15,000 Kids and Counting - Episode 2

[Lilka]

Tonight at 9.00 on Channel 4

The Search
This episode follows the search for adoptive parents for a two-year-old boy and a three and seven-year-old brother and sister

With the added challenges of having slightly older children, siblings and a child with possible health issues to place, the task for social workers Annette and Jackie is a massive one

With the future of these children in their hands and recently set government targets to meet, they struggle not to become emotionally involved as they strive to find adopters before time runs out

As a fostercarer we were told clearly that sitting on laps was forbidden for the male fostercarer. Females had to use common sense.

Our current placement has been with us 3 months and only this week made further disclosures. We have to be careful as this child could well have been sexually abused and we are working on the idea, that the child can say no to grown ups (as this is clearly an issue at the moment).

So whilst offering hugs, like we do for our own children, my husband cannot have the child sitting on his lap. However when the child has been upset I have comforted him sitting on my knee.

(Ps I don't like using the term the child but seemed weird saying he/she)

All our Adopted children are now Adults some with their own family's,
Still fostering though, with lots of positive out comes, more that 40 adopted into loving family's over the last 38 years,

italiangreyhound it was about 18months ago and south bucks council. My husband (although lovely) has a very senior job which means he works very long hours, you could say he is a bit of a workaholic. I am a sahm although we don't have any human children (4 cats, 1 dog).
The open day really focused on the face that the children would be VERY hard work, would bite or attack him, wouldn't want any male contact, we would be called to the school regarding problems etc. plus he would need to get some child experience (neither of us have any), so he'd need to find a scout group or something.
In reality, when he gets home from work (no earlier than 8pm) he wants his dinner, a glass of wine (we were told we'd probably not be allowed to have alcohol visible at home (we have very good friends who run gastro pubs in belgravia, so "sadly" alcohol is part of our lives) and to play with the animals and fall asleep. He wouldn't want a child kicking or biting him.
Plus, he wouldn't have time to join the scouts or anything.
I'm not saying he wouldn't prioritise adoption, but, being realistic, I would be putting in more effort than him (isn't this true of a lot of mothers?), but the council said it would need to be totally 50/50.

The council gave the impression that it would be a nightmare all of the time, the mum who came in to talk about her child, clearly was some kind of Saint, her poor boy was incredibly hard work, disabilities, behavioural issues, lots of contact with questionable birth relatives.

I guess he more than me came away with the feeling, that although we could offer a child (or sibling group) an amazing life (I know it's not all about money), we are both well educated (university), parents both still married, large house (all would have big bedrooms), I don't work and have the time and lots of love to give etc. we wouldn't really be right and best case scenario we'd end up with a child that we couldn't help and life would be a nightmare.

I'm fully aware life wouldn't be easy (I've read a lot, we've a friend with children who are now young adults that were adopted), but I think we've a lot to give, whereas dh really felt that they should have seen what a great option we would be and should have helped us work out how it could work rather than sort of throwing it in our faces.

I know you don't really see what those children are like or what they've gone through. But I watch all of these types of programmes and get really upset that they say that there are so many children and not enough adopters, as we really could be.

We did Ivf a few times (more than a year a go ) and I do think that someone should follow up and see if those people who didn't fall pregnant would like to adopt.

Sorry probably very garbled!

The - also older - foster carers of our DC had him calling them mummy and daddy, having already been calling his birth parents mummy and daddy before that. This caused issues for us and affected our bonding. Their story was that he started calling them that after contact with BPs stopped - nonsense IMO. He was 2 and when we referred to them by their first names he had no idea who we were talking about!

Oh and the other thing was we are white middle class, both 40 and we were told that there are very few white children without disabilities, we would be unlikely to have a child without disabilities.
We would be totally flexible on age and size if sibling group, but I don't think I could cope with a major disability. I don't need to have a baby.

Whereas the tv shows so far have only shown white children...

So the council people were far more interested in the minority people at the open day. Which (and I'm not racist or anti gay) was a bit frustrating!

My dh as we were leaving said, I've a 1st from uni, I earn £x, we live in a gorgeous house etc, but I'm not good enough to adopt.

It was really upsetting tbh!

Had a quiet smirk at the age for adoptive parents
1 was 63 DH 60 when our 8th adopted child was placed @ 3years old! The placing authority approached us as our LO had no responses to her profile, so sad but our good luck!

Although upsetting the programme is thought provoking. Do wonder if we were trying to adopt our first now would we have been accepted.

Lovely to see old fogeys like us still looking after young needy children!

I'm pretty sure that it used to be the case that you were only approved for the number of children and age range you specified, hence you needed to be reapproved if you changed your mind. But, the rules changed a few tears back and now your approval is a blanket approval for any number, any age, so if you go outside your stated preferences, it doesn't matter and you don't have to be reapproved. A then vs. now thing

Some interesting posts here.....very disappointed Lilka that you appear to be splitting hairs unnecessarily and accusing me of being "potentially offensive" - for saying "people unable to have their own children. I have always enjoyed your posts so was surprised at your post.

I actually stand by what I said because adopting a child is not your own child until the Adoption Order is made, and then YES of course he/she is every bit your own child and it would be offensive to make any distinction. I was actually talking about people considering adoption and so the hypothetical child was certainly not their own child.

Many years ago there used to be "direct placements" - usually babies (when many were available for adoption in the 50s 60s and early 70s) when babies/children were placed with adopters and got the Adoption Order more or less straight away - you got a signature from the birthmother and then the social worker went to the County Court and the Adoption Order was made. I did it several times and looking back it was so unfair as the birthparents had no rights at all. Mostly they were young "unmarried mothers" who had been forced into giving up their child for adoption because they had no means of supporting the child.

Also the "assessments" that were done on prospective adopters were very scant and were done by "adoption officers and health visitors" and so long as the home was clean and tidy and the garden well kept (I am serious.....) and the applicants talked about "teaching a child right from wrong" and a reference from the local Vicar or GP and all that was left to do was to go and pick up your baby from the "Home for Unmarried Mothers" and on the same day the mothers were given the bus fare to get back to their home town.

Sorry I am digressing.......

These days of course where the care plan is for adoption the LA make application to the Court at the final hearing for a Placement Order which if granted by the Judge essentially "frees the child for adoption" (used to be called a Freeing order) and the child is placed with foster carers until a suitable match is made.

Re: safer caring - I think that different LAs interpret this issue differently. I was the manager of a Fostering & Adoption Team for many years and we worked collaboratively as they were all very experienced and committed. We used to try to steer a "middle course" as far as safer caring was concerned and advise carers to be careful about this, because of the sexual abuse problem, but also because children could make allegations against carers (though being careful sadly didn't always prevent this happening).

Someone mentioned "targeting" a certain age range of adopters and "targeting" is problematic in my view, because people need to be motivated in the first place, and "targeting" smacks of "encouraging" and this is simply not on. Having said that of course attempts need to be made through whatever medium possible to attract foster carers and adopters, and sorry if this sounds like I'm the one splitting hairs now!

Some posters have mentioned being "put off" at the Introductory meeting and maybe in the prep groups. I would make no apology for telling people that fostering and adoption is not for the feint hearted and giving them as much information as possible. Yes we did point out all the negatives at these groups, because we needed people who could stick with it in spite of hearing the negatives. There would be little use in telling people everything was going to be ok and all a child needed was love etc...... we did say that there were rewards, but if they came that was a bonus. We always talked of the process being a "two way street" and whilst we were assessing them, they should be considering whether in fact fostering/adoption was going to be right for them and their family.

Finally (sorry I know I do long posts) this issue of Tommy calling the carers "mum and dad" - obviously the carers were I'm sure coming to the end of their fostering career by virtue of their age and years ago it was quite common for fostered children to call the carers "mum and dad" and foster carers were known as "foster parents" - so they wouldn't have seen anything wrong in that - I smiled at the way they were encouraging Tommy to eat and again I think that is rather an old fashioned method......it didn't work with Tommy though! I suspect the LA were trying to encourage the carers to call an end to their fostering career. Also I agree with the poster (can't remember who) who was concerned about talking about Tommy potentially having FAS and clearly showing the identity of the child. I just think confidentiality is so important.

Do not be upset Karbea have experienced a cross section of all groups you mention being placed successfully . All with very positive outcomes
Its only a TV programme , also did an open day with LA prospective adopter's and Foster parents were of mainly minority groups. A very rewarding experience, I was there in an advisory role.

RE assessments years ago NanaNina I am not that old!!HA HA

Karbea, I could have written your post before we spoke to our agency. We're younger than you and your DH, but everything else is the same. He works hard - full-time job and runs a business too, I am a stay at home 'mum', we have a lovely house, we're well educated, white, middle class etc. Just ordinary people. I had heard all sorts of horror stories about how white professional couples weren't wanted to adopt, and having pets was a no-no (we have two large dogs) etc. However when I spoke to our agency none of that has even been mentioned, let alone a problem.

They love the fact that I am already at home full time - a lot of couples intend for one to give up work following placement of a child, but then find that financially they are unable to do so, or that they really dislike being at home full time. The fact that we are already living comfortably on one income means that I won't suddenly announce I am going back to work after all, and shows that I like being at home already and I'm not going to miss the things at work.

The stuff about it having to be 50/50 is total nonsense, and utterly unrealistic. It is in our PAR (the report that forms the basis of your assessment) that I will be main 'parent' as DH will be at work following his adoption leave. Our SW just needed to be sure that should DH need to take over childcare, he'd be able to. Which he would. Things happen, and people cope - they work from home for the day, or take a day off, or work late one night to make up etc. You work around it - which I am sure is the approach you would both take.

There are a lot of ethnic minority children waiting to be adopted, that's true, but there are also an awful lot of white children - they are the majority by far.

Our education has been a slight issue (issue is over egging it but I don't know how else to describe it). We had to write a short statement about how we wouldn't push our child/ren into following our paths, and would be able to support them through any problems at school and learning difficulties. Our SW said that we just need to prevent anyone assuming that we'd be pushing our child to pursue an educational route that they wouldn't be suited to.

Basically, what I am saying is the agency you spoke to were clearly nuts. I would find out which other agencies you could apply to and then ring and speak to them. Our SW has said that we are really desirable as prospective adopters for a lot of the reasons that the agency you spoke to said you weren't. We spoke to our local LA who dismissed us out of hand because we were too young for the age ranges of children they had waiting for homes, another was really dismissive and quite rude about lots of things, so we looked about a bit more and found the one we're with and we have had no problems at all.

I hope that helps, and good luck!

White children make up the vast majority of waiting children and over 80% of adoptions. Obviously it depends on area and some councils and boroughs have more ethnic minority children than others (whereas some rural councils will have almost no ethnic minority children at all)

So the idea that there are no white children who don't have significant physical disabilities is absolute rubbish

But some open evenings are clearly designed to present a skewed view of adoption which is not actually accurate. Of course many adopted children have emotional needs that other children do not have, maybe social and behavioural needs too, but you can tell people this in a much better way imho.

This is going to look like "tit for tat" Lilka and I hope you know me well enough to know that is not what I'm about, but I have to comment on your post that "some open evenings are clearly designed to present a skewed view of adoption which is not totally accurate" - I would absolutely disagree. An awful lot of "behind the scenes" work goes into the planning of Open Evenings and Preparation Groups (and whilst social workers are still carrying their own caseload) so why would they be clearly designed to present a skewed view of adoption? I have spent many years in working together with others to plan these groups so that we ensure that prospective foster carers/adopters do realise that all of the children will have some problems to a greater or lesser extent, and acquainting people with what they could expect. We also got in experienced foster carers/adopters to talk to the prep groups about their own experiences with children who have been emotionally damaged by their pre-placement experiences. Just realised I mentioned all of this in a recent post, so will say no more.

I have known many people coming along to Introductory Evenings thinking that all a child needed was love and all would be well. We couldn't blame people for thinking this but we had to disabuse them of this for obvious reasons. Some people thought these children were orphans whose parents had been killed.........I could go on with many other examples but am trying to keep my posts shorter.

Social workers are like anyone else, some highly competent and caring, and some who would be better off in a different job, but I was fortunate enough to have a team of highly competent and caring social workers who put an enormous amount of effort into these Introductory meetings and prep groups, attempting to recruit people who would in the end make good carers/parents for the children, whose needs are of course at the heart of the matter. And the "proof of the pudding" was when these people attending the courses, got approved and provided a safe and loving home for children desperately in need of this kind of home. The county I worked in (admittedly a Shire county) so none of the problems of the inner cities, had an excellent reputation for its Family Placement Service.

Sadly this is no longer the case, as I hear from my ex colleagues and friends of the demise of children's services (and most other services provided by the LA) since this coalition took an axe to the budgets of all public services, in the quest to privatise them. It's beyond shocking. I must stop before I go on a political rant...........

NanaNina, I have to agree with Lilka about your use of ‘own children’ in your earlier post. Whilst legally that may be the case, this board isn’t the place for such terms. You can’t ask people to parent children as their own, but then say that they’re not their own until the AO - it’s just not fair. If until that point the parents are foster carers (both legally and in the general understanding of the term) why are the children referring to the parents as Mum and Dad (or any combination) and being told they are in their forever family?

No one adopting would be unaware of the legal significance of the pre-AO period and so you don’t need to remind anyone. However for the general masses it is important that the children and adoptive parents are seen as a real family, and that they allowed to feel as such. For people looking into adoption this fact is important. Adoption is hard and people make unthinking, ignorant and hurtful comments enough as it is without social workers piling in too.

As for no one putting people off deliberately that’s just not true. We spoke to one LA that said that unless we were prepared to adopt children in sibling groups above the age of 8 with serious issues we weren’t wanted as potential adopters. We were told that that was the case nationwide. That LA clearly wanted to put us off, and did so. Many LA’s seem to forget that their ‘patch’ is not representative of the whole country, or even the neighbouring LA’s. Just because your LA wasn’t like that (or you don’t think it was - adopters might say it was), doesn’t mean no LA is.

I don't feel the need to defend myself to you DD as I think your salient point is made in your phrase "without* social workers piling in and you will of course be anti social workers given your own experience, but just as LAs are different, so are social workers. I would also remind you that there will be posters on here who watched the TV programme and may stir their interest in adoption and they would be unaware of the "legal significance of the pre AO period."

Many LAs are only recruiting prospective adopters for older children, sibling groups and children with disabilities, as they have enough approved adopters already waiting for a match with younger children etc. LA budgets are heavily constrained and recruiting and putting on prep course is very costly in terms of social work time and therefore LAs can realistically only recruit carers for the "hard to place" children and whether this is "nationwide" is debateable but it is certainly the case for many LAs.

I don't think after a social work career spanning some 30 years that I need to be told "Adoption is hard............."

Do you mind if I ask if you have been approved by a neighbouring LA to your own and have a match or even a child placed. I understand if you don't want to answer.

I will respond more fully in a bit when I have the time, but I'm just going to say that - you know what would be very helpful for people to see on here, if they knew nothing about adoption? It would be helpful if they didn't see anybody perpetuating language like "own children" or "second best". Just saying

Karbea It sounds like you were really unlucky. We've a couple of exploratory conversations (one with LA, one with small voluntary agency) and gone to an info evening and they couldn't have been more encouraging (while being realistic about some stuff we knew and are planning anyway, like we have to move house!). It felt like a really positive experience, actually. If you're new to thinking about it, you might not know that you don't have to go via your own council - you can go anywhere (I think?) or to a voluntary agency.

We rang round about 5 LAs, all within one of the larger national consortia, when investigating options for our 2nd adoption. We were asking about adopting a baby under 1. All of them said "there may be a wait, but we never stop recruiting for adopters of children of any age".

But this was radically different to five years ago when we were looking into our first adoption. Only our own LA would look at us for an under-2 and they were snooty about our ages.

nananina i totally understand that they might not need people like my dh and I In our local area, but they would have known this when I answered the question sheet that I did over the phone (and I think I filled something in a posted it too), so why didn't they at that stage say they didn't need us?
Also surely if there are so many children in care, why don't the la's say we don't need you but xxx needs people just like you.

I might sit my dh down this weekend and have a chat about it again.

Does anyone know of an agency or la that would be interested in talking to us? We live in South Bucks.

Karbea how long ago was the open evening you went to? If it was a few years ago, you may find the agencies attitude different now

However I always would recommend looking at several agencies. If you live relatively near a county border, absutely look at the LA over the border. There are a couple of sites online where you can find voluntary agencies near you. I'll find them for you

Karbea The website First4Adoption has a "find an agency" search feature. On the main page, find an agency is on the topmost bar, in purple. You can search for all agency types near you

The baby comment in the introduction is taken out of context from last week's episode, where they are talking about a little boy where the birth mother did not come to the final contact and they were saying what a shame, oh well, he'll be alright - he'll find an adoptive family easily. Obviously more heartfelt/emotional than that but as a comment on its own, no.

I think the comment about "You can't sit on a foster carer's knee" was a misunderstanding by the little girl wasn't it? I mean surely children can cuddle their foster parents!

Karbea, my initial evening information group was also quite off putting - I felt quite under attack on a couple of occasions about maternity leave etc. However there are a couple of things to bear in mind:-

• they often seem to give you worst case scenarios. Your adopted child won't have all the scary behaviours but may have some. It's not a given that you will be bitten every night!
• You work with your social worker on what behaviours or issues you could cope with. You can decide together what will be something you can both deal with and you won't be shown profiles that go beyond that.

However, the main thing that they try to get across to you is the importance of focusing on the child's needs. There will be change to your lives and so they want you to explore that.

After our scary session, my husband and I decided to play "what if.." over a bottle of wine and start thinking about what we might need to do and why. When you break it down into chunks and think about how you would deal with it, it becomes manageable. So for example, could your husband spend less time at work I. Early evening but work after the child had gone to bed from home.