Interested in adoption - convictions question

[oatcakes1]

Hi, we are interested in adopting a child due to the fact I have not been able to get pregnant. My husband has an 8 Yr old from a previous relationship who we have half the week.

I filled in the form on our councils website and someone called me today about it. I have read that the only convictions that are an automatic no are ones with children and serious sexual assault.

My husband has a conviction for assault that was classed a domestic violence at the time of the offence, however it was not but the police proceeded with the case anyway. He was not sent to prison or anything but has completed a course called building better relationships via probation, passed blood and hair samples for alcohol. and his child stays with us half the week after a long drawn out cafcass process during this time. Social services have no concerns and everything is fine but this blot on his record.

What is the likelihood of us being accepted as adopters? We would be crushed if we applied and then got turned away because of this.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

Hi there. You're right that those are the only convictions which would be an automatic no and that a lot of other things are grey areas. My advice would be to always be very honest and upfront about anything like this with the agencies you speak to from the beginning as honesty is very important to the process and these things have a way of coming out and also it means you can get a realistic sense of your chances before any hopes are dashed too far down the road. I understand it must be really nerve wracking to know that it may be a barrier and it doesn't reflect on you as an individual at all. What I would say is that unfortunately your adoption agency will not be able to rely on your account of the context which you saydoes not make it a domestic violence conviction. From their point of view they can only deal with the facts and if the offence was categorised that way then that will need to be how they process it. My understanding (and I could be wrong) is that anything involving carcass involvement and an implication of domestic violence will be a red flag for them given the backgrounds and vulnerabilities they are trying to protect the children from and they would need tangible evidence of any context you can provide which demonstrates that there has been no subsequent behaviour such as this or cause for alarm. They will also want to see that your other half is able to be reflective about the incident and the course he went on. What it taught him and what sense he makes of the situation now. Should he protest about the context they may see it that he has not taken accountability. It's very hard to advise as I of course don't have all the context so I am in no means assuming you will.not be successful but I do think this will be a talking point and one that you will need to be able to provide solid evidence for and be willing to discuss however painful or shameful for him. This will include cafcass and associated dealings which they will certainly want to know about. Do let us know how you get on

Thank you for your reply. This is sort of what I thought. Do you know of any good info sites I could look on other than this one?

First4adoption is a good starting place but can be quite generic. I've found their helpline quite good to call when I've had.more specific information. You could also try websites like Adoption UK and Coram BAAF which is one of the bigger voluntary agencies and may have some more detailed info. There's also nothing to stop you making a bit of an anonymous "what if?" Call to a few local agencies and just ask for their view on your worries about his conviction. You don't have to give them your name or anything at that stage. There are also some great books out there. I'd recommend what to expect when You're adopting by Ian Palmer, preparing for adoption by Julia Davis and the unofficial guide to adoptive parenting by Sally Donovan as a starting point. Best of luck x

My advice would be to always be very honest and upfront about anything like this with the agencies you speak to from the beginning as honesty is very important to the process

This. Absolutely categorically do not fib or whitewash. Any hint of less than ruthless self-awareness will make it hard to overcome a barrier like this.

What I would say is that unfortunately your adoption agency will not be able to rely on your account of the context which you say does not make it a domestic violence conviction. From their point of view they can only deal with the facts....anything involving carcass involvement and an implication of domestic violence will be a red flag for them given the backgrounds and vulnerabilities they are trying to protect the children

This too. The absolute priority of adoption assessment is to keep kids safe. Fairness or second chances are not relevant. I would suggest the answer to your question might be yes in theory, but no in practice.

I don't want you to share more than you are comfy with. You should understand that everyone on this board has had the dark bits of their lives poked at by SW, so forgive the bluntness; but I will suggest that this line...

My husband has a conviction for assault that was classed a domestic violence at the time of the offence, however it was not but the police proceeded with the case anyway.

...would worry the assessing SW. It sounds like minimising. You need to be really clear what happened:

1. Did your husband assault someone? You are not going to persuade anyone he didn't if he was found guilty.

1. Was he in a relationship with this person? If so it was domestic violence.

If your husband did something bad, paid the price and has addressed the problem, I think you may have a chance. If you feel it was all blown out of proportion and his partner's fault, then I would not bother trying for adoption.

Call to a few local agencies and just ask for their view on your worries about his conviction. You don't have to give them your name or anything at that stage.

Good advice, but I think you need to discuss the specifics to know if you have a chance. I would choose one good local voluntary agency (not LA) and talk it through with them in frank detail. You could get some very good advice on here if you are willing to share a little more (anonymised) detail.

Thank you, some great points. He has addressed the concerns and been on various courses so maybe there is a chance.

YY, echoing what don said, if you go into it saying it wasn’t dv etc etc you’ll get nowhere, and frankly, rightly so.

Please remember that many of the children being adopted are in care because there was dv in the home, or because birth mums wouldn’t break off relationships with violent partners.

Also bear in mind that adoptive DC are not always the easiest to care for; they are often angry, stressed, anxious and know exactly how to push their parents buttons. So if any part of what happened was caused by extreme circumstances or stress or whatever, bear in mind you’ll likely be inviting all those things into your family with an adopted child.

How long ago was the conviction? I’d think you’d need to be able to show a good period of rehabilitation (ie years rather than months) and show very good understanding of what happened, his part in it and for you both to honestly consider why you don’t think it was domestic abuse because regardless of what you say to social work if you don’t accept the basis of the conviction it’s a concern for children down the line.

It’s not about never making mistakes, or having a perfect past but being able to understand your (his) past, to have properly worked through it (not merely by attending a couple of courses) and to put measure in place to make sure it’s not going to rest it’s head again in future.

I don’t think the conviction itself would necessarily prevent you from adopting, the attitude towards the conviction absolutely would.

Thanks for the replies. I think me trying to generalise what was a complicated situation has made me come across a bit wrong. This was a couple of years ago, he's not been in trouble since, stopped drinking and the courses he had to go on were 5 months long two days a week, not just an afternoon somewhere. As we now have his daughter over half the week again after all this has gone on, the court and cafcass found he was no risk and recognised the work he has done.

I was hopeful this may go in our favour.

Thanks

I certainly won’t do any harm - I’d expect the court and cafcass reports to be available to sw as part of the assessment process and much will depend on what they say. It’s quite a process to deny a father access to his child so I’d expect the court to look for evidence of risk - I’ve also known courts to give access following DV convictions so it does depend on the reports and the argument made in court.

The process for placing a child is pretty complex, in your shoes I’d go with a local authority rather than a third sector agency because the LA will have a wider understanding of DV and tend to be more risk tolerant, ie if a vol agency think they’ll struggle to persuade a local authority to place a child with you they’ll not take you through the process where a LA aren’t taking such a big risk because they’d be paying their staff anyway (not sure if that makes any sense).

I think you have possibly represented yourself poorly here - which is a good thing because you can think about how you might explain the situation to assessing SW. You did say though that it wasn’t really domestic violence, maybe have a think about that because if he assaulted someone and they were in a relationship at any point, legally it’s domestic violence.

Thanks for the advice. This was my. First about adoption and I didn't really know how to put it. We are a couple in our mid 30s, you're right, thinking about how to get things across will be helpful

Very honestly, if it's only two years ago and your dh has had past issues with alcohol (regardless of the courses and treatment he's had since) it's very unlikely that you would be accepted. I'm sorry,

Do look into it and ask your LA honestly. Bear in mind in the past an adopted child was killed by a parent who was subsequently found to have had a history of domestic violence. LAs would have to have an extremely good reason why you were an especially suitable family (better than any other family) for a particular child to justify disregarding that risk.

I'm sorry op but alarm bells are ringing for me.
The only thing you can do is be open and honest with your potential adoption agency and not try and justify unjustified actions your partner has done in the past.

Children are fantastic and they can bring out the best in you but THEY ALSO REALLY PUSH YOUR BUTTONS at times and bring out the worst and most impulsive side of you too. And we're talking about the most vulnerable cohort of children here and a very emotionally intense situation for both you and the adoptee. How and why should SS justify removing a child from their biological roots and putting them into a situation in which they may experience the exact same abuse or even worse? I don't mean this to be derogatory but just try and see it from ss POV. I would imagine that you'll need to work very hard to convince them that your partner has made significant changes and is deeply reflective of the situation. I agree with the above. Do not even hint that you feel that the conviction is trivial or unfair. If he's been convicted then as far as they're convinced he is capable of domestic abuse.... end of! They take these things very seriously. To give you an idea of how seriously they take it we were interrogated heavily and our adoption order for our daughter delayed by months because half way into our placement it transpired that a quite insignificant family member was convicted of some pretty nasty crimes. We had no clue of his convictions and were clear and unfaultering that he would never lay eyes on our child again but it still caused no end of stress and problems. I think our only saving grace was that we were open and honest at all times and absolutely clear that we were disgusted with this family member and wanted nothing more to do with him. That's how hard it was when there were issues with people not even involved with our child so I would expect it to be even more of an issue if the concerns involve one of the potential parents. I agree that talking to some of the LAs is a good idea. You'll get a feel for how they are likely to approach it. I would expect any to make a pretty huge deal of it at the very least though. Oh and they will probably want to interview his ex partner and his child too to gain their perspective of it. Good luck xx