| What to do: |
How and why: |
Book your child in for discussion at
the Matching Meeting immediately after the 'best interests'
decision.
Action by child's social worker. |
Book with Tracey Barnett on 700
3414. The
Matching Meeting (Word, 92KB) will aim to clarify your child's
needs in placement and suggest existing prospective adopters for
further exploration or to work out a family finding
plan. |
Bring the child's foster carer to the
Matching Meeting.
Action by the child's social worker. |
Their day-to-day detailed knowledge
of the child is often invaluable and unless there are particular
contraindications, the meeting will want to hear from them.
If the foster carer doesn't attend, the meeting will want to know
why they are not there.
|
Ask the foster carer to complete a
Child Portrait Form if they haven't already done so.
Action by child's social worker. |
Ask the foster carer to complete the
Child
Portrait Form (Word,50KB). You may already have asked the
foster carer to complete this for the medical
adviser.
|
As part of family finding you will be
asked to register the child with the
Adoption Register for
England and Wales if he or she remains unplaced for 3 months
after the full care order and placement order is made.
Make sure that your Child's Permanence Report is sent to the Panel
Administrator in electronic form. That way, if registration
is necessary you will not have to complete another form but Part 1
of the Child Permanence Report can be deposited on the Adoption
Register's secure site.
Action by child's social worker and their team's business
support. |
If the child has been subject to a
full care order, freeing order or after December 2005 a placement
order, and there has been a decision that the child should be
placed for adoption, the child must be referred to the Adoption
Register if they have not been linked three months after the final
order.
You can refer them before that 3 months if it is agreed that the
child will be hard to place within Suffolk.
If the child is of sufficient age and understanding, they may elect
for their details not to go on the Register or to the
Consortium. If they cannot meaningfully consent, then the
parent or the social worker (where Suffolk have parental
responsibility) must do so on the consent form you will find at the
link opposite. |
Also complete an
East
Anglian Consortium of Adoption Agencies profile (Word, 26KB) of
the child.
Send this to Tracey Barnett at Adoption Admin., 1st Floor, St.
Edmunds House, Ipswich.
Action by child's social worker. |
Hopefully, you will have done this
already and included it in the CPR. This will be the first
text that prospective adopters outside of Suffolk see about
your child. Please do an e-version of this form.
Place it in the adoption area of your team's O drive and email
Tracey Barnett.
|
When a match has been identified,
complete a
Matching
Report (Word, 72Kb).
Action by child's social worker and adopters' social worker. |
This should be co-written with the
family's social worker.
You will see that the child's needs column can be cut and pasted
from the 'Assessment of the Child's Need for Adoption
Support'. Update the child's needs where
necessary. |
Ensure that an
Adoption
Support Plan (Word, 108Kb) is prepared.
Action by child's social worker and adopters' social worker. |
The Adoption Support Regulations 2003
are now in force. They require us to include an Adoption
Support Plan with the Matching Report, the child's CPR and the
adopters' Form F. You should be able to include material from
the previous Adoption Support Plans for the birth parents, child
and adopters. |
Ensure that the prospective adopters
have a copy of all the documents listed on the Matching
Report.
Action by child's social worker and adopters' social worker. |
The quality of information provided
for adopters has been a major issue in family placement lately and
has been implicated in disruptions and in cases brought by adopters
against adoption agencies.
It is also a National Minimum Standard that adopters should be
properly briefed and informed. |
Set up a
Placement
Planning Meeting (Word, 171Kb)including the adopters, foster
carers and others.
NB: There are new requirements under the Adoption and Children Act
2002 for adopters to have 10 days to comment on the key documents
(matching report, adoption support plan, etc).
The Placement Planning Meeting must now be a month before the panel
at which the match is agreed to allow sufficient time.
Action by child's social worker and adopters' social worker. |
See Placement Planning Meeting format
introduction which explains the agenda and purpose of the meeting
and the new Adoption and Children Act requirements in
detail. |
Send the Matching Report and the
Adoption Support Plan with the Child's Permanence Report and Form F
and any updates to adoption admin. at least 2 weeks before the
Permanence Panel.
Action by child's social worker and adopters' social worker. |
Please record the dates requested and
the reasons for any delay in meeting Adoption Standards time
scales on the
Front
Sheet (Word, 30k). |
| You will need to pass on or fill in
these documents which will be referred to at the Placement Planning
Meeting to complete the matching process. |
|