This study provides an independent evaluation of the first innovative child-centred, concurrent planning programmes introduced into England, first by Manchester Adoption Society in 1998 and soon afterwards by Coram Family (London) and Brighton and Hove Social Services. The authors seek to find out whether concurrent planning for children can address concerns about delay, multiple moves and children drifting in care.
With origins in Seattle, USA, in the early 1980s, concurrent planning aimed to speed up the placement of children into permanent families, either birth or substitute families, and to reduce overall the time they spent in temporary care. While not seen as a perfect solution to the problems around placement of children in care, concurrent planning put the child’s needs at the centre of social work decision-making, and in doing so, ensured permanent placements for the children in timescales significantly shorter than average.
Starting with no preconceptions about the likely outcomes of its introduction to the UK, evidence from this study supports the advantages of using the concurrent planning approach to child care placement. Based securely in best practice social work - and with elements clearly distinguishing it from twin tracking or parallel planning programmes - the relevance of concurrent planning will increase with the introduction of the Adoption Act 2002. However the researchers conclude that it may require a shift in the attitudes of many of the professionals involved in determining permanent care if it is to contribute to optimising the life chances of looked after young children.
Contents, including chapter summaries, include:
History of concurrent planning
The work of the three concurrent planning projects - how they were set up and how they ran (including teaming up with local authorities)
The children and families referred to the projects and the selection process used
Tracking the children’s progress
Negotiating the routes to adoption: voices of the carers, adoptive parents and birth parents
Contact during concurrent planning procedures: arrangements and reactions of concurrency carers and birth families
The local authority context - benefits and risks - some practice and training issues for new concurrent planning teams
Conclusions from the study: “what works?”
Appendices - background data including information provided by the three projects to all participants, useful for anyone thinking of introducing a concurrent planning project.
