Just watching Find Me A Family - anyone care to join me?

[Italiangreyhound]

Just watching Find Me A Family - anyone care to join me?

Very moving.

The stories are very raw and emotional. It's all so heart breaking.

Thanks for the link - I am now watching it in short bursts

Have watched episode 1.

Will summon up strength to watch ep 2 tomorrow..

shows am going to watch episode two on s minute.

Weren't the social workers lovely. Iveas so impressed. When the guy moved on and said that he just had to, I felt so sad but o thought he was right.

Those two girls with the beautiful names. So heart breaking. I wish I had the energy to foster but I don't and ds is only 8 and both my kids would be super jealous of a new child. But the idea of changing things for those kids, how amazing to be able to do that!

Watching episode 2

I have worked with the girl who produced that documentary. She said the production of it took two years and it tore her apart emotionally. She is not an adopter or foster care but she has such empathy and understanding for both the children, the birth families and the adopters/foster carers. I admired her work greatly. I think it is episode two when the little boy who had been living with a grandmother but was moving to an adoptive home that my heart truly broke. Such sacrifice on the part of the grandmother, her world was shattered and she had done nothing wrong other than give her heart to this little boy when he needed it. Interestingly this is a great case in point that demonstrates how Northern Ireland’s model of direct contact that I so often raise here can work very effectively. This grandmother would have direct contact a few times a year. This was very appropriate in this case and you can clearly see how everyone involved would benifit from this ongoing input from both family member.

I've watched Find Me Family - I thought it was very good, emotionally draining, sad, hopeful... and I felt so sad for the grandmother who could't keep her boy. Utterly heartbreaking. I thought they could have increased her direct contact but I do understand why it wasn't advisable.

I really want to watch Finding Me A Family but I can't find it online. Has anyone else managed to track it down?

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/dec/06/finding-me-a-family-review-matchmaking-children-parents

Thepinklady77 are you an adopter on northern Ireland?

"This grandmother would have direct contact a few times a year. This was very appropriate in this case and you can clearly see how everyone involved would benifit from this ongoing input from both family member."

This can also happen on England too. O know a family who have tgis.

I didn't think William's birth birth contact necessarily went well. I can't see direct contact with birth parents is necessarily a good thing.

Yes Italian I am. I agree direct contact is not necessarily in the best interest of every child and indeed does not happen for every child. A lot of things are taken into consideration - nature of neglect/abuse, safety factors, the birth parents ability/likelihood to be able to sustain contact (so as not to set the child up for further rejection) etc. But in a large amount of cases direct contact is agreed with the adoption order. It can be altered in later stages if no longer appropriate for the child. It is indeed by a case by case basis.

I know a large amount of adopters who have it, some are very positive about it, some remain neutral at this stage as they are not too far into it and some have their concerns/reservations and are in the process of altering the arrangement as it is no longer right for their child. The majority agree though it is positive in allowing their child to have a real understanding of their life story and has some benefits.

Now I come to William. I would agree that it does appear that for now William has come to a point in his life that for now he may be needing contact to change. I think the documentary made clear the process of post adoption support and the purpose behind it. It has its pluses and negatives but very much can be and is changed as the child grows and changes. I would disagree with the line in the documentary by the adoptive father that contact really is about a birth family requirement. That is very much not the case. It really is about the child and the adoptive parents who know the child best. If it is not right for the child it can and will be reviewed. We are still in very early days and our two are still young but for now contact is proving positive for us. When we are doing life story work BM is much more real as they have a recent memory of her, we can talk about her in real terms. I am willing to say though that in the future I may not always feel this way and may need to change the arrangement.

I also realise that contact in the rest of the UK with extended family members does occasionally happen but by no means is it wide spread even when it is appropriate. I know of an adopter at the moment in England who has a very similar case to the little baby in the documentary and wants direct contact with her grandmother for the child but the LA are very against it and are saying they just can’t see how it would work. She feels she is battling the system for something that she feels is very right for her child. So it does depend on LA and individual SW attitudes and opinions I think.

Sorry I really did not mean to take over this thread with yet another discussion on the rights and wrongs of contact but felt it was a good example of how contact benefits.

Thepinklady77 thank you for sharing so much. I really hope all will go well with your adoption.

I can see that for some direct contact may be good. My fear is that every contact point may prove a difficult point for the child, and prior to or after contact that behaviour may go down etc. Where we are it was not suggested but we do have letter box, which I am grateful for.

I'd really love to meet the birth parents but they do not feel able to meet us, which I totally understand.

I thought the social workers were excellent. I am disappointed I can only find two episodes on line, I think there are four in the series.

I was so delighted that Angel had a good situation in the end but how sad as well.

Things seem to take a long time in Norther Ireland, is that a fair assessment or were they maybe featuring stories which had taken a long time?

Sorry for your friend. We would support extended family contact but it was not ever offered.

We have kept contact with foster carer but to be honest our son has been with us over four years and the contact with foster carer doesn't seem that significant for him now. I just feel it is right for him to have it and to know people do not all disappear. (Also the foster carer is lovely so it is easy to continue, she makes it easy and comfortable.)

Italian, there were only two programmes in that particular series from Northern Ireland produced although there was a similar one with similar name based in England at around the same time.

Yes you are right the legal process here in Northern Ireland is incredibly slow. Our legislation is long overdue a re-haul and is indeed ready to go and would bring us in closer line with the rest of the UK but as we have no sitting assembly here at present no new legislation is being passed. It means that local authorities have a much harder job getting to the point of adoption. We still have freeing orders instead of placement orders. My understanding is that birth families parental responsibility does not legally go until point of adoption order in England. Am I correct? Here they loose it at point of freeing order and so there is no opportunity for them to challenge the adoption order. It therefore means that there is a higher threshold for granting of freeing order as it is the absolute final order that ends the legal relationship between child and birth parent. So in theory a child can not be placed for adoption without a freeing order. In order to get children placed within their final placement sooner they are being placed on a dual approval basis with adopters who are temporarily approved as foster carers also. They can often remain on a fostering capacity with these adopters for a year more. My understanding is that the new legislation should see us move to placement orders and away from freeing orders which may speed things up a little. When they are placed on a dual approval basis contact is often still very high (can be as often as weekly or fortnightly) and will continue until freeing order and then gradually reduced until adoption order where the post adoption contact agreement kicks in. This high level of contact in the early days of placement with the prospective adoptive family can be very disruptive as they settle and is a big downside to the system. As I write this I feel that contact in England would have ended at a much earlier stage in the process for the child and I am wondering myself is that why ongoing direct contact is much more appropriate here as the child will have maintained a longer relationship with birth parent through ongoing regular contact pre-freeing order than they would in England? It seems more natural then to maintain some level of contact. In the cases where birth parents had not maintain contact during the pro-longed legal wrangling or it has been of very poor quality or highly disruptive to the child post adoption direct contact would be un-likely to be recommended.

We are also seeing a huge increase in the amount of concurrent care placements of much younger babies to prevent long waits in temporary foster placements. In the most recent figures just released last week the average length from entry into care and to point of adoption is around three years. Even with concurrent care placements where a baby is being placed at birth the average length of time to get to adoption order is just over 2 years. I am always amazed when I read on forums such as these that babies as young as 6-9 months in England could have an adoption order complete. That would only happen here in the rare case of a relinquished child. Basically here with every new birth of a child the birth parents would be offered a full assessment before being ruled out again. Even if the last assessment of the previous child had only ended within months. It is incredibly frustrating in some cases.

Sorry did not set out to write an essay but I struggle to be concise and it is interesting looking at the differences in the systems.

Thanks Pink.

My gut feeling is that Northern Ireland is in some way sharing the communal guilt of the past years when adoption happened for the wrong reasons (e.g. young women pressurized to give up their babies etc). So the system now in place is one that makes it very difficult in Ireland to actually adopt a child. It seems like that is part of the system in Northern Ireland? To me!

"My understanding is that birth families parental responsibility does not legally go until point of adoption order in England. Am I correct?"

I do not know for sure but I think parental responsibility is shared between the birth parents and the local authority from the point at which children are taken into care. When children are placed in foster care or are being looked after by their adopters before the adoption order is granted the care is still shared by the birth parents and the local authority.

This means that birth parents can challenge an adoption order, although I think they need to do it before the court date, so they cannot just show up at the court.

I'm going to ask someone who might know because I don't want to get this wrong!

PS Once the adoption order is granted the parental responsibility goes to the adopters and stops for birth parents and local authority.

For us parental responsibility ends for birth parents at freeing order (before adoption placement if in traditional adoption placement and not a form of foster to adopt or dual approval status as mentioned above) and the LA hold full parental responsibility and can delegate some of that to adopters. In reality this is most things except in the case of major surgery/health decisions. Once adoption Order is granted adopters take on full PR. The adopters and children are in court the day the order is granted so no need for a celebration hearing and birth parents have nothing to do with the granting of the adoption order. There rights were removed long before adoption application was submitted. I come back to you on the historical side you mentioned.

Just today again o may have some factors wrong so may be worth readong up if you want to know for sure.

Just to say I may have....