Judge praises framework for post-adoption contact agreed in Family Court case

The case concerned AB, who is almost 2.5 years old who lives with his prospective adopters who are also the adoptive parents of C, his 5.5 years old brother.

AB’s brother D, is one year old and had stayed with his birth mother, BM, who is a care leaver and has “a volatile and abusive relationship” with the birth father of AB and D.

Harris J said: “It is enormously to [BM’s] credit that since the care and placement orders were made with respect to AB she has managed to make and sustain significant changes in her life, such that D was able to remain safely in her care.”

BM opposed the adoption and sought to return AB to her care, or else a post-adoption contact order under s 51A of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 to secure direct face-to-face post-adoption contact between AB and C and their sibling D and between herself and the two older children.

The court heard the prospective adopters supported ongoing letter-box contact between AB, C and BM and D, and were open to an exchange of videos for the siblings.

“However, although they are not opposed to considering direct contact between the siblings and between AB and C and BM in the future, they do not believe that such contact is currently in the children's best interests and therefore oppose being bound by an order,” the judge said.

“They wish to retain the flexibility to manage and progress contact with D and BM as is consistent with the children's changing and developing needs. [Their] position is supported by the local authority, as the adoption agency and the children's guardian.”

Harris J said BM had later accepted that AB was happy, thriving and settled in the care of the prospective adopters alongside his brother C, and it would not be in his best interests to disrupt the attachments he had now made by instead placing him with his mother and D.

A Lincolnshire social worker told the court the authority was now willing to provide a mechanism for the ongoing review of contact arrangements to ensure they continued to meet the children's needs, and to ensure any widening of contact in future could be professionally supported.

Harris J said the paramount need of AB and C was to settle securely into their adoptive home and continue to build primary attachments to one another and the prospective adopters.

“The re-introduction of direct face-to-face birth family contact at the current time would be likely to cause confusion and prove unsettling and distressing,” she said.

The judge concluded: ”The court is therefore grateful that AB, C and D have been able to benefit from a ‘sea change’ in thinking by this local authority in how they deliver their post-adoption support services that has enabled the parties to agree a child focused post-adoption contact framework.”

She said the children's needs “do not end with the making of a final adoption order. Thus, the framework agreed within this case sets out clear provision for ongoing support for both [the prospective adopters] and BM, a process for ongoing review of the children's developmental needs and ongoing consideration of whether progression of contact is in their best interests with professional oversight and support.“

Harris J added that adoption often meant loss of contact with birth families but, “that loss is not inevitable. The approach taken by all parties in this case recognises adoption as a life-long journey in which professional involvement and support may be needed at various points to support and assist adopted children and their families to navigate the complexities of these relationships”.

Ms Justice Harris appended to her judgment the framework for post-adoption contact agreed between Lincolnshire County Council, PA and BM. She said: “The Court hopes it may be of assistance to other adopted children and their families.”

Mark Smulian