The charity operates 50 projects, all of which work to bring about significant improvements in the emotional well-being and life prospects of vulnerable children and young people. Coram Family Adoption & Permanent Families Service is the third largest voluntary adoption agency in the UK.
The project
The charity will use the Lloyd’s Charities Trust’s grant to develop and extend the pioneering Concurrent Planning Adoption Programme in London. The programme
will work with vulnerable babies who are taken into care when their birth parents are unable to look after them due to drug dependency or mental illness’ or if there are concerns the babies maybe seriously harmed or neglected in their parents’ care.
The babies are placed with specially selected Concurrent Carers, whilst the Courts decide whether they can go back to their natural parents. If the babies can return to their parents they do so, but if not the Concurrent carers will adopt the child. Working closely with the birth parents and carers, the project prevents serious disruption to the lives of the babies. With the Lloyd’s Charities Trust’s support, Coram aims to develop the project amongst more London local authorities.
Dr Carol Homden, Coram’s Chief Executive, explained to lloyds.com: “Thanks to the visionary support of Lloyd’s Charities Trust for the work of Coram’s Concurrent Planning Adoption Programme, some of the most vulnerable babies in our society will have a better chance in life.”
Did you know
• It takes an average of 2.5 years for a baby to be adopted in the UK
• 3,500 young children are waiting to be adopted
• On average it takes 11 months to adopt a child through concurrent planning
• Home Office figures show that up to 48% of those in care fail to gain any qualifications at all against a national failure rate of 5%
