ced for adoption and the agency is authorised to place the child but has not succeeded in placing him, it continues to make strenuous efforts to find a suitable family. Selwyn et al14 found that sustaining a positive, proactive approach to family finding was key to achieving adoption for ‘harder to place’ children. Efforts will include placing the child’s details on the Adoption Register, speaking to other adoption agencies to see if they have suitable prospective adopters, and advertising. In particular, if a placement order is in force, AAR 36.7 stipulates that at the six month review in such a case (i.e. nine months after the making of a placement order) the review must establish why the child has not yet been placed, and consider whether the adoption plan is still appropriate. A placement order places greater restrictions on the rights of birth parents than does a care order, and the review will need to consider, among other things, whether it may be more beneficial for the child to enable his birth parents to enjoy the greater involvement in his life to which they would be entitled under a care order. Section 24 of the Act enables the agency or the child to apply for revocation of the placement order without the need to establish a change of circumstances since the order was made, and it will not be appropriate for a placement order to remain in force indefinitely with little or no chance of the child being placed for adoption. 5.39. To ensure that the adoption panel is aware of such cases the agency should inform the panel where there has been a review under AAR 36.7. Although there is no legal role for the panel in the agency’s decision to reverse its earlier decision, it will not only help to inform the panel’s own practice to know the outcome of cases it has de