Success story: Baby Amy

Concurrent Planning carers made sure Baby Amy didn’t drift in the care system. She was born into a home where substance misuse by her parents threatened her safety and well-being, leading her to be removed at birth from her family by the courts.

The local authority responsible for finding suitable care for Amy had recently trained and prepared Mary and Richard, who were approved as Concurrent Planning carers. They were dually approved as foster carers and prospective adopters. Within a week, they picked up Amy from the hospital, and began to care for her full time.

Amy was affected by her birth mother’s drug use, which had continued throughout her pregnancy. Amy would often shake and did not find it easy to rest, waking up a lot and needing to be comforted. The attentive and gentle care from Mary and Richard enabled her gradually to relax and enjoy their care.

Over the months Amy’s birth parents struggled to stop their drug abuse, while Amy continued to thrive with Mary and Richard. After six months of fostering her, and bringing her to a contact centre for supervised contact sessions with her birth parents, a Judge finally ruled that Amy couldn’t return to her birth family, and would need to be adopted. Mary and Richard were relieved that they could adopt Amy. Because she had been with them from soon after her birth, she was securely attached to them and did not face another move to a permanent family.

Mary and Richard valued the opportunity they had had to meet Amy’s birth parents when they brought Amy for contact and they developed a sympathetic understanding of their troubled backgrounds. They were convinced that this would enable them to help Amy in the future when she wanted to know more about her story and why she had been adopted.

You remember that you are fostering her, but it’s very hard to keep that emotional distance from a tiny baby who’s depending on you for everything. You just end up loving them.    Mary

Mary and Richard, who had cared for Amy since she was very young, were officially matched with Amy soon after the court’s final decision. Mary, who’d been advised to regard herself as a foster carer until this point, described this as a moment of intense relief which she had long hoped for

The names of the child and concurrent planning carers have been changed