First stage interview

[KEALING]

Hi there

I have an interview scheduled for 2hours before the registration of interest form will be provided to me.
Could I ask what types of questions will be asked during this 2 hour initial interview?
Also is it mandatory to accept a child with complex needs? Advice is appreciated. Thanks

While it is not mandatory to adopt a child with complex needs most adopted children will have additional needs in some manner as they are all dealing with trauma in some way or another. You have the right to say no to a child if you feel you wouldn't be able to cope with their needs but depending on the age of the child you adopt their needs may develop as they grow. The interview will be to get to know you, your back ground and your reason for adopting. The social worker will want to know why you want to adopt, what you would plan on doing for adoption leave and then working, bearing in mind if a child has needs that prevent you from working how would you cope money wise and emotionally. The will discuss what sort of child you would be looking for, age range, single child or sibling group. Depending on this information they will then decide if you can proceed with the process. They may also discuss what child care experience you have

I am just worried that if i say that I do not want a child with alcohol foetal syndrome them I may get rejected. It's the complex experience which worries me

I have a lot of child care experience and a strong support network.

Just be honest and explain why you don't think you could cope with certain issues. I'm not asking you to tell me, but the social worker will want to know why so please ensure you have had a good think about it which I'm sure you will have had.

The difficulty with saying that I don't want a child with X, is that their needs may not be known at the point of adoption. Many children do not get a diagnosis until they are at school.
And FAS is not the only thing that causes complex needs.

Lets face it, no one really wants a child with FAS, we don't want our children to struggle with life but sometimes thats the hand both you and the child are dealt. I didn't want a child with ASD, but thats what I ended up with. And I have no regrets.

Its absolutely fine and normal to have worries. Its also good that you are considering where your limitations may lie.

Its also very different when you are considering real children, when you see what these scary conditions actually mean in real life.

At this stage, my best advice to you is to keep an open mind, its a learning process. At the moment its all very scary, but should become less so as you move through the assessment and learn more.

Ok thanks for the advice and will take it 1 step at a time and see what happens.

Regards

Many adopted children have complex needs, that doesn’t mean they are difficult to parent or that there are behavioural issues etc, just that in order to grow and thrive they will need a body of support around them.

My DD has very complex needs, she is in mainstream school, has friendships, her behaviour is mostly good. She does need a lot of medical support and specialist help with learning, she needs attentive and attuned parents, but she isn’t difficult to parent.

Have a think about what specifically you feel you might not be able to cope with and why, and what picture is in your mind when you think about a child with complex needs - that might help you work out what you’re actually worried about -v- what’s meant by complex needs.

At this stage I'd recommend keeping an open mind. As part of your training and assessment process you should be taught both what questions to ask about a prospective child once you've seen their paperwork. You should also do a tick box exercise around what additional needs you can accept, what you can't and what you need more information on.

We found that some no nos were easy. For example we live in a house so any child that might need help using stairs was out. Our social worker said no to deafness on our behalf because we don't know sign language. We also said no to children with chronic health conditions requiring daily medical such as HIV and diabetes. Finally we said no to children who had experienced sexual abuse because their are certain behaviours commonly associated with it.

Almost everything else was will discuss/need further information on because things like skin issues, father unknown, parental mental health conditions and domestic abuse can all mean different things and each meaning can have different implications for a child.

2 things to bear in mind our that all adopted children have trauma.

One they are very few voluntarily relinquished children these days. On top of the trauma of being separated from birth parents, most will be have additional trauma because of the reasons they have been removed from their parents in the first place.

Two, the paperwork never gives the full story either of what the child has been through or of the child as a person. Our LO has many issues most of which we manage easily. Some are related to her life story and some are age/developmentally appropriate. Beyond that however she is a person in her own right and no piece of paper could ever tell you all about her even when it includes her favourite colour (pink) and her love of board games.

We were totally honest we did say we could not cope with a child with challenging behaviour on the grounds we have 3 with Down Syndrome. They were fine with it. But we were open to have a child with complex medical needs.
Agree with PP adopted children all suffer from trauma. We have been so lucky😅.

Not all disabilities or conditions are known, medical conditions can also develop, that is the same whether a child is biological or adopted. I have a dd with asd, it was obvious from very young, my dp has a dd with very severe lds and complex medical needs, not all was apparent to around 6,7 years old. Be aware that social workers will want to hear you are adaptable and understand that you need to be able to parent a child whose start in life was less than ideal (in most circumstances, few babies are willingly put up for adoption), all my friends with adopted children have needed some input from camhs. FAS is very complex, friends dd has it, but at 5 when they adopted it wasn't diagnosed