Wanted: A Family of My Own - Episode 1 tonight

[Lilka]

At 9.00PM on ITV

From their website:

Dan and Ania from the south coast have applied to adopt. Originally from Poland, Ania met Dan 10 years ago when she came to the UK to work. Dan has two older daughters but the couple want a child of their own. Will they find a baby?

Also in this episode, we meet a baby living with foster carers. He desperately needs a family to love and give him a permanent home. His birthparents have struggled with mental illness for many years and can’t take care of him. Will his social worker be able to find the right family for him?

My only comment is that I wish one of these programs would actually follow up or do something about post adoption. Looks like this also is only interested in up until moving in day. Oh well. I hope it's a good program. Again, I hope there's no "let's judge/bash potential adopters because of their matching criteria"

Sorry, I just read that back and it came out wrong. I meant saddened that people would not choose to adopt him given his history.

candy as someone who was brought up by a mother with psychosis, I wouldn't have adopted Joshua.

Side note - I kept thinking "Nicky please stop saying that they can't have a child of their own, pleaaase"

Me too.

Other than that, I thought it was one of the better recent programmes on adoption (at least from the POV of how adopters were represented).

candy I lived in the same house as my aunt who has schizophrenia, and helped look after her children/my cousins. I think it is as with everything else: Some prospective adopters will be more ok with it and some less. I personally would be more ok (as it would still be a RISK rather than a GIVEN, and though the risk is vastly increased if both birth parents suffered, there is still a good chance that the child will not; for me, there is a difference between adopting a child with a known, given 'condition' and adopting a child with a risk for a condition, even if that risk is a lot higher than in the average population) but DP is less ok with it. Just because Joshua will be the perfect match for someone, doesn't mean that he would be a good match for everyone.

Yes MrsBW I agree, I could relate to how adopters were represented and found it quite accurate from that perspective. With the exception of how they went through the tick list; but I strongly suspect that was staged for the camera. I think maybe they discussed it all beforehand and then 'summarised' it for the camera?

i "enjoyed" this one.. if that is the right phrase... gosh.. I felt so emotional watching the 'panel' approval... I remember being terrified... it also brought it home to me that our LO was profiled at activity days... everyone who read her CPR backed away...

Yes... aimed much more at adopters - not at the children.. fantastic FCs for 'Joshua'...

Its 2 years today since we first met our LO... emotional day all round!!

We went through the tick list in the same way as they did in the programme. I think it had been left for us to think about beforehand for about a week.

I'm not judging anyone btw regarding prospective adopters not wanting little Joshua, just my personal feelings about how sad I feel regarding the portrayal of schizophrenia.

Oh yes, of course. Just to clarify, I have no doubt that all adopters say yes or no to certain things with the child's best interests at heart.

Lilka TOTALLY - Side note - I kept thinking "Nicky please stop saying that they can't have a child of their own, pleaaase" Especially as the programme was called 'Wanted a family of my own.' So the family are the 'own' family for the child but the child is not the own child for the adoptive parents! How does that work.

Felt it was all handled very well.

Adoption should not be anything to be ashamed about so I don';t feel it was wrong to reveal people's identifies but I do agree medical facts should be kept secret/anonymous. I think this is a kind of follow on of what we (some of us) were talking about after 15,000 kids etc.

And it did not in any way spoil it for children's identities to be kept secret.

I liked the way it was handled but I also felt a bit like it focused on babies! So great that one family were set on a girl and adopted a boy! That was me, quite fixed wanting a girl but ended up with a boy, who is adorable I am sure.

youwish, you asked.... Don't understand why they would tell the older children that the people there are hoping to adopt?couldn't they just leave it at "id only a fun day"??seems unfair to the children :-(

The reality for children in the looked after system is that they know they are not living with their 'forever family' and they know they are not going back to birth family, once that is all decided. So for children of any age who are concious of these facts it would be a reality and they would be meeting with social workers or family finders etc and the reality that people are looking for a family for them would be a factor in their lives. It only seems fair if an event has been organised that will assist this that they should know.

I was very negative about activity days when I first heard of them and then read up a lot on line and watched the lovely 'Finding Mum and Dad' and spoke on line and in real life to adults who had attended them, both prospective adopters and foster cares. The message that resonates loudly from those I have spoken to is that it is very stressful/emotional etc for the adults. The kids on the whole have a fun day out and enjoy it. The women in the documentary tonight said something like 'I expected the kids would not be able to enjoy it but it was the total opposite.

So in light of all these things I do feel it is fair for kids to know who the other adults are in the room. It may cause some distress but I think lying to them about who is there might end up being more stressful. As someone on Finding Mum and dad said, there is a risk, but if they do not attend adoption activity days then there is a risk they will never find their own family. I think telling the older ones just had to be part of it but I am sure the little ones did not know. I wonder at what age they are told? Does anyone know?

I can see I'm going against the grain here, but it feels very wrong to me that prospective adopters have so much say I'm who they will/won't adopt. I think the system should an set up to find families for children, not children for families. Nobody 'thinks' they would cope with additional needs, difficult backgrounds etc.

It just feels very wrong that the children who need love most are missing out.

Personally I don't think prospectiv parents should have the right to say no, BUT extensive evaluation should take place of the family to ensure the right match for the child. And plenty of support provided post adoption. With the enough support in place anyone could cope.

Apologies if this upsets anyone. I can see it goes against what others are saying, but then feel really strongly the focus should change to helping the children to find homes and providing support for families.

I don't find that upsetting, just misjudged.

Unfortunately, there isn't the support available. We have a DD without any SN at present, but trying to get any support for other issues like mailbox contact is hard, never mind anything more serious.

We stated what we could cope with. DH and I felt differently, but we went with a consensus. Imagine having a child placed with us, and having issues, whether medical, learning disabilities, background, that we simply could not cope with. Imagine then, that the adoption breaks down, or the family splits up. How much more damaging would that be for the child? Or imagine that the child needs me to be at home, and we couldn't afford that? What would happen then?

I feel, having spent 8 years with no control over my fertility, and then over the adoption process, that I can have some control over my future child.

Biscuitfreak, the emphasis is definitely on finding families for children and not the other way round. It's for that reason that prospective adopters are asked to think carefully about the issues they could or could not cope with.

For example, some children, for various reasons, will need one parent to be at home for the foreseeable future but not all adopters will have the financial flexibility to offer that. Some adopters may not feel they could offer the level of support a child who was sexually abused would need. Maybe they have BC already to think about - SWs can assess forever and a day, but only the parents really know what their existing family could cope with.

Prospective adopters situations are many and varied, and though I think I see what you mean with the idea that 'anyone could cope with enough support', the reality is much more complicated. There just isn't money around to offer endless support apart from anything else!

But,Italian,wont the kids then feel refused by all the adults in the room? Wont it be damaging for their self-esteem?

biscuitfreak adoptions today are unlike that of the 50's, 60's, 70's. Our children have been abused, neglected etc and sometimes this is due undiagnosed mental health issues. Why should I not choose? Are you trying to imply, that because some (not all) choose to be adoptive parents because of fertility issues etc; that we should be satisfied with any child? The answer is no. I know what I could/can cope with, in addition to all the other stuff that goes with adoption. For instance, parenting therapeutically, explaining in an age appropriate way the horrific early life my AD experienced.

Hi biscuit - like the previous posters, I think to understand the choices adopters are making, you have to think about the impact of certain issues on your own family. So, how would you cope with a child with sexualised behaviour if you have other vulnerable children in your home / family. Or the impact of serious medical issues on your finances - can you afford for one parent to leave work permenantly? It's because the importance of a good match on the children's needs that the ability to be a good parent to a myriad of issues is scrutinised. I know birth families who have imploded under the pressure of serious issues with a child's health/wellbeing and another who made a heartbreaking decision not to continue a pregnancy for a similar reason. A breakdown with an adopted child would be catastrophic if the family couldn't cope or didn't have the skill set to manage.
For my part, our choices have been around things like the ability to cope with a child with severe developmental difficulties that require me to administer medical support and deal with rage behaviours that won't disappear once they are placed and we haven't made those choices lightly. Our decisions came down to me being able to leave work permanently and still keep a roof over us, how I can deal with a myriad of medical conditions and how regular physical violence towards me and others might impact on smaller children who are regularly in our home. If I didn't have the ability to make these choices honestly and carefully, I wouldn't have chosen to adopt.

youwish, I thought that too. but then I realised that children who don't go to activity days, may well feel that they are being rejected by the whole world. Their SW has been searching for a family for them for a year or more already and not found anyone... to a child that may well feel like noone in the whole world wants them. Whereas a room full of maybe 20 prospective adopters - that's just 'ok these 20, they don't want me, but among the next 20, there may be one who does'

biscuit would you rather that these vulnerable children then spend the rest of their lives with families who resent them and feel bitter against them, rather with a family who chose them?
If there was so much support available, and ANYONE can do it with the right support, why not throw that support at the birth family rather than the adopters?

biscuit, just saying, many of these very 'undesirable' children DO get adopted. It's not like you have to make someone adopt them.

Biscuit, I can promise you that the emphasis is very firmly on families for children - in fact, I'm laughing here at the thought of adoption as a big supermarket where you wander round taking your pick of the cuties. I ME the choice you get is largely the right to say no. I was approved for a mixed race child - generally considered harder to place - but in the ten months after being approved I must have made enquiries about dozens of children. Mostly the social workers ignored me (they do a lot of this, with the justification that they are there to find families for children not children for families). I saw further details of about twenty children. I asked to be considered for most of them. I was offered a match with two children, one of which I said yes to. It's interesting that these programmes never show the long long months of waiting and searching and being ignored and dismissed by social workers - it gives a very misleading impression of the true dynamics of the process.

I was not offered a choice of children with no problems versus children with problems. ALL these children had problems. Like our - I couldn't have adopted without the right to say no. I had another child to consider and I have to work. It would be ludicrously irresponsible to just hand over my entire life to social workers.

As for everyone being able to cope if they get the right support: well, maybe or maybe not. But it's hypothetical because that level of support simply isn't there.