By phone or email
To speak to an adviser, please call our free and confidential advice line 0808 801 0366 (Monday to Friday 9.30am to 3pm, excluding Bank Holidays). Or you can ask us a question via email using our advice enquiry form.
Are you a parent, kinship carer relative or friend of a child who is involved with, or who needs the help of, children’s services in England? We can help you understand processes and options when social workers or courts are making decisions about your child’s welfare.
Our advice service is free, independent and confidential.
To speak to an adviser, please call our free and confidential advice line 0808 801 0366 (Monday to Friday 9.30am to 3pm, excluding Bank Holidays). Or you can ask us a question via email using our advice enquiry form.
Our online advice forums are an anonymous space where parents and kinship carers (also known as family and friends carers) can get legal and practical advice, build a support network and learn from other people’s experiences.
Our get help and advice section has template letters, advice sheets and resources about legal and social care processes. On Monday and Wednesday afternoons, you can use our webchat service to chat online to an adviser.
Concurrent planning is used in cases in which a child may be adopted. This is typically when children’s services think they may not be able to stay with their birth family long-term. This is usually a baby or child under the age of two.
The child will be placed with specially trained foster carers. At the same time, children’s services provide intensive support to the birth family to see if they can improve their parenting enough for the child to return to them. If they cannot, the foster carers will apply to adopt the child.
The idea is to limit the number of moves for the child. If adoption is the outcome, it means the attachment process between baby and adoptive family began as early as possible in the child’s life.
Not all children’s services offer concurrent planning. All must consider fostering for adoption where adoption is the likely plan for permanence, however.
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