Adoption panel

[CASPER70]

My wife and I took a year to get to panel and we went with an incomplete par report as our social worker had completely messed up our stage 2 assessment. Needless to say we were not approved however the reasons given were nothing to do with anything the social worker had said in her reports and risk assessments. We feel let down by the whole process and the panel was the final kick in the teeth. If anyone is thinking of adopting research the agencies thoroughly.

I'm sorry this happened to you. There is a mechanism to appeal for approval panel, I believe. In a way there isn't for matching. Could you talk to another agency, or look into appeal?

We have a adverse risk assessment on file now so we are pretty much blocked from adopting.

An adverse risk assessment is quite different to having an incomplete PAR, I’m sure this wasn’t the outcome you hoped for and can understand you feeling let down, if you feel the risk assessment is inaccurate you can ask for a second opinion.

They would not complete our par because of the adverse risk assessment. We wanted to go to panel anyway to expose the appalling treatment we've had hoping it would stop it happening to anyone else. Panel were not interested.

I would like to point out that our social worker has blatantly lied in her assessments, she has racially profiled my wife and we had no support whatsoever. Even the morning of panel I had to chase them to find out what time it was going to be.

There are complaints procedures for this, you obviously feel strongly, if you wish to, I would recommend following those complaint procedures. If you do choose to try with another agency, following the correct procedures will stand you in good stead.

If you feel the adverse risk assessment is incorrect you can ask for that to be revisited and provide any evidence you have that would challenge the risk assessment, the panel isn’t the best place to challenge it because their decision making really is limited to approval based on the information they have in front of them.

If you feel you’ve been discriminated against, you can take this through complaint which would be heard by someone independent of the original assessment process. The issue for the panel would be the incomplete PAR, you said they didn’t make their decision based on anything in the sw assessment or risk assessment but the adverse risk assessment must have informed their decision not to approve you, given you think this would stop you being able to adopt.

We are going to complain about how we have been treated. The SW has put us through hell, particularly my wife who she has racial stereotyped and blatantly lied about. There are hundreds of thousands of children in care and it's not hard to see why they are short of potential adopters. I was adopted myself at 6 weeks old and panel actually had the nerve to say they don't think we understand the nerve of an adopted child. 12 months of hell for absolutely nothing.

Hi Casper, what were the reasons given? You highlighted lack of a support network, but is there anything else? Have you checked if it is possible to work on the issues highlighted in the assessment and try to adopt again at a later stage?

Unfortunately there is no trust any more. As I've said we have been lied to and have had things said about us that simply are not true. Why would we go back for more? It's heart breaking but we have come to terms with it. We now just want to stop it happening to anyone else.

I’m really sorry that you have been treated like this.

My SW also lied about me. I left the agency and went elsewhere.

The thing that really strikes me about this, and some similar posts that I’ve seen recently, is that it seems clear to me that there were issues throughout the assessment.
So why as prospective adopters do we tolerate this? I got to three weeks before panel before it finally imploded. But I wasn’t happy with the SW from our second meeting.
It cost me a lot of time and stress but leaving the LA behind means I eventually got approved and have my son.

Interestingly the same LA who didnt want me then, now invite me to contribute to training prospective adopters.

@Ted27 tenacity is certainly needed in adoption!

We were very lucky that our assessing SW was the best. The PAR is so important, it is worth ensuring you "gel" early on, and changing if alarm bells ring. It's hard, though, as adopters we feel so powerless.

I changed LA after 2 months because I wasn’t comfortable with their process and the worker had, in my view, an overly precious attitude to her work. It was easy for me to do because I live in an area bordered by 4 local authorities so had 5 I could reasonably apply through.

Part of the issue I think is the consortium arrangement that local authorities have where all applications in 3/4 local authorities go through the same team, so choice to change is limited to the local authority consortium or voluntary agencies, who have their own draw backs.

I also think folk are scared to change because it means restarting the process, with the delays that brings and they worry that complaining might mark their card in some way.

Because the approval assessment usually rests with the individual assessing social worker it’s very hard if there’s a clash of personalities, a less knowledgeable sw or poor practice. In most other assessment processes there’s wider multi-agency involvement which usually mitigates against individual bias.

In my very humble view, there needs to be better scrutiny of adoption approval processes, and clearer processes for resolving differences or ambiguity in reports. All too often it rests with the line manager of the assessing sw, which isn’t independent enough.

#Jellycatspyjamas very well said. This is what we are hoping to achieve by taking our complaint as far as we can.

CASPER70 please please don’t give up on adoption, it’s appalling the way you have been treated, I faced racist comments from my foster children’s social worker many times ( white foster parents, wanting to adopt our mixed race, foster children) I complained, about her behaviour, even put in formal complaint, I was ignored, worse still I was threatened by sw telling me she would make up lies about my family. It was a truly terrible experience, the children were sent to live with a family member in the end. We decided our fostering days were over, as right up until the last meeting SW was making derogatory remarks about the children, and often racist comments, which I could not tolerate and challenged every time, as you can imagine I was not the kind of foster career they wanted. But after a year to get over everything, we decided to go with a different LA and adopt and I’m happy to say we had the most amazing SW on all levels, family finders, ours, and our little ones were so professional, sometimes you get a bad authority and mine was a disgrace, when I tell people what was actually said to me in a meeting with 5 others present, all their staff obviously, I’m sure people don’t believe me ( it’s that bad, I’m afraid) would say but would be outing as I didn’t let it go. Please try again, there is hope, you deserve better

"I’m sure people don’t believe me"

I believe you. I think this is one of the most difficult things when you experience poor practice. "But they CAN'T say/do that!" They can. They did. And it's incredibly difficult as an adopter to fight it, or complain, as if you're 'difficult', then YOU are the problem. It's incredibly lonely, the incredulity.

And, without going down any conspiracies, it makes me concerned about social work practice more generally, particularly with vulnerable people. Dismissing our experience, as non-vulnerable people, doesn't alleviate that concern, but actually amplifies it- if I can be made out to be 'misunderstanding' or not telling the whole truth, then imagine...

These 'bad apples', or poor practice, or strained services, or whatever you want to call it, undermine public faith in the whole service and profession.

Gordon grumpy you are so right