Most babies and young children who are adopted have to manage several changes of carer and broken attachments. Early permanence is a way to avoid that and give a baby the best chance of a settled and secure life.

The advantage of an Early Permanence placement for the children concerned, is that if the court decides that they should be adopted, they are already placed with a family who will go on to adopt them and they do not need to experience the loss of a further move of foster placement.

Early Permanence Carers need to be able to look after a baby through a period of uncertainty about his or her future. They will also need to enable regular contact with birth family.

Hard as this sounds, if an early permanence carer goes on to adopt the child they have cared for, they will be in a very special position. They will have helped their baby through the early, unsettling months when plans were still uncertain and got to know and love them from a very young age.

We work with babies where there is a probability that they will have a plan of adoption - but it is the family court that will make the final decision - there will be occasions where the baby is able to return to their birth family.  

We help you build resilience and support you with:

• Specialist preparation, and workshops,
• Intensive, high-quality support throughout the process of early permanence, fostering and adoption, and beyond,
• Help to access fostering allowances,
• Supervised visits with birth families at a neutral location.