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Adoption

Here are some suggested organisations that offer expert advice on adoption.

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8 replies

Sjor · 27/02/2015 12:08

Hi, me and my husband have had a first meeting with sw and booked on the preparation course we filled the notification of interest forms etc. now two weeks on they sent me the notification of interest forms again! It's all very confusing and any hints tips and advice is greatly appreciated!

OP posts:
WereJamming · 27/02/2015 14:00

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64x32x24 · 27/02/2015 14:07

Hi and welcome!

Well in terms of advice, don't expect SWs to work/behave professionally. That way you may be positively surprised - some SWs are brilliant!

But even the brilliant ones struggle with big caseloads and lack of resources. So things like lost paperwork, pointless delays, doubling up of things that have already been done - par for the course.

Photocopy everything you send/give them. Keep your expectations low. Always expect things to take longer than you would expect in other contexts.

FWIW from when we sent our 'registration of interest' it took another 2.5 months to actually get 'registered'. (A while after we had sent it off, they came back to us saying that there had been some miscommunication and they wanted to repeat the initial home visit, so we waited for the SW to have time for us, then waited for the SW to write up the report, then waited for the report to be discussed in the team/seen by the team manager, then waited again for them to actually notify us of their decision.) Needless to say, we didn't make it onto the prep group that had been planned for us. Nor onto the next one.

But hey, these are annoying but very minor niggles, in the big picture

Good luck with this exciting, life-changing journey!

Sjor · 27/02/2015 15:46

Thanks for your replies, my LA is merging with the near by LA's to form one larger adoption team. Three merging into one and it seems at the moment no one really knows their jobs as the woman that did first visit has said she will be our SW as she will be moving to a matching team.

Seems the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

Just as an indication (as I know each case is so different) how long from first home visit to being approved?

OP posts:
MyPreciousRing · 27/02/2015 19:04

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64x32x24 · 27/02/2015 20:06

From officially starting, i.e. having our registration of interest accepted, to approval panel, it took us just under 6 months. Then another month until the decision maker letter arrived. And although we initially sent off the RoI form in September, it took until end of November until it was all sorted and 'the clock started ticking' so to say.

MyNameIsFled · 01/03/2015 13:29

Our initial enquiry was May 2014. Prep groups were July/August 2014. Started stage 2 in October 2014 and we are hoping to get a panel date for April 2015 (dependant on number of panel sittings with school holidays). We have found that some parts drag on and other parts are very quick. The way we view it is it takes months to fall pregnant then you have a 9 month wait for the baby so that adoption is following a similar preparation

Good luck OP

auntybookworm · 01/03/2015 16:21

From our first initial phone call to approval it took 7 months and up until now has felt very quick

UnderTheNameOfSanders · 02/03/2015 21:19

In our experience (a bit old now) SWs are rubbish with admin, but quite good at putting the children's best interests first.
Better than the other way around really.

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