Court date questions /celebration hearing

[iwishkidslikedtomatoes]

Hi lovely people

We just got the paperwork today from the court with dates. I have questions which my SW will probably be able to answer but i'm an impatient soul and thought they'll be many on here who have had an AO granted who may be able to answer my questions. Therefore, if anyone can please help, I'd be very grateful.

The letter refers to an initial hearing, then the one to grant the final order.

I know BM intends to contest, while nothing has changed she wants to be able to say she did all she could to the last possible moment, which I respect (and am upset she's probably received paperwork this close to mothers day tbh ) . But my question is, if she applies to do this and the court doesn't grant her permission to appeal, as is expected by SS, does that mean the dates in the letter still remain the same and they would only change if a proper appeal had to be heard? I get so confused with this stuff. Also it says we don't have to attend, but do adopters attend or not?

If all is well with both we then obviously get the celebration hearing. How long after the hearing to grant the final AO does this tend to happen?

Thank you all in advance for any help you can give

We all tried hard to resist!

Well in the time I've been away pretty much all I would have said to reveal the sheer ignorance in that response has been said! Thank you!!!

The only point not mentioned.... I bet you do not know the mother or ever met her as this is not compliant with the adoption process.

I HAVE met the birth mother and she writes to me twice a year and I write to her twice a year. IF YOU KNEW THE FIRST THING ABOUT ADOPTION IN THE UK you would know that in many cases birth parents get the opportunity to meet adoptive parents and in nearly all cases without exception adoptive parents are obliged to have at least annual contact with birth parents regarding the children. Clearly you don't know even the basics.

Thanks for the links, I don't need them mind you. Not because I only know one side of a story, quite the opposite, I've already read them when first put on net because you are wrong that I just accept everything I'm told. I question, I research and I make myself fully informed, I'm a first class honours graduate with post grad qualifications, whose spent time in foster care myself, have friends who've been adopted, have friends who've had SS intervene in their family lives and not lose their children and have worked with vulnerable children.....I'm not a bloody nodding dog!

Also, if you could refrain from using language such as 'doing me a favour'. It's entirely inaccurate, ignorant and offensive both to me and my adopted children. You just implied that these children are being passed around to do people favours?!?!. For gods sake, think before you speak, or perhaps just not speaking about a topic you are clearly not at all informed about if that's possible, that is the only 'favour' I need.

Oh and here's another fact for you...68,840 children were in the care of local authorities on 31st March 2014, that year 5050 children were adopted, so you're looking at 63,790 children who weren't adopted because social workers are working with birth parents to ensure adoption is the last resort.

...Though as you don't seem to read my posts (the mother's day thing?!?) I don't know why I'm bothering. And you said your health visitor  did not seem to listen to my answers until she heard something that could be interpreted as something " alarming" from her point of view....hmmm...pots and kettles.

To all the lovely people to whom I first posted the original question I apologise for my rant.

In a moment there will be some thank yous coming, but first I need a cup of tea

unidentified, lilka, whatutalkinboutwillis, velvet, crackerjack and blossom (I hope that's everyone,) thank you all for your answers to original question, it has given me a bit more of an idea about it all with timeframes, what stuff means etc and I won't have answers from my SW until next week, so I've got it all sorted in my brain much more quickly. Thank you all, I really appreciate you taking the time!!

Blossom - congrats for yesterday!

myprecious My second response unfortunately not so dignified, shamefully sheer anger flooded over but I'm not going to sway from topic again, I think you're very much right there!!

Thanks to some very helpful people I/We have the answer...so topic officially (without any official mumsnet capacity to do so) closed!

Thank you :) I will :)

Iwishkids- Good luck with this part of the journey...

Good luck Iwishkidslikedtomatoes. Our application has also just gone in so waiting on dates now.

oooh good luck too velvet. The dates came through a lot quicker than I thought they would tbh, so hopefully you'll be getting something in the post quite soon :)

Ooh I hope so! Really want to start looking beyond all of the legalities as seem like it's been forever waiting for this hearing or that hearing as we were linked with little man before his IRH and final hearings! Really hoping we can squeeze it in before his first birthday in June!

Between send off date and first court hearing for us its 2 months 3 weeks, so if your court has similar waiting times to ours, that may just be possible!

For us we just wanted it all sorted before school start in September so LO has our surname as at mo it's 'X' known as 'tomatoes' on everything, so it's not just a couple of teachers who know, it's lots of people, I really want it to be the case that LO has a place where they can feel no different and it's their choice who they tell. We don't know really anyone in our school catchment but everyone else they've met obviously knows they're adopted, so the idea that each day they'll go off to school where they can be just little Joe bloggs (or rather Joe Tomatoes!) makes me happy for them. They've experienced so much more than they should by this time in their life and been involved in situations that no child should, they deserve that

Ah yes agree that would be great for them. Good luck.x

IWISH- My kids have been known as our surname at school. School books, SIMS the whole thing. I now work at their school and some teachers are surprised when I talk about them being adopted.

So if you don't get their in time they can be known as your surname and only on official official records be known as their birth name.

I hope that make sense.

some poor grammar in that post- sorry

Oh I do hope so Blossom. The nursery said they would do this, but what's in the sign in book at the entrance...surname X with tomatoes in brackets! Also our doctors surgery, where school catchment children go, calls patients on a big screen and they say they can only do it by old surname until it is changed. It's so annoying! It's not some big secret to them, it's in their life story books but it's all about their privacy again, I did try to explaining that to the doctors but nope, no flexibility :(

And don't worry about poor grammar, mine is always terrible, my use of the English language is generally tbh and I type so fast I'm the typo queen lol!

p.s. *explain

The doctors really have no choice- but school can be flexible.

Our GP displays their 'known as' name (I.e. Our surname, not birth parents), and we don't have an adoption order yet....

Yawn. Zombie thread animated by bollocks.

Hi, Think this is an old thread so no one may read this but I just had to say a little bit from my experiences of fostering; In most cases the parents do love their children, which makes it really sad. However, the horror stories I have heard are so awful and sadly loving a child doesn't automatically mean they can look after them and even worse, stop them from doing abhorrent things to them.
I have seen some poor social workers - not all but a fair few, but the background stories of the children are not fabricated. i wish they were. My eyes have been opened and the horror stories are widespread.