Background
5.Birmingham City Council issued an application for care orders on 11 December 2020 and an application for a placement order on 18 February 2022. The final agreed threshold states that V and T are at risk of significant harm as a consequence of their additional needs and the parents’ inability to care for the children given the children’s needs and their own limitations. V has a diagnosis of developmental delay, T suffered brain damage following difficulties during labour and he has a number of very serious health conditions.6.It is accepted that the parents struggled to care for T following his birth and on 13 February 2020 T presented as blue in colour, cold and sweaty, waxy in appearance and showing signs of distress. The parents had not realised he required medical assistance. On a separate occasion, V had some discharge out of her ear and the parents had not used the appropriate medication appropriately. 7.The parents have conceded that they were unable to meet T's basic needs and as a result of this T has suffered physical harm. Examples of their inability to learn the required skills include repeated attempts to demonstrate how T should be fed on specialist milk with concerns being raised on seven occasions. The parents had also failed to order essential items including milk and various medications and that led to a risk of T being in increased pain. It was accepted by everyone that the parents had their own learning difficulties and that the children had particular learning and care needs, this unfortunate combination resulted in the parents not providing consistent and safe parenting.8.On 16 December 2020 the matter came before Recorder Worsley. He made an interim care order with V remaining at home and T remaining at A Hospice. By its very name, it is clear that the hospice is a place for children who require palliative care. This means that these children have shortened life expectancies. 9.By the time the matter came before Recorder Robinson on 29 January 2021, a kinship assessment of the paternal grandparents had been undertaken and was positive in respect of V. By May 2021 the parents had both formally confirmed that they did not seek return of T to their care, accepting they would be unable to provide for his complex health needs.10.When the matter came before me on 2 June 2021, I determined a residential assessment of the parents was necessary to determine whether they were in a position to care for V. That assessment took place at Dudley Lodge and the assessment was negative. By October 2021, V had moved to the care of her paternal grandmother. The matter was due to reach an issues resolution hearing on 21 March 2022 and by that time, the parents both accepted that V should remain in the care of her paternal grandparents, under a special guardianship order. 11.The matter came before me again on 3 May 2022, and at that point, for the first time in the proceedings, it looked as if it was possible that T could move from the Hospice to a familial caring setting. Potential foster carers had met with the social work team. They had significant experience of caring for children with profound needs like T, and they were looking to care for a child with disabilities and had a suitably adapted home with the requisite care equipment. They had expressed an interest in moving forward to adoption and indeed had adopted other disabled children some of whom lived with them into adulthood and continued to live with them.12.As such when the case came to a final hearing the issues had simplified. It was accepted that T would not be returning home. The issue for T was whether he would be made subject to a care order, with a plan of long-term foster care, or whether he would be made subject to a placement order, with what was described by the local authority as a ‘time-limited search’ for adoptive parents. In relation to V the issues were narrower. It was accepted that she would remain with her grandparents under a special guardianship order, though inevitably there were outstanding issues in terms of the various care plans and the contact between siblings and parents.