I wrote in April about an earlier hearing I’d attended in this case at Cardiff Family Court before District Judge Saunders. This had originally seemed a sad but straightforward case of an abandoned baby for whom adoption would be the right outcome. Care proceedings had been issued by Cardiff Council when the baby was born in November last year, mainly on the basis of the mother’s daily heroin use and failure to engage at all with health services while pregnant or with children’s services after the birth. There were also historical concerns about her two older children who now live with their maternal grandmother (who was not able to take on the third child). The man named as the baby’s father refused to get involved.
However, just a few days before the scheduled issues resolution hearing (IRH) in April where the local authority (LA) hoped the adoption plan would be approved, social workers discovered the existence of a possible kinship carer, a paternal aunt. The baby’s mother had not responded at all to her solicitor or to the LA as the IRH approached and the biological father had never acknowledged the child. The father’s parents were not in a position to care for the new baby but for some reason had not at first informed the LA about the aunt.
As I explained in my earlier post, the judge considered the developments as explained by the LA in April but was very concerned about the resulting delay in placing the baby in a permanent home. However, he concluded that extra time was needed to allow a full assessment of the aunt as a kinship carer.
This case is an example of the priority that local authorities and courts now give to placement with extended families rather than with strangers, and the difficulties of the balancing exercise in keeping to the envisaged timetable while ensuring the holistic assessment of the options for the child’s future.
Assessment for a kinship placement
The man who had been identified by the mother as the baby’s father refused to take a DNA test. So, the aunt volunteered for a test and had to wait for the results; she then had to decide if she could take on responsibility for the baby, alongside her own family. She would have to undergo a viability assessment which, if positive, leads to a thorough connected person’s assessment, to ensure that placement with her was in the child’s welfare.
The April IRH was adjourned to take account of how long the assessments would take. Although the viability assessment was positive, the LA was informed in June that the aunt and her partner did not want to go ahead. The hearing that had been planned tor August was therefore brought forward to July. This must have been a really tough time for the aunt and her family.
The baby’s future
The LA has now gone back to its adoption plan. The baby is not in an Early Permanence placement with foster carers who expect to adopt, so adoptive applicants will now be sought who can be matched with the baby. I had thought this might not be straightforward because the baby was born prematurely, with symptoms of withdrawal from substance abuse and neonatal abstinence syndrome. However, I learnt at the July hearing that she is now doing well and that there are no longer professional concerns about her development.
Adopters are encouraged to do life story work with their children as they grow up, to help them understand their identity as an adopted person. While it is sad that neither the mother nor the father in this case felt able to engage in decision making, and none of the extended family were able to care for her, it may in the long term be helpful for the adopted child to be aware how much consideration went into everything that could be done in her welfare.
A piece of good news is that the mother’s older children and their grandmother have met the baby twice and these meetings went well. The LA is continuing these meetings and will be encouraging adopters to value this contact in the future.
The court’s decision on placement for adoption
The LA were applying for care and placement orders, dispensing with the mother’s consent because the child’s welfare required this. The lawyer for the mother went into detail to explain how much effort had gone into trying to get her to respond to them. She had been formally served with notice that final decisions were highly likely to be made at the July hearing; the solicitors had rung her number on many occasions including for the hour prior to the hearing. The solicitor for the Cafcass guardian endorsed all the work that the LA had put into exploring the kinship options, and fully supported the LA’s applications. The guardian reported seeing the baby with her foster carers as calm, content, and giggly, reaching out for and holding her toys.
Although everyone present in the court room was agreed on the orders, the judge delivered a formal judgment in recognition of the significance of making a decision that will lead to the legal removal of a baby’s relationship with her birth family. This was also in the context of the absence of any instructions to the mother’s lawyers. He confirmed that the threshold of harm for a care order had been established at the April hearing and acknowledged the absence of evidence from the parents; any drug and alcohol test results; or parenting assessments. On the balance of probabilities, the man named by the mother was in fact the father, because there was a DNA link between his sister and the baby. There was no realistic option of the baby being cared for by these parents, even if they wanted to. There could be no criticism of the aunt initially wanting to do all she could but later coming to a practical decision about the reality of the assessments and taking on another child. Nor was the LA to be criticised for asking for a delay for her to be assessed. There was now no competing plan or option for the baby – he had considered long term foster care but this was not the right option where there was no prospect of her reuniting with her parents.
The judge concluded by emphasising that the parents’ rights had been completely respected throughout the proceedings and praised the social workers, guardian and lawyers, who he said had all gone beyond what might have expected in such proceedings.
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