Starting the process - Child care experience? Excessive requests

[rwoollsey]

I am very new to the world of adoption and wanted to see if the levels of child care experience our LA wants is normal 😕

Our LA seems to want more than others in many areas (for example instead of 3 references jointly as a couple we have had to provide 6 - when we have looked online many other authorities say it's 3) and we have just been told we will need to complete 40 hours each of child care voluntary work.

We have a good level of child care experience already, my husband spent years working at a soft play centre, he has younger siblings and nieces and nephews who we have had overnight since they were infants. I have a niece and nephew who again we have all the time and overnight (they are 1 and 3) so feel this is excessive, esp since we both work full time its going to be difficult.

Does this sound normal, has anyone else been required to do so much voluntary child care?

TIA

Hello I’m aware this thread is old but I’m just interested to know which adoption agency you went with?

@IBoughtALlama

I briefly worked in a residential kids home for children unable to be placed in foster care and let me tell you... even with all my many years experience, it was a shock to the system.

The kids i had worked with before were all being parented by their mother/father or both. Suddenly spending whole days in loco parentis with kids who have suffered complex traumas and/or had issues with attachment, and having to find new ways to connect with them was tough

I would be really interested to know more about this if you didn't mind. Were you able to find ways to connect? What sort of help was the residential home providing to the kids to help them with past trauma? Is this something volunteers can get involved with or just paid roles?