Trying to get my head round being a grandparent who has been treated so badly.

[Clake66]

After a shaky end to 2013 and a very traumatic 2014 to date. I thought I would spend some time trying to get my head round this adoption fiasco from my view point and try and get some information from Adopters to try and make me feel 'better' about my loss. Try and see what Adopters are writing about their experiences and it seems it is not as rosy as I had thought it would be. It seems that adopters can be left in a pickle too. Especially if they don't have support or dodgy SW to deal with. Adoption UK has not been very helpful as it seems I am from the wrong client group. the Grandparents assn I thought might be of more help but again they don't seem too friendly with forced adoptions. There but for the Grace of....
As a professional myself, RGN and ex SCM I found that the LA we dealt with were bordering on the criminal and needed an aggressive visit from the CQC. If I thought I dealt with patients like they did with us I would deserve to be struck off.
Loosing my grandchild through no fault of my own or my son and problems with the first letterbox to us has been chaos emotionally. I am not used to being written to with such 'ill feeling'. I am just hoping it was first letter nerves. We are trying to write a reply without being sarcastic and make things worse next time. There was no support for me and her Grandad throughout the whole of the SS proceedings. We felt like ships adrift with no hope. The first letter was a like a bombshell which left us wondering what the adopters had been told about us. Did they think we were monsters too?
We have no faith in the SS and we has hoped for some sort of comfort from the adopters. We thought they may understand or have had some training in how to help extended family who get letterbox. Is there anything anyone could suggest we try to break the ice, or do we just have to put up with what we get. I have no faith in the system that has treated us so badly and we had hoped for better from the people who will be looking after our grand child for the next 16 years. We are still waiting permission for getting photographs, so we can put them with our family ones in our new house. A house we had to move to during the guardianship fiasco which was doomed to fail we found out too late. Also is it allowed to write one to the adoptive parent and one to my Grandchild for when they get older? How will I know if they are shown them? I have huge trust issues at the moment. I just need reassurances from people who are doing it. I cannot and never will be able to trust what the SS tell me.

I had some very interesting evidence from the Guardian in my case last week - he said if adopters did not understand the importance of post adoption contact for some children - and these were old enough to have strong bond with their mother - then they should not be approved as adopters.

But in this case we had a mother who was not contesting final care order as she accepted she could not care and she gave very powerful and moving evidence about how she would support her children's new placement.

I think these cases often go awry because the pain is so intense that it is easier for some social workers just to close the door, rather than try and work with birth families - particularly when birth families express their pain through anger and frustration.

Just have to find a way to deal with all this. Our son is going to speak to the 'new' social worker, he has to speak to who apparently leaves soon, no guarantee of what she may be persuaded to ask will be honoured once she leaves. If only I had the patience I have tons of from work, in my personal life, when dealing with people who do not have a clue as to how they have destroyed our lives. Washing my hair, this morning, listening to the radio, the Kelly Clarkson song 'Because of You' sums it up nicely if you replace the word You with Them. Them being SS.

Your final paragraph hit a nerve, about anger and frustration. I often wondered from my own experience if I was dealing with human beings when I was asking for advice and answers. There was a piece a week or so back on the BBC news about SW training being too academic, but also the students were under qualified for the course. Students with very few 'life skills' going on to make, once qualified to practice such important decisions. There is no guarantee that their supervisors are any more qualified to make these decisions either. If unlucky enough to get one who tars everyone with the same brush, what hope for any supervised, in care or potential adopted child. I would like to hope nationwide things are better than they are in my current county. The Nhs is no better with such young nurses in wanna be Doctor roles, simply because they have a degree.