorded until 6 March 2013 and one child granted a placement order on 20


March was not recorded in the data provided on 9 April. This has implications on

timely family finding.

There have also been problems with children whose plans have changed: three

children whose plans changed from adoption to permanent fostering in February

2013 were not recorded until 9 April 2013 (for example two children – a sibling group

- had a change of plan from adoption to permanent fostering on 4 Feb 2013 but

were incorrectly recorded in the February data provided on 6 March 2013 as still

‘waiting’ to be placed for adoption), and one child was showing in 9 April data as

having plans for twin tracking that had neither a Placement Order nor a Section 20.

In the March data provided on 9 April 2013, one child, who had a Placement Order

but was not yet placed for adoption, was not recorded and two children placed for

adoption in March 2013 were showing as not yet being placed (for example on child,

placed for adoption 19 March 2013).

It has been agreed that the reviewing service will provide a separate report in

relation to change of plans as it is proving increasing challenging to provide accurate

information.

12. Role of Reviewing Service – Quality Assurance

The service is provided with the same management information that Coram is

provided with – this allows the service to monitor the time a child is waiting for an

adoptive family, the possible delay in applying for a placement order, names of all

those children who have been adopted, names of children whose plans have

changed etc.

13. Review of 7 Adoption Panels

The review findings have been shared with all the 7 panels, and separately with the

Chairs. 4 Chairs left due to personal reasons. 4 panels have now been established. 2

interim panel advisors now support 3 panel chairs. The plan is to recruit the panel

advisors on a permanent basis within the next couple of months.


Further work is being undertaken with the current chairs to strengthen the quality

assurance function and efficiency of the panels.

14 Recruitment

14.1 Adoption Social Workers:

3 staff retired at the end of March, 1 staff member is leaving due to personal

reasons, and 2 staff are moving to the Fostering Service. Part time leaving has

allowed the service to recruit full time adoption social workers. This will allow the

service to provide a much more customer focused service.

14.2 Social Work Team Managers:

1 permanent team manager (internal applicant) was appointed and started in her

post on the 3rd of May. The service, despite best efforts, has still not been able to

appoint 3 permanent team managers.

14.3 Head of Adoption Service:

Again, despite a number of recruitment campaigns, the service has not been able to

recruit to this post. It is hoped that the next set of interviews will take place within

the next month.

Conclusions

This report evidences the considerable progress made by the adoption service in

partnership with children’s social workers, managers, and reviewing service. It is

evident that tracking and performance management mechanisms have focused the

activities of the adoption service and other stakeholders.

Despite the substantial increase in the number of Placement Orders granted in

2012/13, the service has succeeded in keeping the number of children waiting stable

at around 130 children and a substantial number of children waiting (75, 56%) have

an identified link or match.


From the start of this financial year (2013/14) the plan is to report separate

demographic statistics for children who are matched, linked with a plan to change

and for whom active family finding is being pursued. This will give us more detailed

picture of the profiles of children at various stages of the family finding process and

a greater understanding of why there are shifts in the numbers of children that fall

into each category.

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