Any insight in to what's going on as a result of coronavirus?

[Runner31]

We're in Scotland and have been waiting to see if we can move forward with matching and in the meantime responded to a call for foster carers and put our name down to do a variety of different types of foster care. Since then, we have heard nothing. We have no idea what is happening or not happening with foster and adoptions and have had no contact from our social worker. This isn't necessarily down to covid-19 as it's normal for them.
Can anyone give me an idea of what processes are taking place or have things just totally ground to a halt?

I would think it will vary hugely from authority to authority. You have a mix of an already overburdened system and high levels of sickness absence, add in more sickness, self isolation, lockdown, people unable to work because of childcare, impacting on SWs, FCs, the admin staff.
I don't think its possible to say either way, some authorities may well have ground to a halt, others may be stumbling on.

In our LA all introductions have been put on hold. Foster carers are being asked to take extra children where they can. Visits are being done via Video app or replaced by phone calls. Most social workers are working from home if they can.

Thanks, I guess we're just feeling a bit despondent. You know that feeling you get when you wonder if you're ever going to have a family or if the universe is trying to tell you to spend your life with dogs and cats instead. We thought we could cope with the hold on adoption by fostering but now we're not even wanted as foster carers, it's making it seek like it's just not meant to be. Not being wanted as foster carers has hurt a fair bit. We were told and keep hearing that they're desperate for foster carers. I wondered if somehow a hold had been put on children going in to or being moved in foster care as well.

I can understand your frustrations. This is a really difficult time for you and I can imagine how painful it is.
I think though, that the decision for you not to be foster parents is probably very sensible. The lockdown will end in the next few weeks or months. Imagine what would happen if you had a foster child placed with you when lockdown ends. I’m sure that you wouldn’t want to immediately turf that child out so that you could start introductions as this would incredibly unfair on a child that needs some stability. By saying that you can’t be foster parents at the moment, it means that you will be able to start introductions much faster once lockdown finishes.

This isn’t the world’s way of testing you - it’s not personal! Keep faith that your child is still coming to you, just a little later than you had planned.
Sending you (delete as appropriate!
It will happen.

Thanks @sugarfreejelly. I know you're right and what you've said makes perfect sense I just wish it would come from our social worker. Although it doesnt explain why we can't do respite and emergency foster care which we were asked to do back in January. This limbo that we're in is painful and some honesty or at least some form of communication from social work would be great.

We're foster careers and we've got beds free. In our area, as much as possible, they are trying to keep children where they are. S W's are working from home as much as they possibly can. I know how frustrating it is when they don't respond, you don't know what's going on, but I suspect at the moment they just have their work cut out keeping children safe

I’m a CP social worker in Scotland, the reality is that social workers are up against it keeping up with their case loads. Moving children will be a last resort, I imagine the suggestion to do short term or respite foster caring will have been made in good faith by SWs looking ahead at what might be needed. It’s still relatively early days in the whole lockdown and while there are changes in law and guidance to support CP process, it’s still quite an involved process to go through. Kids in care will be kept in place and assessments will be ongoing with others. It’s hard, but adoption process will be down the list of priorities because we know those kids are in safe care at the moment, focus will firmly be on those who aren’t. Emergency and respite may be needed at some point but those processes are likely to be lengthened simply because it’s hard to assess risk when folk are isolating and services aren’t operating as they usually would.

It’s thrown a spanner in the works for sure, but it will pass in time.

Thanks for the reply. It sounds like the request for foster carers was just getting things in place just in case rather than them actually needing them. We genuinely thought we would be getting a phone call and got the room ready and the house all sorted, practically waiting by the phone for the first two weeks.
I think I will try and speak to our SW next week and get some clarification on what's happening with adoption. Ours isn't a straightforward situation and if things are delayed then that's something we just deal with but i need to know what's going on. At the very least to be told it's delayed rather than just kept in the dark. We haven't even had contact for the SW to tell us it's all on hold.

You may find your SW has been redeployed to frontline child protection teams, so may find it difficult to get hold of them. Anyone in the team should be able to tell you things are delayed.

Thanks. She sends put group emails to all her fosterers and adopters telling us all she's still working and all is well so it shouldn't be a problem.

Our local authority are trying to keep going until they can go any further. We are almost finished stage one all we just need to do our training which we are doing tomorrow and Wednesday via webcam. They have said they aren't sure how far we can get in stage two but we will just have to see. I'm wondering whether it's feasible to do stage two meetings over webchat?

Right now the World is a very frustrating place to be... (though its understandable things being put on hold, safety is paramount ) Its just disheartening when you cant be told when your likely to be able to meet your child.
Our Social worker has been fab, but we understand they are overworked with front line care, with emergency cases and unfortunately the increased amounts of children at risk at home in lock down.
Im just feeling really gutted , like others here ... That we have our match, we have our approval, we are just stuck in limbo that we cant meet them yet.... Its been a very long journey to adoption, and we are almost there for meeting our child and bringing them home, so close but so far (or thats how it feels)
How is everyone else coping with this????