Our lo moved in 6 weeks ago. Things have been very tough, but we knew we'd have some challenging behaviour to deal with.
We've just found out that our lo has been diagnosed as having severe learning difficulties but this has never been mentioned to us before... it's detailed in an Ed Psych report that was carried out in May last year but it wasn't in the lo's PAR, not in the pack of paperwork we were given, not in the medical advisers paperwork (the medical adviser never saw it) nowhere.
Now our lo has moved in and we've had our first LAC review, this report has just appeared. To explain, we have birth children, one of whom has autism so we said we couldn't cope with a child with severe difficulties. This was the opening line in our adopters profile.
At the review, the IRO said that if she'd seen our profile and held it up to our lo's, she would never had put us together.
There is a chance that our lo could grow up to become an adult with the mental ability of a 3 year old. I can't commit my birth daughter to be a lifelong carer for her adoptive sibling - this would be the situation when my husband and I have gone. She's only 12 - I can't map her life out like that.
We have been told we can complain, we have been sent the complaints procedure. The social services have said they will offer us counselling, training, support etc etc etc if we continue the placement.
I can't get my head around it. We said we wouldn't be able to cope with a child with severe difficulties and that is exactly what they have matched us with but hidden the damning evidence until it's too late!
We have to decide whether to continue with the placement or not. We have to try to explain to our children what is happening and try to explain to them the reasons why their new sibling might not be there any more.
I feel totally shell shocked, numb, sick, stressed out, can't sleep, can't eat.
My husband and I are coming to the opinion that our lo needs to be with someone who can devote all their time where we cannot.
How do you make such a huge decision and still carry on???
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Totally numb
59 replies
feelingdesolate · 13/05/2017 00:43
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