Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Adoption

Here are some suggested organisations that offer expert advice on adoption.

Original poster

Onto Stage 2!

16 replies

karcheer · 05/07/2021 18:38

We've passed stage one and we are onto stage 2! Anyone else?
Our training is in August.
Although we are looking at older children i'm going to do the Early Permanence training - just in case!

OP posts:
claireb7rg · 05/07/2021 18:48

👋 we've just finished stage 2 and have our approval panel next week 😮😮

Training was really good, we both learnt a lot more than we thought we would, although the sessions were mentally tiring. We had 6 2 hour sessions over 3 days (morning and afternoon 3 weeks in a row), we all said it seemed harder to cope with than longer days in person (it was all virtual on MS Teams), as you couldn't decompress and chat about it during tea breaks etc.

Our sw has been fab and we've had her since our initial visit (virtual) in December,

claireb7rg · 05/07/2021 18:49

Oops sorry pressed send too soon.

We also did the epp training but we aren't looking at that as a priority. We would like a sibling pair ideally between 2 and 5yrs

Original poster
karcheer · 05/07/2021 18:56

@claireb7rg we are the same, looking at potentially a sibling pair of the same ages.

Good luck on your panel. How exciting!

OP posts:
Original poster
karcheer · 07/08/2021 16:02

This week we had our 3 day training, we've a few my days todo between now and December.
We are now waiting a social worker to be allocated to us, but have been told this may be some time.
Our LA has closed the book on new adopters joining the process as they have so many at the moment.

OP posts:
claireb7rg · 07/08/2021 21:24

@karcheer

This week we had our 3 day training, we've a few my days todo between now and December. We are now waiting a social worker to be allocated to us, but have been told this may be some time. Our LA has closed the book on new adopters joining the process as they have so many at the moment.
😮 wow really. I knew there was a massive backlog in the courts meaning adoption orders haven't been granted for a lot of kids but crazy that there's that many adopters.

We got approved last month BTW 😁

Donteatpurplebroccoli · 07/08/2021 22:19

We did the ffa (early permanence training) also just incase and were aiming for and approved for siblings , we ended up with a 4 month old straight from birth mom and have never regretted it!! Good luck with whomever your future holds!! Daffodil

kindared · 08/08/2021 20:16

We are just starting off on stage one. Also interested in EP but need to find out a lot more!

Original poster
karcheer · 21/08/2021 09:33

Hi everyone,
We did our early permanence training yesterday and it actually felt more harrowing than the prep course. Our LA had recently had a baby given back to birth family after being placed in EP for over a year.
We are thinking of a Sibling group so not sure EP will be relevant anyway as they are at least one will be older.
Still haven’t been allocated a SW and in fact of the six couples only one had!

OP posts:
claireb7rg · 21/08/2021 15:13

We've got our epp training on Wednesday. We're debating not doing it as we're really unsure about epp process, we only said we'd do it so we weren't completely ruled out

kindared · 22/08/2021 05:39

@karcheer

Hi everyone, We did our early permanence training yesterday and it actually felt more harrowing than the prep course. Our LA had recently had a baby given back to birth family after being placed in EP for over a year. We are thinking of a Sibling group so not sure EP will be relevant anyway as they are at least one will be older. Still haven’t been allocated a SW and in fact of the six couples only one had!
Oh wow. A year is a long time. That must have been incredibly hard for all involved. There's a lot of tall about how it's extremely rare that babies in EP placements go back to birth family but I would like to have some numbers. Thank you for sharing. I can't find much about what the EP training is like but I'm glad we'll be prepared for a tough one.
Leaconners · 16/09/2021 22:29

We’ve decided to go for EPP, we had a session with our LA agency manager recently and she said they placed 300(ish) children last year and 2 had been returned to birth family and it was likely that one more would be.

kindared · 20/09/2021 21:52

@Leaconners

We’ve decided to go for EPP, we had a session with our LA agency manager recently and she said they placed 300(ish) children last year and 2 had been returned to birth family and it was likely that one more would be.
@Leaconners that's exciting and thanks for sharing. Are you still in stage 2 or are you beyond? Do you know of the 300, how many were EP? We are still in stage one and current conversation around EP at home is swinging between 'yes we can do this' and 'no, the fear is too great' almost daily!
Leaconners · 20/09/2021 22:20

I feel like they were all EPP, but I may be wrong.
We’re kind of in between stages, we’ve started assessments with our SW but some of our checks haven’t been sent back yet. We’re still waiting on one medical and dbs and a police check from Australia. Our SW doesn’t seem too fussed and is cracking on.
We were the same when deciding what to do, my best friend was placed with a baby through EPP a few months ago so having her tell me all the ins and outs has massively helped and they’ve suffered a great deal of loss which we haven’t. So seeing them going through it is making me feel a lot more confident about it. We decided that we would definitely like a newborn so it’s pretty much our only option.

kindared · 21/09/2021 07:31

Good that you get such close experience of EP through your friend! Good luck x

Original poster
karcheer · 14/10/2021 15:47

We met with our social worker today for the first time, she seemed really nice. We've scheduled in all our weekly meetings right up to Christmas, so I expect Panel will be Jan/Feb time.

She said that it's taking a year (soonest) to place children at the moment.

OP posts:
kindared · 18/11/2021 23:05

How's it going @karcheer? We're in the middle of stage two too now!

New posts on this thread. Refresh page