Permanency planning

Children experience permanency through relationships and connectedness. Regardless of the care arrangement children are in, LWB aims for all children to experience permanency, including ongoing and enduring relationships with their families and everyone who is important to them. Permanency planning is making a formal plan to provide a child with a stable home offering long term security.

Why plan for permanency?

Research demonstrates that children who experience secure and loving care are more likely to be socially engaged, develop strong and lasting attachments and experience higher levels of educational achievement.

Permanency planning

  • Addresses the poor outcomes experienced by some children in care
  • Explores options to reunite children with their families - in many cases this means a continuing connection with you, their carer, after they have gone home
  • Increases the sense of belonging and stability for children in care
  • Ensures that timely and intentional decisions are made about children’s long- term care arrangements

What guides permanency planning?

  • Children’s futures should be planned
  • When children are removed from their family our first priority should be to achieve a safe return
  • When safe return is not possible in the timeframes that best meets the child’s emotional and developmental needs an alternative permanency plan should be developed
  • Family should remain involved in children’s lives whenever possible
  • Permanency planning should be achieved in a timely way
  • Account must be taken of the culture, language and religion of the child
  • For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children a range of additional principles are relevant, including the need for appropriate consultation, the importance of family and kinship networks, adherence to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child and Young Persons Placement Principles and the right to maintain links with their community and culture and grow up with a strong sense of their cultural identity

NSW Pathways to permanency

For more information about permanency planning in NSW see NSW Pathways to permanency

See the links below to your state or territory based carer resources for more information.

Want to become a carer?
To become a foster carer your ability to care and nurture a child is what really matters.
To learn more, visit the LWB foster care website