Deflated...and also concerned by SW 'flags'

[howmanyusernames]

I'm at the beginning of the process and am starting to get a bit deflated. I know I need to be patient but am worried we are being left behind because of a merger of 3 adoption services in the region.
We went to the adoption evening, then had to wait a month before a SW came to our house, and it's now been 2 weeks since then.

I called to get an update today and was told because of the merger 'things' are taking longer than normal, plus they've had an influx of applications.
They said they would be sending an ROI in the post on Friday but to NOT sign and send it back until we have called them and checked they can allocate a SW to us - as they have to do this within 5 days apparently (?) and they would struggle to do this?

She also said a couple of things were flagged up from the first visit, 1) our lack of OVERNIGHT childcare experience, and 2) my husbands student debt.

1. I told her on the phone I was meeting a local school tomorrow to sign up to volunteer, which I can start doing once my DBS check is back. 'Great' she says, 'but what about overnight childcare experience?'. It's hard to find friends who need us to look after their children overnight, so will this be a negative for us later on?
   We've looked after friends kids when they've been at weddings until 2am etc, but have then gone home when they get back.

2. My husband has about £15k worth of debt from his Uni days. He earns about £42k, pays some off every month, but not significant amounts. I work for myself, have no debts, own my house which has about £80k equity in it (I had it before we met), and earn £30-60k a year (depending on what I need/want to take out). She said his debt has to be reduced before we (eventually) go to panel, but if it isn't would that effect our chances? I could pay his debt off before panel, but don't want to as it's his debt, but also don't want him having it effect our chances. We go on about 4 holidays a year at the moment, probably costing about £6k (total) which I normally pay for the majority of as I have more of a disposable income, and I've told them this and said that we can save that money once we have a child, but they just seem focused on the amount of his debt.

The other thing (sorry it's so long) is I wonder if we should look at our local authority - current one is out of area (45 min drive). They've said us being out of area is good as means we'd have less chance of 'bumping into' BP family later down the line, but would going to our local one speed things up.....

Interesting. We're a bit behind you in the process...still waiting 6 months post miscarriage to apply. Our area is in the middle of merging too. I'd be interested in knowing where you are but obviously don't expect you to post that on here. I'd be really grateful if you didn't mind PMing me.

The sense I'm getting (and is scary to me tbh) is how subjective the whole process is and what one SW considers a strength another might see as an area for concern. We raised DH's lack of child care experience at an open evening and were told not to worry too much as I've got lots of experienced and we're assessed as a couple so that would be enough. She said she wouldn't expect any first time parents to have masses of experience. All great news if she's our allocated worker but not if we get someone with a different POV!

Also....🙀🙀🙀🙀 to them trying to fudge timescales by telling you when to submit your ROI...that's not how timescale she work! Would it be worth attending an open evening with your LA just to get a sense of how they do things. Have you checked the most recent ofsted report for your LA and the one you've approached?

I think I may also be with the same LA! I'm further down the line and have had several social workers but each has been good. However, people who started the process only slightly after us have had really poor experiences with lots of delays and no social worker allocated. Have you checked if the other LA are actually accepting adopters? Ours wasn't, hence going with the larger LA which is now merging.

Sorry I don't have anything more positive to add.

I'd go with your local authority, depending on children who meet your matching considerations you may very well end up adopting out of authority anyway and if not, the issue of family living locally should be considered at linking if it's likely to be a problem.

You may find though if they have had a surge of applicants recently the agency may feel they can be choosy about who they take through the process. Neither student debt or lack of overnight experience in themselves would prevent you adopting it if other couples have lots of experience and no debt they might be considered easier to get through panel etc. In saying that, what's desirable in one LA may not be on the radar at all in another... just think of it as a hurdle to jump, and another, and another.

Do you have any VAs locally? The VA we used has been exception, and buffered against a shitter than shit LA.

If those are your only 'flags' I really wouldn't worry too much, they are pretty minor. This process is going to get a lot more intrusive. To address your specific concerns:

1. Get as much childcare experience as humanly possible. Beg, borrow or steal a child overnight if you can. Try to get regular experience of kids with additional needs. Its not about getting through the assessment, it's about being as attractive as possible for matching.

1. If the loan is an old student one at a preferential rate, don't pay it off. You earn more than enough for it not to be an issue. Otherwise, pay it off. Your finances are assessed together. You are married anyway.

"I could pay his debt off before panel, but don't want to as it's his debt" Do not say this to the SW. Adoption need to be way more important than this sort of stuff to you.

1. Don't go with your LA if it covers a small area, you won't be considered for matches where BPs live nearby. I'd seriously consider switching agency though. You should look at VAs as well as LAs. Its worth a bit of time researching who will give the right support.

Donquixote No 3 not always true: we went with a local, tiny LA. Were placed with DS (easy to place profile) 6 months after approval, despite BP living less than 20 miles away.

Of course Rufus but, as a general rule, perhaps better to avoid your LA if the one you live in is small.

20 miles isn't too small a distance- an LA near me is less than 20 miles by 10 miles in size.

I'm a social worker and I think their 'flag' re a student loan is bollocks as long as your combined income would allow you to care for a child.

The student loan thing is rubbish. Both me and DH have student loan and it wasn't mentioned once.
We went with an LA an hour away but I know someone who adopted a family of boys from the next town 15 minutes away. They also met BP many times as the did F2A.
If I were you I would consider another LA.

Student loans are very flexible and low risk so I am surprised this is a thing for them. We were never asked for overnight experience, that seems quite a high bar. I agree with The Don above about looking at other agencies. Also about delays being part and parcel of the whole process. Nod and smile is the best advice I got from here

All the user names, I am so sorry for your loss, I have been there, you are not alone, it sucks but you do recover. Xxxxxxxxx a million best wishes to you

I should probably clarify the student loan, it’s not a ‘official’ student loan, he’s paid that off, it’s credit card debt from when he was a student and also when he was young and would spend a bit too freely. I did tell him last night I could pay off half of it to help, but he just said it wasn’t necessary and he thinks what she said is rubbish.
My income does fluctuate, but more because I only take out what I need, so I could pay myself £500 one month or £3k the next. I have £40k in my business account which is ‘my’ money, and I can withdraw as salary or dividends at any time if I needed to, which is why I didn’t understand why his debt was such a concern?

I will have a look at the ofsed report, I didn’t even know they had one for adoption LA!

The fudging timescales was a bit of a concern, I understand they are dealing with the transition but if we don’t send the signed form back and others do, we’d end up waiting longer surely?

I might speak to our LA and see what they say. My husband is saying to just stay where we are as if we start again it could be another 2-4 weeks before we have the initial assessment again, so as we’re ‘in the system’ with the other one it could be quicker.
Our LA isn’t small, it’s a pretty big area and is a city, if that helps?

I’ve not had much experience with VA, would the process be the same? Can we only go down the LA OR VA route or do both?

I do find the attitude to the debt a bit weird to be honest.
You are married, you are planning to adopt, and yet you don't want to pay off 'his' debt?

Have you discussed financial plans for after a child is placed? We had kept financials relatively separate (but did have a joint account for bills etc) before adoption, but afterwards everything became even more joint, as I stopped work to be a SAHM.

Yes, and even though you may not agree, if you do want to stay with this LA, you're going to have to show willing on the debt thing, with some sort of outline plan. Waving away the concerns, as your DH is doing, won't go down well.

(I'm not saying they're right, btw, but this is how it rolls in adoption).

I have just paid off over £25k of my own debt, which I have done by working hard and starting a new business. I have always been independent, and we have separate accounts but a joint savings account. We each pay half of the household bills. I have friends who think it's weird to have everything separate, but also friends who do the same as us. I think it's just an individual thing. When I didn't have money I wouldn't expect him to pay for my things, I would pay my way, it's just the way I've been raised.

We would both contribute financially but I would probably pay more as I have more of a disposable income than him. At the moment I pay for 80% of our holidays, which I am perfectly happy doing, and I will also pay for meals out, treats etc, again, more than happy to do. This 'spare' money would then go on a child once we have one, plus more if required.
I work for myself so can work 1 hour or 7 hours a day, and can be flexible depending on other things going on. He works 3 1/2 days a week and neither of us works weekends. He would take the 'maternity leave' from his work as he can get 2 months off on full-pay, so we can both then have those 2 months off to settle a child in and bond. I can work an hour a day (or every other day) in those 2 months if I needed to just keep my finances ticking over, or at that point should have enough money to not work at all.
He can also get the following 10 months off work at 50% pay, and I have said I would be happy to financially support him in those 10 months if he did want to take that time off.
I'm not being tight with 'his debt', I just feel it's his responsibility to pay it off. But have also said I will help him (now we are wanting to adopt) and support him financially if he did want to take 12 months off work once we (hopefully) get a child.

I think he was a bit frustrated with what the SW said, but he will do what he needs to do to make this work.

I think you do need to think about work, money and time off for adoption. Any child placed will need a parent available to them full time for at least 6 months so one of you needs to be taking proper adoption leave. You may find you don't have the head space for doing a couple of hours here or there in your own business if you're also being full time carer if your partner has gone back to work. You wouldn't be supporting him to take the time off work, you'd be supporting your new family to grow and bond with each other.

I think you're underestimating how much the adoption process and having a child will take out of your life, and how it will change the dynamic in your relationship. If you can start the process with a clean sheet debt wise, I'd do it regardless of who ran up the debt and at what stage in their life. Plan for one of you to be physically, emotionally and psychologically available to your child full time for as long as you can manage it.

I do sympathise - I started the process thinking children would just fit in with our lifestyle and I'd fit work in around them. One week before intros and I now know how naive that thinking was.

howmanyusernames I'll try and address your comments but our son has been with us over three years so I may be a bit out of date.

Personally I would explore both your own and your geographically closest agency (country or local authority, whoever has children to place) and also any others that are a reasonale distance away.

I would go to an open evening or open day and listen and ask questions and make notes. I would ask the same questions or get the same information and compare all the answers. At the end of the day I would go with whichever gave the best answers AND had the best 'feel' to them.

Voluntary agencies usually have children who country or local authority agencies cannot place, voluntary agencies do not have 'their own children' to place. So these children may be harder to place. If this is fine with you then explore voluntary agencies. I've heard of people having good and bad experiences with voluntary agencies as with all others.

Your time scales of a month or two week seem very short and I would be quite surprised if any agency could get back to you quicker than this as a general pattern. I think waiting is something you just have to factor in and allow for.

We have a birth child so we had overnight experience but this wasn't mentioned. I would just see if you can get any voluntary experience, e.g. Bronwie or scout camp etc, but before going to the bother of volunteering, I would ask social services if this will suffice.

I don't think many friends will be falling over themselves to hand over very young children for you to care for overnight. However, if you do have good friends then you could always offer, but be prepared for a no - unless they have some fabulous event to attend - e.g. a wedding out of town!

Some schools now do overnight events for Year 4, age 9ish. If you told the local school why you wanted to do this and you submitted to all the checks you may well be asked to help but most schools might only do one a year.

Local Brownie/Scout thing may have more events per year and maybe once approved you could do a couple of camps. However most will be summer so you be unlikely to fix anything up for this year.

Just ideas.

In terms of the debt you will most likely not like my thoughts, but here goes!

I think you and (most of all) your dh need to address this issue of left over student deb now held in credit cards. To me, this is a very big sum, maybe not to you, but I think to the average person it does sound a lot.

It sounds like he works part time, you have a lot of expensive holidays per year yet he still owes quiet a lot (to me) of money from the past. This is tied up in credit card debt, so not the same thing as a student loan, I think.

You might say why does it matter, who cares. But I think it is a sign that there is something from the past, he has not addressed and is in no hurry to do so. To me it is not a good sign.

And if he were to get into more debt, for whatever reason, this could potentially cause issues for him, you and any children you adopt.

Because the children coming through adoption services have had a really shit start in life, they deserve to have nothing else unnecessarily rock the boat.

At any time we could get ill, get into debt, lose jobs or have businesses fail. So that could happen to anyone. But to start a new relationship, of adoption, already quite a lot in debt with a partner who could pay that debt off quicker but chooses not to, seems to me an unnecessarily risky place to be.

I am not saying you should pay the debt. I am saying he should address this, especially because you have been told it could affect your chances.

It is a competitive area.

If your husband is not addressing (or making a bigger effort to address) something that could affect your chances, a social worker might conclude that adopting is not as high a priority to him (or you as a couple) as it might be.

Is it possible he is less keen to adopt? It would not be the first time one partner was ready before the other.

Good luck.

"I’ve not had much experience with VA, would the process be the same? Can we only go down the LA OR VA route or do both?"

LAs and VA are both adoption agencies. The process of approval to adopt is exactly the same for both (in so far as it is for any agency). As PP says, VAs only do approval, matching and post adoption support- they do not family find for children; that is only done by LAs, in a different department from the adoption agency.

On average VAs get better reports from Ofsted (that was one of the things that prompted the current reorganisation into consortia). They can also look nationally for a child, whereas LAs don't usually do this in the first instance (some refuse point blank- when they don't have a match, you wait). VAs are often better funded and their SWs often have a more time to focus on your needs.

BUT, the picture varies hugely by geography. If you were in the North West it would be easy, there are a couple of fab VAs and the LAs vary from poor to terrible, but that is reversed in other areas. As said by PP, it can be easier to be match with an 'easy to place' baby through an LA.

Ultimately you want the right agency, VA or LA. A bad one can add years to the process.

I agree with donquixotedelamancha.

I think doing your research really helps and as I said before, try and ask the same questions so you are really comparing like for like.

With regards to the debt, there are two different issues:

1. Running finances separately is fine if it works for you. Having this debt with your income is no biggie at all. You will demonstrate you manage it fine and you will get approved. They have to ask challenging questions about stuff like this because they need to know you can provide and be responsible.

1. You will then get to matching, and it will be on your PAR and it will be a negative. Maybe not a huge one, maybe not a fair one, but it might be the difference between being matched or not. In matching you are flogging yourself to childrens SWs, and you want to be as attractive as possible.

Italian is right, get the debt paid off asap.

As my husband works only 3 1/2 days a week, we have said that once a child is settled, whether that’s 3, 6, 9 months or more, I can work the days he’s at home, and vice versa, so there would always be one of us ‘free’. But for the first 2 months we would both have that time off together. I have the flexibility of working less hours, but can also do my work in the evenings too. I know I will be mentally and physically tired, but I have done my job for 13 years and have fantastic loyal clients (most of which wait for me to get back off holiday so they can work with me). He could take the whole 12 months off (or 6 or 9) and maybe I didn’t word it well, I just meant financially I could ‘cover him’ if he wanted to take longer off so we could have that time as a family.

DH works two jobs (one is a couple of evenings a week, for an hour each time) and he brings home £42k a year. The holidays I pay for the majority of. The debt is something he is managing, maybe not paying off as quickly as he could have done, but he’d never ‘needed to’ before.
I wouldn’t expect him to pay for my debts from years before we met, and he is the same, but now the significance of his debt could affect our adoption chances it is something that we will address. I can 100% get the debt paid off before any panel, which is probably 6 months + from now, so would that be ok?

If his debt was £7,500 and I had £7,500 worth of debt, would that be more ‘acceptable’ to a SW? Just interested to know.

I am going to meet with a local school today to start volunteering with them, so I can get more childcare experience (apparently looking after my 4 year old niece and friends kids isn’t enough). My husband works with kids so had loads of experience. I will still ask friends about overnight childcare, as if they know there is an option they might bite my hand off! We do have two dogs though, and some of my friend’s kids are scared of dogs.

He can also get the following 10 months off work at 50% pay, and I have said I would be happy to financially support him in those 10 months if he did want to take that time off.

I am concerned by the way of thinking that I infer from the above statement, (and also the fact it is 'his' debt). It reads as if you are two individuals, rather than as if you are talking like a potential family unit.

Think how different the above reads from We have agreed that if our new DC needs a stay at home parent for the first year, then I will be the main provider and DH the stay at home parent . I feel my version sounds like a team working for the best case for the child, whereas yours, less so.

It may be that how I've worded it is already what you think, but with SWs it is important to think about how you word things.

Also, a week or 2 (or a months or 4) here and there is nothing at all compared with finding the right agency and doing the right research before proceeding. We were around 3 years between first contact and our daughters moving in.

I agree, the statements are worded differently but mean the same. We could then spend that time as a family as I have flexibility in my business, so we could have one of us taking 12 months off, and one of us working an hour or two a day (after the initial 2 months) for 10 months.

I don't know why saying it's 'his' debt is a problem? It is his debt, and I had my own debt, so his debt has always been his to pay off and vice versa. I wouldn't expect him to pay off my debts and he wouldn't expect me to pay his debts. But now it has come to light that his debt could be an issue we will address it. I don't think we are that different from a lot of couples, and most of our friends are the same as us (they have their own debt they pay off)?

Anyway, I will await their report and see what it says, and we will go from there. To be honest I thought the flags would be our dogs but there was no mention of that on the phone.