Discussion
DRFC1879 said:
This thread has made for really interesting and at times, emotional reading.
Mrs. 1879 and I have a 6-year-old son and thought (three years ago) that rather than have another of our own we'd look to adopt and give a child in desperate need a better shot at life.
The whole approval process took about a year and was quite harrowing at times but rightly so as you need to be prepared for what you might find. We were delighted to get our approval at the adoption panel and expected to be waiting a few months for a placement. We were assigned our social worker and she promised to catch up with us on a fortnightly basis.
The adoptive child had to be at least two years younger than our son (so he wouldn't be displaced as the senior child in the household) and we were 80% looking for a boy but didn't rule out girls. We specifically said all along that we didn't want a baby.
The social worker was a completely useless scatterbrain. For the first few months we'd constantly check the (secured) adoption websites and submit queries if there were potentially suitable matches for us but she didn't respond to a single email, text or phone call.
Another month or so passed and out of the blue we heard form her. She was off to a regional meeting where the various teams from the wider area compare case notes etc. "Great" we thought. There may be some positive news form this. We were really excited to receive an A4 envelope the following week with a few profiles in it. None of which were anywhere close to our criteria. Older sibling groups, a baby girl, one or two kids of completely different race (not a deal-breaker necessarily for us but given the bonding issues for looked after children it makes assimilation into a family much harder).
At this point, the wife was of the "sod it" opinion but having seen the profiles it reinvigorated me a bit and we agreed after an emotional conversation to get back on the pro-active search. Unfortunately this went the same way as before. Come the end of a twelve-month period with no further contact from our social worker we got a letter form her saying that we'd need to be re-approved at the panel and to apply for another date. Mrs. 1879 and I both firmly agreed to say "shove it up your arse".
We did hear of several other couples form our training process getting placements and without wanting to sound snobby about it, the social work team seemed more bothered about getting children for people who couldn't have their own kids rather than placing children in the best environments. For example we know of one couple who were both seriously overweight, lived in a small terrace with no garden in a crap part of town etc. but the social workers were much more pro-active in getting a child for them rather than us: both in reasonably senior jobs with a four bed house and decent garden in the catchment area for an Ofsted Excellent primary school and one of the best comprehensives in the country. I know how that may sound but the point I'm trying to make is that the child should be at the heart of the decision.
Had we know how it would all pan out we would've had another baby of our own but now we just take the view of saving the £800 a month nursery fees and other expense of a second child so we can go on amazing holidays every year with our son. So we're off to Disneyworld in five weeks' time.
Very sad state of affairs, but very common. We had placement requests sent to us, one was a 5 year old Kurdish kid, I jumped at it as I had some Kurdish language knowledge. The poor little bugger got placed at a home with 4 other kids, the husband thoughts on fostering were it's his wife's little social project and had nothing to do with him. I was gutted, but carried on, every other placement request was teen boys, I never got offered any child under 12, I asked our social worker if it was because I was male? She changed the subject. Mrs. 1879 and I have a 6-year-old son and thought (three years ago) that rather than have another of our own we'd look to adopt and give a child in desperate need a better shot at life.
The whole approval process took about a year and was quite harrowing at times but rightly so as you need to be prepared for what you might find. We were delighted to get our approval at the adoption panel and expected to be waiting a few months for a placement. We were assigned our social worker and she promised to catch up with us on a fortnightly basis.
The adoptive child had to be at least two years younger than our son (so he wouldn't be displaced as the senior child in the household) and we were 80% looking for a boy but didn't rule out girls. We specifically said all along that we didn't want a baby.
The social worker was a completely useless scatterbrain. For the first few months we'd constantly check the (secured) adoption websites and submit queries if there were potentially suitable matches for us but she didn't respond to a single email, text or phone call.
Another month or so passed and out of the blue we heard form her. She was off to a regional meeting where the various teams from the wider area compare case notes etc. "Great" we thought. There may be some positive news form this. We were really excited to receive an A4 envelope the following week with a few profiles in it. None of which were anywhere close to our criteria. Older sibling groups, a baby girl, one or two kids of completely different race (not a deal-breaker necessarily for us but given the bonding issues for looked after children it makes assimilation into a family much harder).
At this point, the wife was of the "sod it" opinion but having seen the profiles it reinvigorated me a bit and we agreed after an emotional conversation to get back on the pro-active search. Unfortunately this went the same way as before. Come the end of a twelve-month period with no further contact from our social worker we got a letter form her saying that we'd need to be re-approved at the panel and to apply for another date. Mrs. 1879 and I both firmly agreed to say "shove it up your arse".
We did hear of several other couples form our training process getting placements and without wanting to sound snobby about it, the social work team seemed more bothered about getting children for people who couldn't have their own kids rather than placing children in the best environments. For example we know of one couple who were both seriously overweight, lived in a small terrace with no garden in a crap part of town etc. but the social workers were much more pro-active in getting a child for them rather than us: both in reasonably senior jobs with a four bed house and decent garden in the catchment area for an Ofsted Excellent primary school and one of the best comprehensives in the country. I know how that may sound but the point I'm trying to make is that the child should be at the heart of the decision.
Had we know how it would all pan out we would've had another baby of our own but now we just take the view of saving the £800 a month nursery fees and other expense of a second child so we can go on amazing holidays every year with our son. So we're off to Disneyworld in five weeks' time.
It's a minefield from a personel perspective, we had to drive the SW's largely - I minuted all meetings, chased for updates on actions etc etc - basically I was PITA.
Some of them got the message and didn't over commit and just did stuff when they said they would, others... less so and needed help having their time prioritised by their managers.
When the outcomes are peoples lives, I didn't quite grasp why many of the did the job - de-motivated, disinterested and some plain insane placement suggestions too, we did however have a couple of top notch SW's without whom I'm not sure we'd have made it through the process.
Some of them got the message and didn't over commit and just did stuff when they said they would, others... less so and needed help having their time prioritised by their managers.
When the outcomes are peoples lives, I didn't quite grasp why many of the did the job - de-motivated, disinterested and some plain insane placement suggestions too, we did however have a couple of top notch SW's without whom I'm not sure we'd have made it through the process.
Edited by krisdelta on Monday 12th June 13:36
DRFC1879 said:
the social work team seemed more bothered about getting children for people who couldn't have their own kids rather than placing children in the best environments.
Nothing to do with those people more likely to want to adopt the child, and thus removing them from Social Services "payroll"?I can see where you're coming from but nobody would:
- Put their life on hold for the year it takes to get approved.
- Take time off work for interviews and training.
- Spend a fair bit of time and money getting the house up to top-notch health and safety standard e.g. Buying covers for all sockets, fire blankets etc.
- Spend ages creating a book to introduce kids to the family.
- Open up their lives to be examined and cross-examined in minute detail. Including opening up any relationship issues buried in the past.
- Have friends and family interviewed in detail.
- Spend hours in the company of people with dreadful taste in shoes
If they weren't serious about adopting.
- Put their life on hold for the year it takes to get approved.
- Take time off work for interviews and training.
- Spend a fair bit of time and money getting the house up to top-notch health and safety standard e.g. Buying covers for all sockets, fire blankets etc.
- Spend ages creating a book to introduce kids to the family.
- Open up their lives to be examined and cross-examined in minute detail. Including opening up any relationship issues buried in the past.
- Have friends and family interviewed in detail.
- Spend hours in the company of people with dreadful taste in shoes
If they weren't serious about adopting.
It's a pretty invasive process that's for sure and it's not something you can do lightly.
I think the matching is a bit of a dark art and we had some completely inappropriate "matches" hard sold to us, but a moments review showed they were simply desperate to get some "hard to adopt" children off their books, rather than us being a good match for their needs. Desperately sad for the children.
We had to do the research and enquiries ourselves, if we'd left our post-approval SW to it, we'd be nowhere by now.
I think the matching is a bit of a dark art and we had some completely inappropriate "matches" hard sold to us, but a moments review showed they were simply desperate to get some "hard to adopt" children off their books, rather than us being a good match for their needs. Desperately sad for the children.
We had to do the research and enquiries ourselves, if we'd left our post-approval SW to it, we'd be nowhere by now.
DRFC1879 said:
I can see where you're coming from but nobody would:
- Put their life on hold for the year it takes to get approved.
- Take time off work for interviews and training.
- Spend a fair bit of time and money getting the house up to top-notch health and safety standard e.g. Buying covers for all sockets, fire blankets etc.
- Spend ages creating a book to introduce kids to the family.
- Open up their lives to be examined and cross-examined in minute detail. Including opening up any relationship issues buried in the past.
- Have friends and family interviewed in detail.
- Spend hours in the company of people with dreadful taste in shoes
If they weren't serious about adopting.
But the majority, if not all that would have been done prior to fostering. Adoption means that fostering Allowance ends, as does all the other support.- Put their life on hold for the year it takes to get approved.
- Take time off work for interviews and training.
- Spend a fair bit of time and money getting the house up to top-notch health and safety standard e.g. Buying covers for all sockets, fire blankets etc.
- Spend ages creating a book to introduce kids to the family.
- Open up their lives to be examined and cross-examined in minute detail. Including opening up any relationship issues buried in the past.
- Have friends and family interviewed in detail.
- Spend hours in the company of people with dreadful taste in shoes
If they weren't serious about adopting.
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