Volunteering to gain experience with children

[MariaLondon77]

Hello everyone
My partner and I are trying to adopt. We have recently attended the information meeting online with coram . We live in west London (west Brompton area) and we dont have friends in the neighbourhood really..we have a some very good friends in London and my best friends live just outside of London. Our families are very supportive but they are abroad. Last week a social worker from coram called me and said that they would not be able to start the application process with us until I get some experience volunteering with children I dont know. Experience with friends and relatives' children does not count apparently. But now with the pandemic who will let me see any child? I have asked a few nurseries close by and they confirmed my thoughts..do you have any suggestions? I was very disappointed to hear this request..it is very unrealistic and unfair. My partner teaches music to young children so he has experience. But that is not enough..hmm. I am a psychologist and I work with adults but maybe I can teach Italian to young children on zoom(in a playful way)?would that count?Anyone interested? free of charge of course.
Thanks for your suggestions!

Honestly, I’d go back to them and ask specifically what they think you would gain from volunteering with children that you don’t already have. Unless you really have little contact or relationships with children it’s not useful in the slightest, and is used to play games with prospective adopters in a “how many hoops” kind of way.

Have they asked about your current knowledge and experience and identified a legitimate gap? I’m guessing not. I’d push back on that expectation - they’ll know it will be difficult to do at the moment but it keeps their waiting lists down at a time when they may be short staffed.

Failing that I’d find another agency tbh.

Thank you Jellycatspyjamas!
Yes I will follow your advice!
I worked as a part time nanny in Italy with a 1 year old. I did it until he was 5. It was 15 years ago but still..I didnt forget. The social worker said it would be good for me to gain experience in the British context.. I have been living here for 15 years by the way and I told her that I have experience with my friends' children. We don't have much connection with the community really. It would be a good idea to do some volunteering and I can commit to that but stopping my application for that? I dont think it is fair!
I want to try with Pact too.
Between Coram and Pact..which one would you recommend?
Thanks a lot for your help!

I agree with @Jellycatspyjamas

Its just astounding that in the current situation agencies are still insisting on this

The social worker said it would be good for me to gain experience in the British context..

I’d explore why they think that - what will you gain that they feel is essential for adoption. My resistance comes from a few pints of view:-

• absolutely nothing will adequately prepare you for parenting a child that you don’t know, certainly not helping in a play group 2 hours a week (for example)
• volunteering isn’t volunteering if it’s a condition of being able to progress your adoption application
• organisations go through the process of recruiting, on boarding and training volunteers only for them to leave once they’ve ticked the box they need for adoption
• organisations should be offering decent training, they’re paid enough for the adoption assessment to not effectively use stretched organisations to do their heavy lifting

Unless it’s actually necessary and of worth and will fill knowledge gaps, volunteering is simply a hoop to jump through.

I don’t know either organisations well as I’m in Scotland, so couldn’t really advise, but I’m a huge supporter of local authority adoption teams .

Thank you! It's so helpful to hear your feedback!

I agree with @Jellycatspyjamas. We successfully adopted from our LA with the experience we had. I'd never come across the idea of volunteering until I came on this forum. No amount of experience/training can prepare you for the reality of parenting a traumatised child as many of the threads on here show. Personally, I think that time would be better spent learning more about this from the various TV and radio programmes, podcasts and books that people recommend.

Ive heard a lot of prospective adopters having this problem recently but does sound agency specific, id speak to another, and Id join Adoption UK and go to the prospective adopter meet ups and chat with others who've faced this too. You sound like you've lots of experience and you could always gain more as you go through the assessment rather than before hand, assessment takes ages you've loads of time so it does seem mad to hold you up starting, especially when you actually have experience! Adoption UK is really good with so many webinars and resources as well as the zoom meet ups so always recommend it, I found it so useful.

Thank you so much guys (not sure if you are all mums or dads too. Is mumsnet just for mums?) for all your advice! You are fantastic. Honestly.

All I can add is that we also had to do this (several years ago) and we just did our best to give them whatever they asked for - jumped through every hoop they gave us,and after the 18months finally had our son placed with us!

From our group, the types of volunteering people did were to go into schools and read with children, brownies / scouts, local playgroups, local baby groups.

It is an utter pain to try to fit into your working week and I agree with the others here who have said nothing will prepare you - you don’t even know what age the child you adopt will be!

My impression is that they have a system, and it is not for you to question it! They usually are oversubscribed with people trying to adopt and if you can’t get on board with it, especially in the early stages, then they might not let you progress. For us this was certainly the case - we were not allowed into stage 1 until we had some experience with ‘young children we didn’t know’.

I think you might be setting yourself up to fail if you start to challenge them? If you do proceed with Coram, I do think the baby groups etc will start up again and you will have your opportunities. You could check how much experience they want - provide them with your plan before you start and see if they think it is sufficient?

Thank you Icelollies..it's difficult to know exactly what to do..I wouldn't challenge them in an aggressive way but I would politely raise my concerns about what they demanded in this climate. If it was before covid times I would have just done what they had asked. But now? Cant waste time like that..
Thanks for sharing your experience. It's very helpful!

I would try a slightly passive aggressive approach- "I feel I've got experience from x, what experience are you looking for?" Then "I'm really keen to do that, obviously. It's difficult with covid, so could be start stage 1, then of course when opportunities open up, I'll be able to volunteer during the stage 2 time. We're just so keen to be parents, and get things underway."

If you can get your ROI form in, their "clock" to assess you starts, and waiting for you to volunteer won't wash with Ofsted, so if you can't do anything later, I wouldn't be surprised if the idea gets dropped.

But show willing. Be keen!

Thank you Percypetulant.
I love your passive aggressive style!😆I will try!!!! And yes I agree that we need to show them how keen we are. They dont know anything about us after all. I just would like to be given a chance.

We were asked to get this experience even though we were both teachers-I had 15 years of primary school experience and we had heaps of experience with friends children. They wanted us to have experience with children we didn’t know....so we knocked on a neighbours door who we didn’t know at all and explained what we were being asked to do. We then did several days out with their children and were observed by the SW interacting with the children in our home. The neighbours loved us for it and it was quite good to work out how to deal with children we really didn’t know especially things like meals and toileting without their parents around to help us (a tiny bit like the first bit of intros)

"maybe I can teach Italian to young children on zoom(in a playful way)?would that count?Anyone interested? ...free of charge of course."

If you do this, pm me. I do know a lot of people with kidsbut I do think this may be a bit of a weird request. Maybe a hoop to jump through.

I am genuinely surprised your nannying experience would not be enough.

I do think this is really OTT. I started the adoption process in 2019. I had a 2 year old. They still insisted I do volunteering in a nursery. I did but it quite put me off, which is maybe the point. They also wanted me to make loads of changes to my house, which given it was fine for my existing child I wasnt keen on.

I get that they make people jump through all these hoops to make sure they are comitted, but that might not always be for the best. I have had another biological child, but for all the hoops I would have adopted and surely the more adopted children the better.

Best of luck

Thank you all so much for all your advice.
I am taking everything in board and I will try to be as patient and compliant as possible..I remembered that I know someone who used to work in a nursery. I will get in touch with her. I might have more chances if I have a connection in the school..we'll see..
Thank you all again for your support!

Hi MariaLondon77, how is your adoption journey going? I am exactly on the same boat and struggle to find the time to volunteer

We did a week on a holiday camp for young people who otherwise wouldn’t have had a holiday. It was fun! And ticked a lot of boxes. I can pm details if you’re interested.