Thank you, I appreciate your graciousness. I adopted two ‘healthy’ babies. The first came to me at Preston’s age with no known health needs, and very limited information from our then LA. As a grown woman now, she has the following health needs and diagnoses: registered blind, ADHD, ASD, PDA, personality disorder, neonatal abstinence syndrome and probably foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, plus a very rare autoimmune disease that requires weekly chemotherapy. Only the autoimmune disease was not caused by her in utero exposure to drugs, alcohol, poor nutrition, homelessness, chaos and multigenerational dysfunction. My second child, who came to me at 12-hours-old, is ‘only’ diagnosed with autism, ADHD and a sleep disorder that is medicated by a CAMHS psychiatrist. Both ‘healthy’ babies. I’m speculating (a lot) here but Sarah Davey, Preston’s birth mother looks extremely vulnerable to me and has apparently been in and out of prison for breaching the terms of her licence many times. I am reading between the lines but it is entirely possible that Preston did not have the best in utero experience either. Many of these difficulties do not become apparent in the very early years, but usually when children start school. There is a school of thought in the adoption world that with older children what you see is what you get, in very crude terms. Babies are not the blank slate who will not ‘remember’ and will grow up fine if only you can give them a stable and nurturing home. Love quite simply is not enough. These are society’s most vulnerable children by virtue of the fact that the family court has legally severed them from their family of origin. My eldest child spent her first days in withdrawal in SCBU and then had two foster families before she was a month old. I always ask people to try to imagine their own child in these situations and then think about why ALL care-experienced have lifelong issues.
I can’t comment on the training that the pair completed but I can only assume that because it was through a government-approved regional adoption agency (so a consortium of the nearest LAs) that they were properly vetted. There is no short-cut or fast-track route through the adoption approval process (even for the gays! Sorry, couldn’t resist.). It’s a highly intensive, highly intrusive process that takes over every aspect of your life, from examining your bank statements to contacting your exes for a reference, to interviewing your friends and family, to poring over your medical records, having to pay for a full physical medical and having health and safety checks on your home. Plus, there’s now a requirement for prospectives to commit to a lengthy period of volunteering with children, so in say, Brownie packs or Cubs - even for social workers and teachers. The ONLY thing I have taken away from all of the threads on here over the past few days that I would recommend to Josh MacAlister, the children’s minister so responsible for fostering and adoption, would be full evaluations by qualified and independent psychologists.