Dropped By LA

[Melody01]

Our LA have said they will not be family finding for us anymore. Three years in after approval one intro child not ready for adoption it was agreed. Then recently pulled out with sibling boys as we were not given all info which was brought up at panel. LA denied all . Now saying we have not been prepared to accept unknown with cared for children which is simply untrue. What are our chances of going to another LA or VA? We feel we have so much to offer and have done so much towards this voluntary work etc...

Is it worth appealing to LA or Independent Board or just trying again somewhere else?? They said we could try somewhere else or foster but what are our chances?

I think it would be worth appealing

Thanks feelingoldandtired for your reply. Do you know of anyone who has successfully appealed and was it with the LA or Independent Board?

They have failed you massively here. I would be appealing and making a formal complaint about the department.

The difficulty with a formal complaint will be that while the authority may be criticised for how they have presented children to you for potential matching, the Ombudsman is unlikely to disagree with the decision to no longer family find for you, and the authority cannot be compelled to continue looking. By all means make a complaint but you may find it more productive to ask your LA for their perspective on whether you should try again via an alternative route.

Sent you private message luckylucky24

I agree with ginger.

Ask your LA about choosing an alternative agency.

I'd be tempted to go for the opposite to what your current one is. So of current is voluntary, go for county it local authorities or vice versa.

Do you any connection to any voluntary agency, eg, there are agencies for chiristians/Roman Catholic/army etc. My freids are a Christian family and we t through an RC agency (it may not exist anymore). There is a Christian one called something like Home for Good.

If you get to the stage of approaching any, I'd be totally honest in her s of what practically happeed.

But I might say I felt let down but also not moan a lot about the other agency.

Personally I'd couch it in terms of unfortunate events even if you feel they screwed up.

Can you say the age range of child you wish to adopt and whether you have birth children, please? You don't need to but this just may help you get better advice.

I don't think that our agency will support us with another agency. They were not at all supportive when we suggested it. They are not happy that we complained in our response to their report and we feel they had already decided that they would not continue with us when we went to panel review. They said we could go to another agency.

Melody if this is something you really want to do then you can only try with another agency. You could explain all the gory details or excuse it all as a clash of personalities, or somewhere in the middle.

I've heard before that complaining is a really unhelpful thing to do. I've said as much on here and have people say you should be able to complain. And of course you should. But it just sometimes makes things more difficult.

I think it is worth going to an information evening and just chatting to them and seeing how you come accross before saying you were dropped by your LA.

IMHO try and make sure you've worked through the issues' as you see them and can talk about it without getting upset or angry (as these won' bode well).

Please do not say which one but was it a local or county council or a voluntary agency you went with?

This is so tough, May I ask roughly how old you are and whether you already have kids?

I agree complaining is something we have never done (though had some good reasons) in the years we had been involved with our LA. We had to complain as it were or more like put our comments forward on the report they wrote about us and what happened. They went through these at the panel and completely denied everything we had written. I felt like we were on trial.

I agree and know that we must approach another agency without being anything but sensible, easy to work with and having learnt from our experiences. I would never try and go with a LA again and should have moved to a VA years ago.

We are in our late 40's and have no other children.

Just wanted to add. We would not be looking at siblings if we had another chance with another agency but one school aged child 4-8.

Melody I am so sorry you have had this terrible experience.

We adopted a boy aged 3, almost 4 when I was about your age. So it is not too late.

I think if you can find all the things you have learnt through this process and find something positive, and take it to the VA, you may be in with a chance. I think it is worth a go.

I wish you all the very best.

Sent you a private message

Thanks, very good luck for your next move.