Contact after Placement Orde issued

[NannyLoz]

My grandchildren are aged 5 and 3 and we have for the passed year struggled to get the LA to assess us for Special Guardianship,this was refused by the high courts in January. The final care plan which was for adoption states that contact with parents and grandparents is to be reduced, until December we were seeing our grandchildren once a week for half and hour,this was then reduced to every 2 weeks but for 1 and half hours but because of weather some of our contact has been cancelled and not given at a later date, so since Christmas I have only seen them twice. In the pasted 2 weeks only my grandson has been brought to contact with the parents and other grandparent on his own, when they have asked where the sister is have been told that she is OK but did not want to come. The children have been in foster care for the past year and have always look forward to contact and have never missed or complained about coming, the social worker is only saying she does not want to come,(this I do not believe) as my grandson is only 3 the parents have tried to ask how she is but all is say she's at home. No one has been able to explain to her what is happening and we are all worried as this is not like her and we are unable to check whether she is alright. Does anyone have any ideas as to how we can overcome this situation. We have no contact orders in place,is this something we should be thinking of doing.

[NannyLoz]

Thanks for that I thought along those lines myself, but why are they still letting my grandson come, we have been told that they would not separate them. According to the LA the grandson is the one with issues, do they do as they say??

[NannyLoz]

If the LA were following the care plan agreed in court and the SW was able to explain the situation we would be in a better position to understand what is going on. The care plan states we are to have two hours contact and we have been told that this is now not possible no other explanation !
Other family members and myself have phoned and e-mailed the SW and have had no response. The care plan states that if the children were finding the situation difficult then it would be reviewed, but then again if no tells you anything you will naturally assume the worst, So you can understand why we are all so worried that their is something we are not being told.

[David Roth]

NannyLoz, the period you are going through now can be a very difficult and uncertain time for birth families. Once Placement Orders have been made, then it becomes virtually certain that children are going to be adopted. However, it can be a while before children are actually placed for adoption, particularly if the council are finding it hard to recruit the right adopters. All the contact arrangements that were in place before the placement orders were made no longer apply, although if possible the children's families will usually still have some contact with them - but it will be in the knowledge that contact is going to be looked at again, and might well stop altogether, once the child starts to be introduced to their adoptive parents. If it is difficult for the adults to see the children in these circumstances, then it must also be difficult for the children. One of the social workers will probably have spoken to the children about what is happening, in an age-appropriate way, but it can take time for this sort of information to sink in.

As long as you are still having contact, it is reasonable to ask for information about what is happening when things like planned contacts are not going ahead. Unfortunately, after adoption becomes the agreed plan and the placement order has been made, children's services do tend to focus on the child - which is in some ways understandable, but it can mean that the family does not get the support they need. However, it would not be unreasonable to ask for better communication at least.

If you would like someone to talk to about the children's adoption, there are two charities that have helplines:
After Adoption: 0800 840 2020: http://www.afteradoption.org.uk/
Post Adoption Centre: 020 7284 5879: http://www.pac.org.uk/