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2. Permanence, Principles and
Consulatation
Summary
2.1 The Group has kept the needs of the child
at the centre of its work, in particular a child's need
for security, stability and permanence. The Group drew
up a set of principles to guide its work based on this
need for permanence. The Group also consulted widely,
and specifically carried out a focused consultation
with children and young people with experience of the
care system to determine what was important to them and
what improvements they would like to see.
Permanence
2.2 The Group's aim has been to develop a framework to
provide permanence for children who, for whatever reason,
cannot be brought up by their birth families. The
importance of permanence to children can only be
appreciated by looking at it from a child's point of view,
although it is hard to describe this adequately. The
concept of belonging can be helpful as most adults are
aware of situations in which they feel that they belong,
and also the discomfort that can be caused if they feel
they do not belong.
2.3 For children, a sense of belonging - of being cared
for and cared about - is fundamental to their healthy
emotional and physical development. However, a sense of
belonging - for example being part of a family - is not
something that can be established by telling a child that
they are now part of a new family, or because they are the
subject of a particular legal order. The feeling of
permanence comes from the actions and behaviour of those
adults who care for the child. For most children their
world is what they experience on a day-by-day basis. Daily
care routines, familiar meals on set days, planning for
holidays, celebrating birthdays all help a child develop
both a sense of self-esteem and well being in the present,
and a sense of hope and optimism for the future.
2.4 It is vital therefore that the adult(s) who are
parenting a child on a day-to-day basis are also able to
plan for a child, be it for next week, next month, next
birthday, or the next holiday. The capacity of adults to
offer children this continuity and predictability can be
impaired by their own personal circumstances, such as drug
or alcohol misuse or mental health problems. For those who
care for children within public care, there is the added
dimension of sharing decision making with a range of other
people, which can lead to differences in view and delays in
taking action, which in turn impacts on children who need
predictability and consistency.
2.5 A number of factors can provoke huge anxiety and
uncertainty amongst children in public care:
- how long they might live in their current
home?
- who will buy them birthday presents?
- will they be going back to the same school in
August?
- why are different adults coming to talk to them and
their carers?
- why can't they go to sleepover at their
friends?
- why do their carers sometimes look anxious, or talk
about what will happen at the next meeting, or refer to
"your next family"?
2.6 This profound sense of unpredictability and
uncertainty is not reduced by sharing information about
future plans with the child, or by allowing the child to
participate in decision making. Having your life planned
and scrutinised by a wide range of adults is not a normal
experience. Children do not want to be different from their
peers in this as in other areas of life. The best solution
is therefore for children to be brought up within family
situations in which the adults can give children clear
messages that they both belong and will continue to be part
of that family, and that known and trusted parents are "in
charge". Just like other children:
Now I have been adopted I feel safe. I can stay
with my family for as long as I please and that will be
for as long as I live.
Watching them close the book, really shutting it…
knowing that nothing else was going to happen. It was just
going to be an ordinary life from now on.
These quotes from
Adopted Children Speaking highlight the importance
of a sense of belonging for the children, a sense of
belonging that the adults in their families have been able
to confer on the children.
1 These children are no longer concerned about how
long they will stay in the family, or what their "next
family" might be like. They are now thinking about how they
are going to grow up in their new home. Just like other
children.
2.7 The Group concludes that the legal system should
give security to children and give their adult carers the
opportunity to pass on to the children these messages of
belonging. The aim should be to allow the child to develop
a sense of permanence:
- a developing feeling of 'belonging' to someone who
is parenting them day-by-day.
- the expectation of continuing stability in the
placement.
- a feeling of security in being loved and valued
both for themselves and as a permanent member of the
family.
- a growing sense of mutual obligations between the
child and parent/s as the child moved towards
adulthood.
- continuity with the ethnicity, religion, language
and culture of their birth family.
- acknowledgement and a positive acceptance of their
birth family and history, with ongoing contact where
appropriate.
- becoming a full member of an extended family and
part of a wider long-term network of friends and
family.
- growing confidence in being able to cope with the
wider world, including moving on to independence or
supported accommodation only when chosen by the young
person.
Principles
2.8 Based on this understanding of permanence, the Group
formulated and agreed a set of principles to inform its
work. These were:
1. Children benefit from being brought up in families by
a parent or parents committed to them in parent/child
relationships.
2. Children generally benefit when the three "roles" of
birth parent, person with daily care and person with legal
responsibility are combined in the same person.
3. Those children who cannot be safely brought up by
their birth parents should generally be brought up by
substitute parents.
4. Children generally require stability, predictability,
and the opportunity to form secure attachments, in order to
develop into healthy adults.
5. There must be respect for the private and family
lives and other fundamental rights of children, birth
parents and substitute parents.
6. The interests of children, birth parents and
substitute parents should, where possible, be held in
balance, albeit the welfare of children is the paramount
consideration.
7. The principles should apply that the welfare of
children throughout life is the paramount consideration,
the children's views should be taken into account and any
interventions should be the least intrusive to achieve the
necessary objective.
8. Any decision in relation to children should respect
their racial origin, religious persuasion and cultural and
linguistic background.
9. A framework is required whereby individual solutions
can be found for individual children.
10. Decisions relating to children should be clear,
consistent and taken within a timescale which meets
children's needs. Prolonged uncertainty is detrimental to
children.
11. Adoption is an appropriate solution for some
children, but modifications may be required to enable it to
better achieve the above objectives.
Consultation
2.9 The Group consulted widely in drawing up its
recommendations. Written responses were invited to the
questions in
Choices for Children, the discussion paper on
legal issues produced by the Group's independent legal
consultant and published in 2003.
2 A summary of the responses can be found on the
Scottish Executive website.
3 The Group also commissioned Save the Children to
consult young people who had experience of fostering and
adoption. The report on this work is reproduced in full in
the annexes.
4
2.10 The responses to these consultation exercises
reinforced the principles established by the Group. The
findings from consultation with the young people illustrate
this point:
- all of the young people who were adopted and three
quarters of young people who had lived in foster care
indicated that they liked living in a family situation
and felt part of the family. The relationships between
young people and their adoptive parents or foster
carers were important. This provided a basis for
dealing with everyday situations as well as long-term
security. Many young people also spoke of the
importance of living with other children.
- living in safe environments and the relationships
they have with their adoptive or foster families
enabled young people to feel safe.
- many young people, adopted and in foster care, felt
positive about their future. Young people spoke about
the importance of their relationships with their
adoptive parents or their foster carers in providing
this security. For young people in foster care this
feeling of security lessened as their placement came to
an end. A number of young people identified continuing
relationships with their carers after they had moved to
live independently as important to them.
- the importance of providing young people with
supportive and stable environments within which they
can explore their identity was evident in young
people's accounts.
- many young people thought that adoption provided
more stability, security and was permanent. Young
people felt that these factors were important in
enabling close family relationships.
2.11 Further reference is made to these principles and
views from consultation at appropriate parts of the
report.
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