Parents retain some rights unless and until an Adoption Order is made, although their rights are naturally limited by the fact that the child has been removed from their care by order of the Court.įor children who have been abused and where there is no possibility of a return to their families I agree that adoption can be an amazingly positive move and one which it is a privilege to be involved in as a worker. Contact with parents will continue but will be at the local Authority's discretion and will usually begin to reduce significantly, although an 'open adoption' will have the terms of future contact specified in the terms of the Placement Order. Once a full Care Order has been made, the Local Authority then has to apply for a Placement Order which will allow them to 'place the child for adoption'.
Grandparents are of course not automatically 'parties' in the proceedings and have no automatic rights.
The Courts will always expect contact with parents to continue and will even dictate how frequent this should be. Parents retain parental responsibility (a legal term which means they still have rights to make decisions for the child) and are parties to the proceedings. (Not all care proceedings will have the plan as adoption). The Local Authority has to present its plan for the child as part of the proceedings, so it needs to be clear at this stage that the plan is to place the child for adoption. The child is usually in foster care while this is happening and there will be a series of Interim Care Orders granted. The child also has independent legal representation. The Court will also appoint a 'Guardian ad Litem' (an independent Social Worker) whose role is to provide an independent assessment of the child' s best interests. As you can imagine this can take a long time while evidence is gathered, assessments are carried out, reports are filed from Social Workers and expert witnesses, and Court hearings are scheduled. The grounds for granting a Care Order are that the child is suffering or is at risk of suffering significant harm, and the onus is on the Local Authority to prove this 'on the balance of probabilities'. This applies in England and Wales the law in Scotland is different (but from my limited knowledge, more family-friendly). Basically there are two ways a child can be placed for adoption either with the parents consent or alternatively if the child is on a Full Care Order granted by the Court under the Children Act 1989. Faye, yes it is possible for a child in the UK to be adopted without their parents' permission, although the process is a very complex, long and drawn out one - hence the criticisms of the process where children are left waiting for permanence for months or years before the matter is resolved.
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