Why Children Need Permanence
Angus Council provides a range of services and resources to support parents to look after their own children. While our goal is to help families stay together, there are times when children and young people cannot live in their own home. Illness, unemployment and changing family circumstances can all lead to tension and stress. Sometimes parents feel unable to cope, sometimes children are neglected or abused.
Once it is established that a child cannot remain with their birth family plans will be made to achieve the best permanent alternative placement. The aim is to give the child the chance to grow up feeling safe and secure as part of a family. For young children an adoptive placement is most likely to provide the long term stability they need. For some older children a permanent fostering arrangement may be the best option. In both cases a legal process must be followed to get the agreement of the courts that the child cannot remain with their birth family and should be placed with adopters or other permanent carers. In some cases the birth parents may be actively opposed to the plan for their child being placed in alternative permanent care and will contest the application. The legal process can be protracted in these cases, but the process will be managed on behalf of prospective adopters and permanent carers by the Council and legal representatives.
In the past adoption most often involved the placement of babies who had been voluntarily relinquished by the mother. Adoption is now seen as the best option for a much wider range of children and the number of babies available to be adopted is quite small.
Children placed for adoption now tend to be older and include many who are primary school age. These children may have complex needs as a result of the lifestyle and health histories of their birth parents. The children may have been exposed to the effects of parental alcohol or substance misuse or have been affected by their parent’s mental health problems. Whatever their circumstances, the children’s needs will be discussed in detail with any prospective adopters or permanent carer before a placement is agreed. For some of the children it may be necessary to have continuing additional support from social work, education or health services.
Older children may also have brothers or sisters who also require adoptive parents. Wherever possible these children are placed together as a family. When this is not the best option for them then we will look for families that will help to maintain and promote their contact with brothers and sisters placed elsewhere.