Hi everyone,
I haven't been on MN for ages, it feels a bit odd to be posting! Some might vaguely remember me, I posted about two years ago when we were thinking ahead a bit.
This below is very long, I'm sorry! But I feel that in matters of adoption you can't gloss over the complexities of individual situations. So thanks in advance to anyone who reads all this :)
So, our BS is now nearly 3, and we decided we'd look into things again. Just to find out what's what and to see if it was time yet to start putting things into motion; anticipating that all things adoption tend to take a long time.
Our motivation to adopt stems from feeling that we'd really like to be a family for a child who needs someone to give them a chance. Obviously part of it is that we would like to enlarge our family, but given that we don't place any importance on genetic links (I think the links created in lived relationships are much more important), and that we feel that there are probably too many human beings on this planet already, adoption seems like the natural thing to do. We very strongly considered adopting before we had our DBS, but were put off by what appeared to be a very scary process, and a certain lack of confidence too I guess.
Given where we were coming from, we always thought we'd very strongly consider adopting a child who was 'hard to place'. Particularly we thought we'd like to adopt an 'older' child. Then we found out that hard to place due to age is later than we had thought (it's a learning process!) and that age differences between birth children and AC are recommended to be as large as possible, so all of a sudden we found ourselves facing waiting until our son was 10, 11 years old to then adopt a maybe 5 or 6 yo.
That seems like a rather long time, and we thought we might perhaps in the mean time foster. It was through reading up on fostering that we came across 'concurrent planning' (CP). And well, all of a sudden we found ourselves considering adopting a baby, despite that having been the last thing on our minds initially! It's not because we 'want' a baby, but rather because it seems like the best thing from point of view of the child, and whereas it would be very hard for us, it would have the one benefit for us, of not having to wait another x years. Also we feel we would be well placed to do CP as we wouldn't have to worry about complications inherent with CP such as lack of adoption leave during the fostering time.
So we have got in touch with a few local authorities as well as with Coram who apparently have the most experience with CP. Just to say we are aware of the particular complexities involved with CP such as not knowing if the child will go back to birth family or stay with us, and the amount of contact involved, just to name a couple. But, we thought that now might actually be a good time to start things if we were indeed going to go for CP. Just thinking, let's say it's 18 months from starting out until placement, our DBS would be about 4 1/2, at school since 6 months, and the AC, at placement, would most likely be under 1, to as young as newborn, so the age difference would be at least 3 years, up to perhaps 4 1/2 years. Which seems reasonable.
Now the responses we have been getting have been markedly unenthusiastic. One LA won't even talk to us before our DBS is 'settled at school', independent of us going for CP or more traditional adoption. A couple of others have just said that as we have a young BC we should get in touch again later. Ok I was expecting a bit of that so not too disheartening. But what I'm finding a bit strange:
One LA we had a good chat on the phone, then I asked what age BC should be, in their opinion, when considering CP; the SW didn't have any experience, said she would find out and get back to me. That was over a week ago, nothing since. Another LA we had a long talk on the phone where the duty worker took lots of information, then said the manager would be in touch to set up a meeting - nothing since (was a week ago as well). Then, Coram I had high hopes for, they took 2 weeks to even reply to our first inquiry.
Is this normal? I thought agencies were supposed to reply to inquiries rather more quickly. Even if just to point you to an information evening or something. It feels a bit weird that we'd like to adopt and have thought about so many things but all we have managed to achieve until now are vague phone conversations.
Anyway, I would really appreciate any thoughts, pointers, things you think we should consider!
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
Here are some suggested organisations that offer expert advice on adoption.
Adoption
We're at the start of the process... any thoughts to help us think through things?
11 replies
Meita · 19/06/2013 19:12
OP posts:
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.