A new type of adoption that allows babies to live with their prospective new parents within days of birth has been developed by a charity to stop young children spending years in the care system.

The scheme, known as concurrent planning, runs for up to one year, during which the baby is cared for by the adoptive family while the natural mother is given a chance to turn her life around and show she could look after the child.

Unusually, the prospective adoptive parents agree regularly to bring the baby to see the mother up to five times a week so that the relationship can be maintained.

The charity offers the mother intensive support during this time to give her the best possible chance to sort out her problems. At the end of the year, if social workers judge she still poses a risk to the child, the adoption goes ahead immediately.

Conventional adoption can take more than two years to complete, during which time the baby may end up living with a series of foster families or members of its extended family. There is usually minimal, if any, contact between an adoptive family and the natural parents.

Concurrent planning, which costs £35,000, is also considerably cheaper for local authorities than normal adoption, saving the costs of foster care which, for young babies, can be £60,000 a year.

The new model has been pioneered by Coram, the children’s charity founded by Thomas Coram, who created the London Foundling Hospital in 1742. Coram developed the model to speed up the process of adoption and prevent very young babies from being moved around while decisions are made about their future. The latest research on emotional development suggests that babies have to “attach” to their primary carer and suffer deep emotional trauma if moved around. Only a very small proportion of the babies in the scheme have gone back to their natural parents.

Coram has been piloting the scheme with four London local authorities for several years and overseen about 50 successful placements. It is most commonly used where the natural mother is a drug addict whose behaviour during pregnancy suggests the child will have to be taken into care from birth or shortly afterwards.

However, the charity is frustrated that, despite the enormous benefits for the baby, most local authorities are still sticking to old methods.

Jeanne Kaniuk, head of adoption at Coram, believes there are so many advantages it should be taken up by all children’s services departments. She said: “It is crazy that there are not more local authorities using concurrent planning. It is a great system for parents who want to adopt a baby, although obviously they carry all the risk and have to be quite courageous.

“It is very sympathetic to the birth parents, who are given help and support and every chance to show they can care for their baby. It speeds up the process and a decision is made early. And, of course, it is good for the baby.”

Ms Kanuik thinks there are several key reasons why the model has not been take up more widely. It is complicated idea and social workers in a busy local authority are often fire-fighting, doing everything in a rush, such as considering care proceedings, finding foster carers or finding a place at a mother and baby unit. Budgets are also made up of different pots of money which, in some councils, works against concurrent planning.

“There is also often a fear that some solicitors representing birth parents will fight it very hard in the belief their clients are not getting a fair deal,” Ms Kanuik said. “But the baby’s welfare should be paramount and concurrent planning is a fair offer to both adoptive parents and birth parents.”

Coram is hosting a conference in London today to help to explain how concurrent planning works.

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