LinkMaker - expression of interest

[ApprovedF2A]

Although we're approved for F2A we are also looking at mainstream adoption. We were wondering what people's experiences are with sending an expression of interest through LinkMaker?
We've sent quite a few and some were already in the matching process, some came back saying we weren't a strong enough match and a few came back with an enthusiastic reply literally within minutes. The latter were sent our PAR, but then it all just seems to go quiet. No CPR or follow up. Quite frustrating.
All the more because we were told and keep reading on the various adoption related websites that they're desperate for adopters with a BME background. Plus I have extensive experience and training on attachment and challenging behaviour through working with Looked After Children.
Are we just impatient/naive? Do the social workers/family finders struggle with their workload? Is the process too long winded? Lack of efficiency? Time of the year? All of the above?

Are we just impatient/naive? Do the social workers/family finders struggle with their workload? Is the process too long winded? Lack of efficiency? Time of the year? All of the above?

I’d suggest all of the above. Workloads are high and social workers are busy but things also just take time. Your expression of interest may be one of many, the SW needs to look at yours in conjunction with others they might have, they may need to discuss with others (eg team leader, child’s SW or family finder depending on who looks at initial expressions of interest), they’re likely to have a pretty high case load and it’s not at all uncommon for families to be in crisis at this time of year so the days they’re on “duty” covering child protection are likely to be pretty busy.

Basically adoption is massively important but it’s the one thing on a social workers case load that isn’t urgent or emergent, and it’s also an area where it’s important to take proper time to look at a match. It may also be the case that someone else has expressed interest but the SW thinks it’s not likely to work out, so is holding off on replying to you to see what happens.

Simply put it’s a waiting game, and it’s very hard for the potential adopters because we just want to get on with it. My advice would be to follow up your expression of interest with your own social worker or family finder who can help you in the waiting.

Just wondering, is this the little one you posted about on Tuesday? If so you’re going to need to be way more patient. Assuming you sent another expression of interest on Tuesday, I’d be surprised if you heard anything this side of Christmas for all the reasons noted above, plus they’ll need to go back and see what happened with the previous expression of interest in case there’s a reason it wasn’t taken forward. Throw in some usual Christmas crisis and social workers will be up to their eyes.

I know it’s frustrating but patience is so the name of the game. While they may need BAME adopters, matching still relies on the right children with the right profile being in the appropriate place in the legal system with the right adults also being in the right part of the process. It’s a complex thing, so while I know for you it’s just a reply to a message on Linkmaker, there’s a whole process that sits behind that message.

Thanks, thought it might be a combination. Even though they prepared us for this, we're struggling because it's out of our hands and no communication or updates. Guess we'll have to buckle up and apply our coping strategies a bit more over the coming weeks/months.
This is not related to previous post. I did call LA myself in the end and was put through to the child's family finder straight away even though our family finder said she was struggling for months to get hold of anyone🤨
She was extremely friendly and clarified things and even called me back in the evening to make sure I was alright. She said that up until the expression of interest we sent through LinkMaker she had not heard about us and had no emails or missed call messages from our family finder🤔 Either way the child has already been matched which in the end is a good outcome.
However we can't help but feel that our family finder dropped the ball on this one. Especially because in hindsight her reactions were always vague when we asked her about this particular child.

That’s dreadful, different if the child wasn’t considered a match, but it sounds like your family finder just didn’t bother. In your shoes I’d ask to meet the family finder, explain what you’ve been told and ask her what steps she’s taking to progress your family finding - I’d do it under the guise of wanting to check our PAR doesn’t need tweaking given you’ve not seen any digress and some of the feedback was that you weren’t a match, but in that discussion I’d be asking about the work ages doing to identify possible matches.

The process is hard enough without someone basically not following through.

Thanks 🙏 We're going to have a word with our social worker and will try and be as diplomatic as possible. We don't want to be 'that difficult couple'.
You seem to be quite knowledgeable as I see your name pop up a lot on here😊

The process is awful. I hated it. It was painful. I remember getting a message from a Sw about a little boy and thinking he looked like a match and things exchange to wait about 6 weeks to find out he was being matched wi try someone else. It was agonising. Every day just waiting on word. Logically I could understand why it took so long (as mentioned by someone else) but I just kept thinking this little boy is in foster care and we are ready for him and can give him a loving home now. What’s the hold up?

In the same respect, our social worker came to us with another little boy and gave us the paper work. We read and talked about him non stop for days, weeks even before we came to the decision he wasn’t for us. Hardest thing I’ve ever done.

The process is awful. It’s like window shopping and a child and just not right but unfortunately there isn’t another way. Patience is a must although it’s the hardest thing to be patient about when you’ve been planning and waiting so long and you are ready to welcome your little one home.

Keep us updated and wishing you a quick match

Thank you for that. Patience is a virtue, but my god it is the hardest out of the seven when it comes to waiting for a reply from a LA😁
Hopefully 🎅 can give us the joy that the stork could not.🤞

You seem to be quite knowledgeable as I see your name pop up a lot on here😊

Thank you, what a kind thing to say, my husband and I adopted siblings a couple of years ago and I’m also a child protection social worker so I’ve seen it from both sides - sometimes that can be helpful 😁

Oh don't get me started on linkmaker - it's the most maddening system. We've gone weeks with social workers just ignoring messages, popping up to say one thing, and then disappearing again. I appreciate that social workers probably have an overwhelming amount of work to do, but I still don't think it's OK to just ignore messages without even an acknowledgement. I'm not expecting instant replies but I think social workers could do far more to 'carry' adopters through the process, even if it's just a one line message. Like a lot of things in the adoption world, I think really bad practice has just become accepted as the norm.