SSAFA adoption experience?

[SilverHairedCat]

DH and I are considering adoption. He's serving in the military, and it has been suggested to us by friends that we look to adopt via SSAFA rather than the local authority (Cornwall).

Does anyone have any experience of this agency specifically please? I've been back through the board, but can't see anything leaping out at me. Thank you.

I have no experience of this at all, I’m afraid. But I suspect that postings and deployment will make it difficult to adopt through a local authority .

I’d at least talk to SSAFA and ask about what kinds of children have been placed with their adopters in the last few years and what kind of post placement support they offer .

Thank you. He's only got 3 years until retirement (he'll be 40) so shouldn't be too bad for trips now. I'd be primary carer for the first few years, then he'd take over.

He's due to join a ship in July 2019, but we could ask for a shore based posting on compassionate grounds to settle in if we were approved. I'd imagine it would be granted in the circumstances - they're pretty good for that, especially with him so close to retiring.

That sounds a good plan.

If I were you I’d check out out both agencies. You don’t have to choose until you formally apply to be assessed . You can go to meetings and information/ training events and see which agency you like best and which places the kind of child / children you are looking for .

If you apply now you might be able to get most of the home study done before he’s deployed next summer. It depends on how long their waiting list is.

That would be a good question to ask both agencies.

However if he’s away it will be quite hard to get matched with a child as the childs SW will want to meet you both early on. That’s when it will be tricky because the timescales are unknown and random.

I've spoken with a SSAFA social worker today, who has taken the initial details about us.

It looks like she's going to recommend early medicals for us if we go ahead as DH has a history of pericarditis (I think she heard "heart" and wants to ensure it is what I said it is) and I have a recent and longer history of depression.

I do worry that my depression will be a barrier, so we'll see what that comes back as.

I know the medical thing is a worry, but remember that if 1:4 women have had MH problems then probably so have one in four adopters.

So it won’t rule out completely .

Apart from the medical issues, what did you think of the SSAFA worker? Did they tell you about training, support, what kind of kids they have placed recently ?

Are you going to check out your LA adoption team as well? You’ve nothing to lose by doing so.