What do you do when your family aren't supportive?

[Spero]

I emailed my mum and dad a few weeks ago to say I was going to an adoption information meeting at the end of the month. I didn't think this was a big deal as they know it is something I have been thinking about for a few years now.

However I didn't hear anything back and I got a bit worried that something had happened to them as we usually email or talk on the phone about once a week (they are a two hour drive away),

My mum answered, I said was just calling to say hello as I hadn't heard from them in a while. She replied 'we were gobsmacked about the adoption email. I think it is completely ridiculous. We couldn't say anything nice so we didn't say anything at all. If you have another child we will not be able to see you again so we were practising what it felt like' !!

I was quite shocked as my parents are usually very sensible and level headed but this has obviously touched a very raw nerve. My mum used to work at a school with children who had serious needs and came from very deprived backgrounds and I think she believes that nature is everything, children from difficult backgrounds will simply cause chaos and it will be very damaging for my daughter.

I don't think I am naive about this, I work in child protection, I understand the issues and that I would be subject to a very careful assessment. if I had any doubts about my ability to cope or the impact on my daughter I would not go ahead. But I didn't expect my parents to react so negatively.

I don't want to upset them but nor do I not want to go ahead with something I have been seriously thinking about for years. My daughter is on board and seems interested and excited by the possibility of being a big sister.

Has anyone else had this kind of reaction from close family? How did you handle it?

I know that when we went to our info evening and prep course it was drummed into us that the expectation was 12 months off min for a school age child and preferably longer for a younger child. They highlighted the fact that preference for matching may be also down to time off work if they have had a number of suitable adopters - we have competitive matching here.

How much leave could you take and could you extend it if extra financial support was given? I only ask as our LA offer funding to support adopters who want to take a longer period off work but will struggle to do so. This is dependant on the child and your personal financial circumstances. Even though I have become a SAHM we are not egilible for extra support but I do know of other adopters who have been supported in this way as it is in the best interests of the child.

Also remember that they do make it very hard to progress to the next stage - at the beginning - as they want to know who is determined to see the process through and who could be wasting their time!

I hope that you are able to find the right LA/VA for you

contact adoption manager at bristol again and try the welsh side of the border (lots of agencies don't want to place children too close to their bio families) try South Glos (whatever has been said). Don;t be specific about how much adoption leave you'll take - you need to be flexible in reality. Just say you will take what you feel you need to.

(I'm a single adopter)

There is no way I can take a year off work unless someone is going to pay my mortgage. I can't imagine any LA would do that. But I could save up to take four months off and then my work is pretty much part time anyway as I am in court on average 3/4 times a week and often just for morning appointments. Paperwork, research etc I can do at home or in the evenings.

They haven't 'made it hard' for me to proceed to the next stage, they just told me 'no'! was I supposed to plead a bit more? I did try pointing out that I wasn't a 9-5 full time worker, I need my au pair for the odd occasion when I get stuck at court or when I have to get an early train. This happens about once a week.

I am struggling to accept that it is better for a child to be bumped from foster placement to foster placement than be adopted by someone who works. Yes, if there are loads of couples with one half at home full time out there in competition I appreciate they won't want to waste time on me, but I had always understood it was much harder to place older children because most adopters want the under twos.

Unless you areblack, there is quite a bit of competition for healthy children over 2. And many of these familes are prepared to take more time off work and /or afjust their working hours around a childs needs. So basically you will only get a child placed with you if they cant find a couple. Sorry to be so blunt but its a supply and demand situation. So that means a child with soem kind of special needs. Any school aged child available for afoption will probably have been neglected or abused and will have been in many placements.

Are you sure that your au pair is able and willijg to cope with challenging behaviour? And how will it affect an already traumatised child when she leaves? Sadly ,abused and neglcetd children often create havoc in their new homes in an effort to re create the chaos they are used to. They dont fit into your life the way a child born to you often does

Will you be able to get time off work for medical appointmenst, therapy, social worker meeting etc? Unfortunaely you are expected to fit aronnd them and not vice versa

Im sorry to sound so negative, but you need to think through all these issues, preferably befroe you approach another agency.

Good luck

Thanks kristina, I have already thought about these issues for many years. I have worked in child protection for 12 years now and read 100s of psychological reports. I do know about the issues. I do know it's hard. I do know adoption disruption rates are high and I don't want to put a child through anymore misery because I have some naive idea that love makes It all better.

I am just taken aback to be rejected after basically a 10 minute phone conversation, and no exploration of now I might be able to meet the challenge of working and caring for a probably very damaged child.

I hadn't realised there was such competition for school aged children, I am always being given very gloomy prognosis at court by SW about their chances of placing the over fives, and as for over sevens they seem to give up.

If there is competition then I quite understand why a couple with one half at home is the better option. I guess I am just stung by the way they handled it. Why invite me to this bloody meeting at all???

Ps au pair wants to train as a social worker and has just been accepted for training as volunteer family support worker with (irony) Action for Children! But they didn't want to explore that either.

Sorry, im not defending how the agency acted, was just trying to indicate the kinds of things you might be asked. Thats great that you have alreday thought through soem of thes e thijgs. Im sorry you didnt get to have a converstaion about it with the agency.

I dont think you are naive or that you belive love will fix it. But knowing about the issues is not the same as living with abuse 24/7. A child who has been abused will bring that into your home, one way or another ( not nessarily as a perpetrator). Its not the same as reading reports in the safely of an office, lookig at photographs, interviewing a child or visiting offenders accompanied by a SW.

Reading that a child smears is not the same as having to scrape sh*t off your walls and carpet and scrub the placd with detol befroe you go to work. Understanding why they do it will onnly make your slightly less angry and wont pay for the new firniture or carpet. It wont help you when the childs SW/teacher calls you to say that your child is scared to come home becauase you were so angry that they spilled soem juice on the carpet they you ripped it all up. You will still want to slap the therapist who raises her eyebrows when you tell her about it and asks " are you sure? Shes never doen anything like that here". And the SW who enquires " what did you do to make her so angry? That must have been very upsettijg for her!"

Its living with YOUr feelings about the abuse, having to deal politely with and speak respectfully about the personwho abused YOUR child, working out how to keep your first child safe, dealing with the complaints from other parenst and the school, accpeting that your child cannot take part in many of the activities that most parenst take for granted. Its taking time off work for therapy and having a new role as the parenst of a special needs child. Its knowing that if, at any time, your child makes an allegation about you, they and your older chuld are at risk. Its living every day with the consequences of that abuse, knowing that your child and your whole family have been scarred for life.

And its worse if you " know about the issues" becaus you are not even allowed to get angry about it ( for all the reasons you have alreday posted)

Truly, its not a lot like working in child protection, any more than working in a childrens hosoital is the same as watching your own child die.

Bloody hell Kristina, they told us at the meeting that we would get support, very experienced team etc so I can only hope that the SW who said that was very inexperienced and naive. What a stupid, infuriating thing to say. And the therapist! It must be very hard to cope with your child's unhappiness and distress without someone then suggesting you as the cause.

You are completely right, knowing the theory does not prepare you for the practice and I do know this. But I thought it got me a bit further down the line in terms of understanding - the information meeting was mainly about emphasising that older children were highly likely to have some kind of developmental delay and you wouldn't necessarily know how that would pan out in later life. It was mostly things I already know.

I just feel sad that they wouldn't let me get to that stage where they assess my ability to cope with all the challenges as they appear to operate a blanket ban, without exploration.

But thank you for sharing. I don't think it helps anyone to sugar coat the potential problems. It is not a mystery to me why adoption disruption rates are so high if your experience of post adoption 'support' is typical. I hope it's not.

I would try the council (South Gloc?) anyway, and any other voluntary agencies you are in the area of. Barnados have a South West team www.cvaa.org.uk/adopters/vaasearch.php?id=161 so if you live in that area you could enquire. Also this agency www.cvaa.org.uk/adopters/vaasearch.php?id=129 in Bristol. Try everyhwere you can

I think it's harder for you than me, as you already have a daughter and paying off a mortgage. When I adopted first time, I had the money to take between 6 months- 1 year off, and didn't have to provide for any other children, I rented cheaply as well. My LA wanted 6 months off for all children at minimum. I suspect this might be a problem for you with more agencies

For me, I originally planned for up to a year off, but from about 9 months onwards I realised DD1 wouldn't cope if I went back full time. I managed to go back on part time for about a year, then DD1's issues got worse. In the end I gave up work. As Kristina said, I had appointments with a counsellor, with post adoption service, with doctors, DD's therapy sessions, with school and then the unexpected appointments with A&E that DD was so fond of !! They all happened when I was supposed to be working, and I couldn't fit them around work. DD was too high needs for any childminders or after school clubs etc

When DD was about 15 I finally went back. It was part time, and I stayed for about 3 years, until I adopted DD2, then went off again. Same situation with DD2 as DD1, except even more appointments than last time! Plus DD2's mainstream school were crap, and kept calling me in (she's a nightmare, take her home, we can't cope blah blah blah). Stayed out of work until after DS came home. So about 2008/2009 ish I went back part time, and have been ever since. I still can't work full time.

Financially, it really isn't easy. We scraped by when I was out off work, we manage fine when I am working, but we don't really have any luxuries

Most single adopters I know, have managed to continue working though. Usually they take 6 months to a year off, then have managed part time at least, some are back full time. So I think you should be able to return to work, it's a smaller group who don't. The adoption process will take a while, is there any way you could save for an extra month or two months in that time period?

Thanks very much for those links, I have found this thread really helpful as it has shown me I have been naive about the time off issue, it is silly to assume I can just take four months off. I will have to save so that I can realistically not work at all for six months and then maybe part time for another six.

I think I was panicking a bit about the age issue but I should be ok as I was told that as long as there is no more than 40 years between child's age and adopter you could still be approved. So I have a few more years to sort out my plan of action and to show I properly thought through all the difficulties.

Thank you very much everyone who took the time to respond. I am really surprised that the agency didn't mention on line support as a possible resource, it is amazing that in such a short time and so easily I have been given so much useful perspective.

I don't think you need to panic about age. I know of a couple both aged early 50's, who adopted a 1 year old :) I think you need to be aware of the two year (minimum) age gap rule between your youngest child and new adopted child. If your DD is 7 when you get approved, you won't be able to adopt a child who is older than 5. So if you want an age range of about 4-6, your DD would need to be about 8 when you are approved. Your age range can shift, you don't have to pick a range and stick to it! So you can start with a range of 4-6, then if your DD were to turn 9, you could go up to 4-7 and so on. It's flexible

I think online support is great as well. Stick around!

You could contact other agencies and hopefully get invited to an open evening or meeting with them, and then decide whether to go ahead now or wait a couple more years. I guess it fully depends on the financial situation, your DD's age, and who is taking on adopters at the moment

I actually think that if you can feasibly take on a child aged at least 4 or 5, then you are likely to find most agencies will be pleased. I think Kristina possible overstimates the amount of competition for older children, although I recognise it does really depend on where you live. Most adopters still want aged 0-5, or 0-2, and if going for siblings, maybe 0-6 or 7 at a push. There are a lot of single children aged 4-7 around my area still waiting. It seems to me that there are more toddlers and babies in the system now than a few years ago, and more adopters are holding out for a young child

Just a few quick comments:

1. I was knocked back by Action for Children. Extremely rudely. Try someone else.

1. I have a friend who was back at her (extremely demanding) city job six months after adopting a toddler. But she has a black dp. And I don't know if she told the sw she intended to do this at the start. You might consider being a bit vaguer about your plans - while, as Kristina says, being brutally honest with YOURSELF about what you will do should the child need you at home longer.

1. Most adopters are in their 40s, according to my sw.

aaa

Sorry, hace been off line for a few days. Just for clarity, spero, i was giving an example of the types of issues that can face familiesadopting an older child with attachment problems, and trying to explain how having an intellectual knowledge of iissues is not the same as living with them. I wasnt talkig about my own child

Good luck with your plans

Hi Spero

Sorry to hear that your interest has not been received positively.
I am a single adopter and my local authority were very clear that if I wanted to adopt a child under 5 I needed to be able to afford to take a year off work and then return part time.
Have you read your employer's adoption policy to see what adoption pay you will be entitled to- assuming you work for local government (I work in a similar job to you) it is usually quite substantial.

I hope that you have more encouraging contact with another agency.