My partner works in paediatrics and deals with children every day and is so fantastic with children, but we're told this is not relevant as it's not "sole care experience" and that "parenting is completely different".
With the greatest of respect, nothing is like parenting, not playing with friends children, not having kids for a sleepover, not babysitting and certainly not volunteering with children. If parenting experience were required most people wouldn’t adopt because most people coming to adoption aren’t parents. She’s so far off beam on this it’s ridiculous. If sole care experience were required most people wouldn’t adopt because unless you have kids you don’t tend to have experience of kids without their parents present or at least at the end of a phone.
How many adopted children has your sw actually cared for - I don’t mean working in residential care, which is a totally different thing again. In her thinking unless you’ve done it, you can’t show that you can do it which is utterly ridiculous.
I don't want to make a fuss and be "those people" or have to start again, but I thought in some ways the social worker was supposed to advocate and support you,
Absolutely this, your social worker should be able to challenge you of course, but they should also support you to look for your existing strengths and help you build on those, they should also be positive about your intention and your capacity to care for children otherwise what’s the actual point. You need to feel that they are on your side, that they will represent you well and that they can see your potential as parents and are positive about what you have to offer. The challenging part of the process will always be there and the relationship with your social worker may need to be quite robust but that’s not what you’re describing.
Is it possible she’s intimidated by your partners job role? I can’t think of any other reason for her behaviour which sounds very “I’m going to put you in your place”. Some sw can be very threatened by folk with a perceived social standing - it’s wrong but it does happen.
I’d be deeply concerned that your only facing barrier after barrier here, there’s nothing in what you’ve said that would concern me about your childcare experience - your referees sound ideal to me; family members, friends who know you well and friends who know you with children. The reality is you build your “child friendly” supports once you become a parent by meeting other parents with children at the same age and stage. Folk I thought would be a strong support for me have been disastrous and people I barely knew have been fabulous. The whole point is, your life will change, your social circle will change - you’ve not gone through that change yet. In early placement the people who were the biggest support to me were the people I could phone at any point for a cry and a moan. The rest has built as I’ve become more settled and more involved with school etc.
I’d write out your concerns, as you’ve done here, and ask for a meeting with your manager, if you don’t get anywhere I’d seriously look at changing agency, some may accept you into stage 2 rather than starting again.
The process should be challenging, it shouldn’t be souk destroying. At this stage I’d expect you to have a positive sense of the value you can bring to parenting children.
And the IVF stuff is nonsense. If you’re meeting her again each time she makes that kind of nonsense statement I’d ask her to explain what she means, clearly, and start unpicking it. It doesn’t need to be rude but, for example “you sound like you’re really knowledgeable about parenting adopted children, is that something you’ve done or is it just part of your training”.