Advice please on 1st visit with social worker

[Broodymomma]

Oh my nerves are kicking in. We made our initial enquiry regarding adoption 3 weeks ago and we have a social worker coming to see us on Friday at home. All we know is she will be here for 2hrs but we have no idea what to expect or what she will talk about at this visit. I am so nervous and have been cleaning since Sunday!!! Any advice on what to expect would be appreciated. Thanks

Ha - what to wear for a first interview is a doddle. Wait until you have to decide what to wear for panel. Brain meltdown.

Not to mention the childs SW! The person who will be a big part of the decision to match you with the child you've read about and imagined in your life for weeks..... Kew didn't have that pleasure

Oh and matching panel

I'm really not helping here

Good luck broody, I'm sure it will be fine!

on the other hand Lilka I had to go to court twice and once in a foreign language and -20 degrees.

What do you wear to court at -20 degrees?

a warm coat

Actually you don;t really because though it is -20 outside inside is about +30 as everything is heated by hair water pipes supplied from teh central hot water plant.

So you wear layers which you can peel off as you warm up then over heat. I wore a lot of Tshirts (though not in court)

It's onion dressing.

5 mins till she is due I am going to throw up!!!

And breath...... It went very well. She was open and honest about the fact of the children's backgrounds and went heavily into infertility and what brought us to this point. She seemed happy with our answers and talked a lot about our ds. We have been invited to join the prep course in August and after that if they are happy with us and we want to proceed they will ask us to apply officially. She never left the living room or had a tea and biscuit after all of that ha ha!!
Oh I will be having a large wine tonight that's for sure. Thanks to all of you for responding to my post am looking forward to getting to know you all.

Oh one question.... I was engaged prior to dh as a very silly naive young girl and it did not end well. They have said they will want to talk
To any significant previous partners who either of us lived with. Anyone had to approach an ex they had not spoken to since she walked out???

Wow let me think would have been 1996-1998. I was very young and daft but did buy a house and get engaged to him for 8 weeks. She said they would check our backround from age 16 and any significant partner we had lived with would be spoken too. Just hate the thought he could jepordise this for me when I have not seen the guy in 13 years and he has no idea who I am now as a person. Just don't want to lie for them to find out anyway.

Ha ha no nothing like that I was just too young to be in the situation I was in and pretty much broke his heart he was 8 years older and ready for marriage etc I wasn't and I left him. He was actually a lovely guy and as am now older and wiser have regretted how I hurt him but as I say I was young and should never have got in so deep I was just not in a good place at the time was was insecure and desperate to be loved but he was not the right person though a very lovely guy. I do not keep in touch with anyone from his circle and have not spoken to him in a very long time. I found him on Facebook today but have not done anything about contacting him I will wait till I have to.

Oh and to answer the question about why the social worker told me there was a case where a child was murdered by her adoptive father and had they spoken to his previous partner they would have found out he was extremely violent and the child would not have been placed there. She said it is now law that they talk to anyone that you previously had a serious relationship with.

Glad to hear the session went well. Even though she didn't touch the biscuits!

On the partner, did you live together? If so, I guess you have to declare him, but be clear that you have no contact with him now and no way of getting in touch. Let them do the running if they really do want to track him down. If you didn't live together, he'll come up as part of the various conversations you will have with SW, but shouldn't need to provide a reference.

Broodymomma, yes they are supposed to ask about previous partners. But they can exercise common sense. I was with someone for a decade for getting together with dp, nearly two decades ago now. She is actually still a friend and I would have been happy for them to speak to her, but they didn't bother.

Anyway, huge congratulations on getting through the first step. [whispers: no guarantees, obviously, but they don't bother putting you on prep course unless they're fairly confident you'll make the grade. The odds have just shifted in your favour )

I think they have to make enquiries but there isn't a legal obligation to speak to the person - they can use their judgement. Just give them the last address you had for him and him name and don't worry about it, they won;t worry about what he says too much unless he says "actually she murdered my dog and tortures cat as a hobby"

My ex was living in Tashkent (Uzbekistan) at the time of my home study and I happily volunteered him. Surprisingly they didn't bother! Mind you they didn't even send him a letter or email which surprised me, so they don;t try very hard

Congratulations - first hurdle over.

Thanks everyone I feel elated today. I thought they put everyone to prep course so glad that's not the case and we must have ticked some boxes today.

So re the ex I think what i will do nearer the time is send him a message on fb being friendly and detailing they may be in touch and I hope all is well with him etc then take your advice with the social work and just say I have no contact details for him now and leave it to them.there is no reason for me to worry I never killed our cat it is purring at my feet at the moment!! Just concerned he may hold bitterness towards me and dh as there may have been a slight crossover if you know what I mean! As I said I was young and in the wrong relationship and dh came along and it all fell into place. Just worried he will take a chance for payback but hey is years down the line and with the looks fog his Facebook he is happily married now himself.

I keep thinking that is we do get a child then they are actually alive out there now in a foster home probably I keep trying to picture what he or she will be like. It's going to be a long year!!

Well done Broodymamma.

OMG - I remember the first SW visit so well! I scrubbed the house from top to bottom, I was paranoid the house was too small, I was scared the neighbours where going to put their music up high again....at the time I wrote all the worried down in my diary ..but the good news is, it was all unfounded, everything was fine and we adopted our DD from China back in 2005 - she is now 7 years old! Oh, one bit of advice - don't make it too tidy as I have since learnt that they actually prefer a "lived in look" as that's what its going to look like when you have a kid around!

re exes - I gave them details but none of them were contacted if that sets your mind at rest!