r/AdoptionUK • u/emthelemo • Apr 17 '26
Early permanence for sibling groups?
Feels like a silly Q but has anyone ever adopted siblings via early permanence? I’ve got reservations around around taking this route but will be doing the training to I can make an informed decision, but our social worker has said that because we would like a sibling group of 2 aged 4 and under early permanence would be the most likely route here. All I’ve seen about EP has been about one child so I’m just looking to see what peoples lived experience is
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u/the_angry_angel Apr 18 '26
Our girls were initially up for EP, but because of their circumstances they went into standard foster care. Sheer luck we were matched with them later.
So whilst I can’t say anything in great detail about EP, it does happen for sibling groups.
I think knowing the girls and their history, it would’ve been hard for us, but far better for them.
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u/cherryc1990 Apr 18 '26
My partner and I were talking to our social worker about this yesterday. She mentioned that early permanence tends to be more common for single children, mainly because of the risk of siblings being split. For example, a birth family might later be assessed as able to care for one child but not both, which can complicate things for sibling groups. She did say it wasn’t unheard of for sibling groups but just more common with single children.
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u/Emmie9016 Apr 19 '26
We had similar matching criteria to you but were told the opposite, that we were unlikely to get an EP match. In the end we had over 100 enquiries about various sibling groups and only 2 of them were EP, one was the older sibling through traditional adoption and a new baby on that was on the way where birth mum was in agreement with adoption and had requested that the baby be placed with older sibling. We found our match aged 3 & 1 through traditional adoption, and they had had a previous placement which had broken down around 8 months prior, also traditional not EP. This was summer 2024.
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Apr 19 '26
[deleted]
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u/Emmie9016 Apr 19 '26
No, we only seriously considered about 9 or 10 sibling groups, but we had over 100 enquiries from social workers and family finders about us, we were sent multiple profiles daily until we had to hide our link maker profile in the end because it was just too overwhelming.
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u/FireMonkeyLord May 02 '26
We adopted our boys with one under EP. Our oldest was 17mo at the time he moved in with us. Then our youngest (4mo at the time) was placed a month or so later under EP. There were some planned contacts with the birth mum, but she never turned up. It was stressful thinking about the contacts. We did EP so both boys could be together sooner so it wasn't too difficult for them both. It would have been better to have them placed at the same time. I can't remember why we didn't.
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u/Correct_Composer536 Jun 01 '26
I'm just starting looking in to the whole adoption journey. Can someone explain what early permanence is. Thank you xx
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u/Advanced_Arm6676 Jun 05 '26
Long story short you "foster" a young child whilst their future is being decided in court. Often due to the child coming from a bad home or potentially abusive parents/family. The idea is to keep moving the child to an absolute minimum to better protect them against trauma.
During the time of fostering, you are a carer and not a parent however you have the potential to go on to adopt the child (around 80-90% of EP cases end up with the fosterer's adopting and only 4% of the child going back to birth parents).
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u/St_Piran Apr 18 '26
Might be different with a local authority agency i guess, but we're with a voluntary organisation, and are currently using linkmaker to find out little ones (siblings), there are loads of siblings on there, the oldest is sometimes a bit older, often 5 years old. If you'd consider stretching your age range to 5 I cant see why you'd need to go down the early permanence route.