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Taking children away from their birth family is traumatic enough without them being moved around the system while professionals are deciding their future. Natalie Valios looks at concurrent planning, which avoids the need to move children excessively.

In normal circumstances, when a child is removed from their home during care proceedings, they are placed with short-term temporary foster carers while their future is decided.

By the time that the decision has been made, the child could have had several moves around the system, only then to be removed from foster carers with whom they may have formed an attachment and placed with adoptive parents.

In concurrent planning, the same process is adhered to in terms of care proceedings and assessment of the birth family, but right from the start the child is placed with a carer who would adopt them if that is the outcome.

The Goodman Team, part of Manchester Adoption Society, works in this way. For the children referred to the project there are only two options: they either return home or are adopted by the carers they are placed with.

The project's criterion accepting a referral is that there has to be some chance that the child could go home if things were different in their family. If there is no hope then that is not concurrent planning and they should be fast tracked to adoption, says team manager Nina Gardner.

From the 11 referrals during the past two years, just one child returned home; the other 10 were adopted. However, Goodman carers have to be willing to take the risk that they will not end up adopting the child placed with them.

"The benefit to them is that they are getting a child at the beginning of their entry into the care system, so they are not yet damaged," says Gardner.

She highlights last year's statistics from British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering, which revealed that 44 per cent of children placed between the ages of 0-12 months make up to four moves in the first 12 months of entering the care system. Concurrent planning produces a better outcome than the care system does normally, says Gardner.

Currently, two carers on the project are being assessed, while a further two are waiting to go through the process. Out of a group of 12 people looking to adopt, the project would probably get two couples or two people wanting to work as a Goodman carer.

Referrals are taken from all local authorities in the area and they have to be within travelling distance of the project because of contact arrangements. Once a referral has been accepted as a Goodman placement, a member of the project goes to court with the local authority social worker to get the agreement for concurrent planning to be noted on the child's file. The project then carries out the assessment work that would normally fall to the local authority.

As well as assessing birth parents, other family members who might be able to look after the child are assessed and either ruled in or out as possibilities for an alternative placement for the child.

Contact between the child and their birth family happens three times a week and can last several hours. Carers bring the child to the project's offices where they meet the parents. At the beginning of the meeting there is a handover from carer to parent, and then from parent to carer at the end of the meeting, so that both are kept informed of developments with the child.

A relationship develops between the carer and parents during this process. Parents tell the project that it helps them to know who is looking after their child, says Gardner.

The reasons care proceedings are instigated vary, but the team often finds that drugs and alcohol play a part in family breakdown or parental inability to look after their children. Where the cause is abuse, it is possible to return a child home if the circumstances in which the abuse existed have changed.

Goodman staff tell the birth family that this is probably their last chance to look after their child, because there have been a lot of problems and social workers have already tried ways to improve matters but have not succeeded, says Gardner.

"We talk to them about the options and tell them that if they don't [take action] the child will be adopted. With some parents it could be that they have to demonstrate their ability to get off drugs, for others it is about their ability to look after their child because they put their own needs before their child. It is about focusing them very clearly and definitely on the child's needs."

Because the team carries a small caseload, it has time to check up on progress being made by parents. If they fail to turn up for a contact meeting, a member of staff goes to find them. If it is a drug problem they need help with, the project is proactive in finding out where they should be going for help. Their involvement doesn't stop there: "We don't believe them per se. If they say they have been to see the drug counsellor, we check it out.

"It is very intense work. But in order to get to where we need to go for these children, we need a decision about what is going to happen to their future," says Gardner.

She believes that parents accept the project's involvement because it is independent of any local authority. While the local authority retains casework responsibility, the team is in charge of all day-to-day business, such as assessments and court reports.

"If they default on their agreement they know what will happen, and that our recommendations will be that this child can't live with them because they haven't done what they agreed to do and haven't shown any commitment to the child," says Gardner.

Although the project will allow parents to make mistakes up to a point, says Gardner, it is actions not words that count. "We don't want to hear how much they love their child, we want to see them prove it by doing what they have agreed to do."

The project produces a court report with its initial findings after about 10-12 weeks. This is normally enough time for staff to know whether parents are going to be able to work towards their child returning home or not.

While carers are offered post adoption support, the project feels that birth parents usually get a pretty raw deal at the end if their child is adopted because there isn't a service for them. Staff keep up contact with them, but there is not the funding to offer a proper service. Gardner wants to develop an outreach service to address this.

"There are critics of concurrent planning. Some say that this is adoption by the back door. I don't buy that at all," says Gardner.

"Birth parents here do get a good chance to prove that they can do what they need to do for their child."

Project Profile

- Project: The Goodman Team.

- History: The idea for concurrent planning came from Seattle social services, USA. Vera Falhbergh, patron of Manchester Adoption Society, brought the idea back to the UK. The scheme was piloted by the society with Salford and Bury social services departments for three years, ending in February 2001. It was then launched as a scheme in its own right, without partners, and is currently being evaluated by the Thomas Coram research unit.

- Funding: Local authorities pay a fee to cover the cost of the placement and the work carried out by the project. It makes no profit from this fee. The actual project is funded by bodies including the Nuffield Trust and the Department of Health.

- Staff: Team manager Nina Gardner, two senior practitioners, family support worker, all with social work backgrounds.

- Clients: Families known to local social services departments with children subject to care proceedings. The age limit for children is six. As well as working with birth families, the project recruits carers to foster the child while a decision is taken about whether the child returns home or is adopted by the carer.

- Contact: Nina Gardner, The Goodman Team, Mocha Parade, Lower Broughton, Salford M7 1QE. Tel: 0161 834 9916