Calls for prospective adopters to foster babies during care proceedings

The children's charity Coram is calling upon more local authorities across the country to take up concurrent planning.

Concurrent planning places babies with foster carers while their future is being decided by the family courts. Babies who cannot return to their birth parents are then adopted by these foster carers.

Coram research highlights the benefits of the innovative form of placement has for babies in care. They receive support from one carer and one social worker helping them form secure emotional attachments until a court decision is made. Those bonds reduce disruption unlike other babies in care that are shuffled between different carers.

Concurrent planning carers are sometimes found even before babies are born, easing their placement into permanent care. The charity claims that placements can occur within days of their birth, unlike other babies that drift in the care system for nine or more months before their care is resolved.

Jeanne Kaniuk, Head of Coram's Adoption and Permanent Families Service, said: "We applaud the London boroughs we currently work with and who are placing babies in care through concurrent planning. Coram's ten years experience of concurrent planning shows decisions regarding the care of emotionally fragile babies are resolved faster. The babies eventually grow into happy and secure children as a result. We urge more boroughs in London and across the country to use concurrent planning to protect babies through an uncertain period in their lives.