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Contents

1. Monitoring and Supervision of Agency Adoptive Placements
2. Ending Placements Where Children are Placed for Adoption

1. Monitoring and Supervision of Agency Adoptive Placements

1.	Arrangements for and frequency of visits for supervising the placement must be made at Placement Planning Meetings and set out in the Adoption Placement Plan - see Placement for Adoption Procedures - Section 10.  This will involve at a minimum: The child's social worker visiting the child within the first week of the placement and then weekly until the first review Thereafter, the frequency of visits will be determined at the child's Adoption Review or, if not specified, every six weeks for the first year and after this, on a three-monthly basis Where there are any concerns, additional visits should be arranged. The adopters' link worker will also carry out visits at intervals agreed in the Adoption Placement Plan - and more frequently if circumstances require. The visits should continue until an Adoption Order has been made or until the placement is terminated.
2.	Visits must be made by suitably experienced qualified social workers or social workers/student social workers who are supervised by suitably qualified and experienced social workers - see Section 5 - Adoption Panel Procedures.
3.	Records of all visits must be made and copies placed on the child's Adoption Case Record. Between visits, the social workers involved must discuss progress in the placement and read each other's recording of visits during the monitoring period.
4.	Where there are concerns that the placement is at risk of breaking down, an Adoption Review must be convened immediately by the child's social worker - see Adoption Reviews Procedures.
5.	The child should be seen alone (if appropriate according to his or her age and understanding) at all of the visits, whether undertaken by the child's social worker or the adopters' link worker, and his or her wishes and feelings recorded.
6.	The child's social worker will arrange for the child to continue to have health assessments in line with his or her Health Care Plan and that the Health Care Plan continues to be reviewed up to the Adoption Order in accordance with the procedures for Looked After Children.
7.	The procedures to be followed where a placement disrupts are set out in Disruption of Placement Procedures.
8.	Visits to the child and adopters after the Adoption Order will be made as and when required under the Adoption Support Plan - see Adoption Support Services Procedures.

2. Ending Placements Where Children are Placed for Adoption

Where the agency’s concerns are such that a decision is taken at an Adoption Review that a child who is placed for adoption should be removed, the Local Authority must give the prospective adopters written notice, and the prospective adopters must, by the end of a period of 7 days, return the child to the agency.

Legal advice should be taken as required as to the appropriate wording of the written notice to the prospective adopters. In addition, where the child is not returned to the agency in response to the written notice, further legal advice should be taken as to what steps should be taken to remove the child from the placement.

End