Author: Rosemaria Flaherty
Author title: Executive Leader, Children and Families, Barnardos Australia 
Description: This article discusses child development-based planning for babies and very young children entering out-of-home care (OOHC). Infants are the most frequent age group entering OOHC in Australia. Multiple strategies, including carer supports, can be embedded to achieve child development-based outcomes for adoptive and birth families in the context of Open Adoption (for non-Aboriginal children). As one of the longest-standing providers of OOHC and Open Adoption services in Australia, the experience of Barnardos Australia is described to provide insights into the critical role of child development-based planning in (a) permanency outcomes for children and (b) satisfying, supported, and positive experiences for carers and adoptive parents. Practice resources are illustrated to help the reader contextualise how Barnardos Australia applies tools to assist in the process of child development-based planning. For this article, an infant is defined as a child under one year of age. 

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