Yet another life story book thread

[Crechendo]

This has been done. I know.

I guess I'm just wanting to share my thoughts with people who will get it.

We had LOs book this week. It took two months to write. I could have done it in an hour max.

Our names are wrong. The reason for his mum not being able to look after him is not the same reason we've been told. There's spelling mistakes and missing words everywhere. His family tree is wrong.

It makes me sad.

OH suggests just doing it ourselves. I know others here have done this. But I will say something because it's just factually wrong and I know it will be on his record for when he's older.

I know ss are stretched and a child placed is way down on their priority list. But this is a really important document for my LO and I feel like it's not been given the care he deserves.

I get it - it's appalling!
I would complain for your LO and for any families needing one in the future!
Good luck x

It won’t have taken two months to write, it’ll have taken two months to find an hour to write it. I would contact the worker who wrote it explaining the inaccuracies and asking them to update their records because it’s important those records are accurate. I’d also talk through why they’ve explained the reasons for adoption. I know for my two their later life letter doesn’t include some details because they’re better being talked through at an appropriate age than being read by my kids as younger children.

It’s frustrating but easily fixed.

This happened to me. There were all kinds of inaccuracies over basic facts and my name was completely wrong in the later life letter. I didn't complain as such but I did send a polite list of corrections. Also the language used and level of detail in some parts read more like a sw report rather than addressing a young child so I asked for these to be toned down or cut. After a bit of back and forth with the corrections the sw just sent me the electronic file so I could fix it myself, and since it was loose leaf I could just print and replace the affected pages. DS is five now and I still think the book is pitched to an older child so I did produce another book myself from scratch using the Joy Rees method that's more age appropriate for where he is now. I will give him the sw produced one with the revisions in a few years when he's a bit further on in his understanding.

I've just read that back and it sounds like all the problems were in the later life letter, which isn't what I meant. The majority of inaccuracies and pitching it to the wrong age was the life story book. In addition, my name was wrong in the later life letter.

Our life story and later in life letters were just insulting in the lack of effort and accuracy. It shows a complete distain for the children in their care.

The exact same thing happened to us - except they emailed it to us to read through before hand, so I ended up changing loads of things and sent it back. I think this would have been best practice as it will be the adopters that need to be happy with it for the book to be out in their home!

I personally would email them with a copy of the life story book that you’ve made and say that this is the one that should be on your child’s file because of the mistakes on the file.

I think it’s better to just correct their mistakes rather than just email asking them to correct it themselves. They are busy people, and in terms of imminent danger I guess correcting a life story book file is not going to rank on a priority of things to do. Whereas if it’s a case of simply either printing what you’ve done and quickly checking it, that might be a bit more straightforward???

It does feel insulting though - and I get angry like percypetulant as really it is a massive level of disrespect, but I guess it does just rank fairly lowly on their priorities....

Also we still don’t have a later in life letter

Sorry - but I won’t be bothering to ask for one because I will write one later in life - as I definitely feel I will give it the level of respect it needs. I will obviously let social workers know I’ve done this - and seek advice.... but it’s low on our priorities as we are seeking to adopt a sibling and they are being slow with that - so we are focussing on one thing at a time!!!