The Children’s Hearing
The majority of children placed by the local authority with adoptive parents will have been living with foster carers before they move to their adoptive family. In almost all cases, the decision to place them with foster carers will have been taken at a Children’s Hearing and the children will be subject to a ‘supervision requirement’. The Children’s Hearing is composed of lay panel members specially trained to consider the needs of children and to decide if some form of compulsory care measures are required.
Although decisions about adoption and permanence are made in a Court, the Children’s Hearing will be asked to provide the Court with their advice on the matter. The Children’s Hearing will also determine the level of contact the child has with their birth family in the period before the permanence order is granted. Where children are placed with prospective adoptive parents while still subject to a supervision requirement, the Children’s Hearing may decide that some level of continuing contact is in the child’s interests prior to the granting of the adoption order.
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