Advice for social workers

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For when visiting adopters homes…

1. When trying to locate the home, use google maps or Waze or any other app. It helps if you look at the forms you have been sent three times over, and then copy and paste the address into google. I can’t tell you how to get to our house. I don’t use public transport.

1. Give a time you are arriving. Not an estimate, a time. And then arrive either at that time or up to 30 minutes after. Don’t give a time and then turn up an hour early. We won’t be there, because you told us you were coming at a certain time.

1. Have a purpose to the meeting and explain it. Maybe have a list of 10 questions you want to discuss. If it’s just to observe, tell us. If it doesn’t have a purpose, tell us this. Have some conversation starters so it’s not painfully awkward. Some good ones are: “gosh this weather!?!?” Or: “have you been anywhere nice on your holidays?” Or “have you been anywhere this week?” Or “what have you been watching on Netflix?”

1. If it’s clear you’ve overstayed your welcome, leave. It’s hard enough parenting without having to worry about the stranger sitting in our living room, whilst we are all having lunch. If you are having trouble booking a taxi, tell us, we can help!

Hope this is useful to social workers who work with adopters.

Let me know your worst social worker visits so I can feel better about the 2 hour visit I’ve just had after placement………..!

This sounds awful! Did you raise these points with the social worker?

Found it too awkward and feel like I’ve already raised enough with our social worker for him to be getting on with to be honest!!!

well that sounds like it was fun !

I had to ask my SW to have a word with his SW because her visits caused havoc. We ended up meeting in the park cafe, we passed very painful half hours drinking tea whilst he whizzed round in circles on his bike oblivious to the simmering tension.
Fortunately she retired and we never met his new SW as she left it to my SW.
Happy Days

Oh no. Sending a big hug to you.

Fortunately my and little man's SW's have always been on time, stayed the same amount of time and things have been very structured. So I cant give any bad stories about that.

But in terms of any actual advice and strategies regarding challenging behaviours and any other adoption related issue it's been next to zero.

I have found that the SW's just listen and record and conveniently never respond to the questions you need answering e.g "you say I need to report any injuries to little man as a LAC. Exactly what do I need to report." I report a bruise I see and get you dont need to report it, I dont report a similar one and get told I needed to report it.

I have figured that the best thing to do is smile and nod and only tell the SW's things they actually need to know. And I can say goodbye to all the various LAC mtgs once the Adoption Order is made !!

I'm sure it's on purpose to make sure adopters apply for the AO, and they can get you off their books!

They are the most pointless meetings, especially if there's a high turnover of SWs, so you get a new one every time, which sends the DC into a panic (they can smell a SW a mile off!).

My big regret was allowing meetings to continue in my home when the fallout from DC was so awful. I wish I'd been firmer.

Hearing that you @Ted27 have said it should happen outside the home, I agree with @gordongrumpy I regret saying it should happen at home!! Also @gordongrumpy you’re right, this was the first time she’d even met DC and the way she’s been completing tasks I can’t imagine she’s long for the world of social work… I also think we will be putting in for AO as soon as just to stop these meetings!!

@Chocapple conflicting advice is their middle name I think!

Our oldest (3) has just shouted at me that he hated social workers… unfortunately I’m pretty sure they are just repeating………..

My son found the meetings very difficult and after huge fall outs I told his Sw to stop visiting because it caused him too much distress. She would phone me instead.

I have both an adopted child and birth child. One day when the visit was going oh so well and Sw and I were chatting and my adopted child was being oh so delightful (due to being terrified of being taken away by Sw) my birth child got out lots of glitter in the other room and began to swim in it. Thank goodness the sw made a hasty exit!!

Another time the kids were playing lovely in the garden when sw and I had tea and biscuits. Next moment, the kids started to be mud monsters, throwing mud at each other and painting themselves in mud. I’m glad the Sw left and didn’t see me get the hose out….

My kids knew they could get away with so much more when social worker was there….

After the children have been placed but with no AO yet, was the worst time for me. My social worker and the kids social worker visited weekly along with FaceTime chats with the foster carers….bloody exhausting!! Trying to model TP, whilst still learning how to ensure the kids didn’t spiral and still getting used to my new chaotic life and role. And the cleaning! I know I shouldn’t have had to clean for them visiting, but I still very much felt under scrutiny and the house was open plan, so it was like a bomb had gone off daily.

Once when our kids SW came, one of our cats had batted one of the children’s hands (no claws), she said: ‘oh, hasn’t the cat taken to them yet?’ I wasn’t sure what to say, because she’s a cat and cats don’t cats what SWs think. On another visit, the first thing my kids did were run up to her with armfuls of (clearly) McDonalds toys.

The worst visit though was when our SW brought their manager for a 2nd opinion (nothing to do with us, our SW was quite new to it all). I knew we had to be at our best as she was very conscientious. Anyway, I have a lovely, lovely dog who just happens to like barking (a lot), so I had the bright idea of giving her a bone just as the SW manager got to our house to pacify her. All was well, dog didn’t bark. However, when she’d finished her bone…she noticed that someone strange was in her house that she hadn’t noticed come in and she started this low growl at the manager - she never growls at anyone ever. I was a little embarrassed and I think the SW figured out what I’d done (or tried to!). Anyway she was right to oversee our SW, because although he’d done us a Sterling report, he’d made a few massive errors in our report - like halfway through, he’d started to refer to me by my husband’s ex wife's name!! But this wasn’t picked up by her - but by the matching panel!! Then it was his turn to be embarrassed.

Our childs sw was supposed to visit on a certain date to deliver the life story work and later life letter. She never turned up and we have yet to receive either one to date. Our child was 2 at the time . He is now 7 ! We never got any explanation and further attempts to get the paperwork were met with a brick wall.
Sadly as a FC and adoptor I am not surprised or shocked by anything anymore
I could write a book about sw and their foibles and failings but no one would believe it.! I wouldn't myself if I hadn't lived through it all to be fair.
There are some excellent ones of course but on the whole it has been disappointing dealing with both social workers and the system as a whole.

@flapjackfairy Please write that book, especially as you have so much experience, precisely because no one will believe it, until they hear it from multiple sources. Plus I bet it would be funny.

I actually never minded social worker visits though I agree some were far longer than they should have been. I worked out the two main reasons they overstay: 1) they don't like rush hour traffic and would rather wait it out; 2) hanging out in your family's home is more enjoyable than their other work.

I thought social workers arrived early on purpose?
Presumably to catch you leaving the kids unattended in a full bath while you share a crack pipe with your tattooed pit-bull owning lover?

@middlingmess
That is my first chapter ! However did you know

@flapjackfairy that is appalling. But sadly I have heard similar stories re LSB and LLL.

Mine would be reply to emails or sometimes just read them in the first place! Also when you're making plans that involve me, it would be helpful to actually tell me in advance what they are. Also can you explain what the statutory requirements you need to meet are rather than just assuming I know, especially when you use social worker specific terms like IRO and annex A.

@middlingmess love it!!!!!!

Can’t believe you know my partner as well!!!

Long time ago now, but one social worker turned up 4 hours late without a word of acknowledgment, sat stuffing her face with cakes and then buggered off. Sent us someone else’s paperwork and another (different child’s) final contact video. We haven’t had life stories for either child and don’t hold out much hope for a later life letter.

ineedsun
Ditto. one social worker was due around 10 in the morning and finally arrived gone 7 in the evening. No phone call or explanation. Just waltzed in and carried on as though it was completely normal to be over 10 hours late. She had no people skills and was actually moved to a different area of social work due to complaints. Bonkers

4 hours late??? 7 in the evening?????
I’m not sure I would have answered the door and let them in!!!

What’s a later in life letter????

(I mean I know what it is, just never heard of anybody having one………..!)

I’m sure there are wonderful social workers out there and we are a family because of one of them……. Unfortunately it’s just rogue social workers seem to be everywhere!!!

We had our ds placed with us only 2 weeks after being approved to adopt, so everything happened very quickly. An emergency meeting was held in our house with me, dh and about 4 Social Workers. I offered drinks and put out a plate of posh biscuits when they all arrived, which they hardly touched. After the meeting they all got up to leave and 2 of them grabbed all the remaining biscuits off the plate and stuffed them in their pockets without saying a word. We were so desperate to get our placement that neither of us said anything. Later, when one of the same Social Workers visited, he walked all over the house in filthy shoes and we watched in dismay as he sat on our new leather settee and waved his black biro around, making pen marks all over the settee. He noticed but just didn't care. Our ds had come from an extremely deprived and neglected background but he never made half as much mess as his Social Worker did.

I believe they’re supposed to get that when they’re 18, gives more detail in an age appropriate way

I was given later life letters when my son moved in. I gave them to him when he was 16 as I thought the time was right and he could handle thei information.
He had a letter from his birth mum, and one from his SW

I am just at these stories and yet the hoops that we are made to jump through....

Smile and nod, smile and nod

@Nosilayak gosh okay I’ve got it much easier than this!!! Also I know social workers aren’t paid very well so that might explain the biscuit stealing…

@ineedsun our adoption agency requested the later in life letter and life story book in the first meeting they had. They said we should have it before adoption order. I doubt we will ever get it for our first child and I really doubt we will see it for our second. We have an extended adopted family (older siblings with other adopters) and none of them have it. It just got to me when in the training sessions went on and on and on about the importance of these documents but they’ve never shown up.

PS for any prospective adopters reading - please understand - it’s all totally worth it! The children are incredible. You just have to smile and nod!!!!