2nd time adoption issues

[Skip121]

Hi All,

This is my first post here so apologies if I’ve missed anything but I really wanted to sense check something that’s happened with other people who have gone through the joys of the adoption process.

We’re currently going through the adoption process for the second time 6 years after adopting our first child.

This time around we expressed a strong preference for adopting a sibling group and we had a very enthusiastic response from our initial enquiry social worker and then from our assessing social worker. We have gone down this road with the full support of our child who has been really vocal in his enthusiasm. We understand that theory and reality are different but we have gone through the possible challenges of having a sibling group come into our lives with him and as a family looked at and discussed resources and stories of issues that sometimes happen but through it all our child has been supportive and remains so.

In our PAR report to panel the social worker highlighted our preference for siblings and even mentioned our child’s enthusiasm for it. They expressed no concerns about a sibling group joining our family.

We’ve had our approval panel and they were robust with their questions on how it may impact our child and both we and our social worker felt that we had given sufficient responses. When we were told panel had recommended our approval there was no mention of any concerns about adopting a sibling group.

We were called yesterday by our social worker to say that the agency decision maker had approved us but they had decided to only approve us for a single child as they think a sibling group would not be in the best interests of our current child.

After we raised our surprise and frustration with our social worker we had a late night zoom call with them and we challenged how this could have happened as at no point during our assessment has there been any indication of any concerns that we would not be able to manage the new relationships between our current and future children.
Our social worker seemed to struggle with explaining the decision and wasn’t able to respond to our points challenging the explanations. At one point they even said that they sometimes were concerned about having an odd number of children in placement, but I think they quickly realised that was a bit far fetched and backtracked. Our social worker expressed that they felt we would be fine but this was the ADM’s decision and they weren’t likely to change their mind. They’ve offered a meeting with a manager but my understanding is that it’s unlikely to be able to give us any further insight than we already have.

This decision has come completely out of the blue for us, as both of the social workers we’ve had during the registration and assessment have both been encouraging around siblings, to the point that during our assessment we had to remind our social worker we would be willing to accept a single child if it was felt a good match. At no point has anyone expressed any concern at all that a sibling group would be wrong for us.

I’m really struggling not to take this personally as it feels that a person who has never met our child or us, has swept in and told us we aren’t thinking in our child’s best interests and they’ve done so on our behalf.

During our last adoption process we had a social worker we’d never met pop up and challenged our match to our current child which only through a lot of grit from us and advocacy from our matching social worker did we manage to overcome it. This situation is giving me the same sensation of someone popping up with an arbitrary decision but not being able to justify it.

I’m aware I’m in the storm of the emotions of the situation at the moment so I wanted to reach out to people who may have gone through this sort of thing so see if you’d faced anything similar or whether I’m overreacting to a normal decision.

I’d really appreciate any thoughts you guys may have.

(Sorry for the essay post but I really needed to vent!)

I don’t know the specifics of your case, but I wonder if the issue around siblings is a worry that your existing child might feel displaced.

I adopted a sibling pair and the work involved in the first couple of years was incredible, they literally took every minute of every day because of their differing and competing needs. Add into that the existing bond between two siblings and your child could quickly feel outnumbered and set aside as you dedicate much needed time to settling your new little people.

The dynamic between two siblings in early placement can be very challenging in itself, they’re often used to competing with each other for scarce resources and attention, even in very young children there’s often one who is used to assuming a caring role for the other so you have a constant push/pull that doesn’t go away easily and needs worked through. Add a settled, attached existing child into the mix and the family dynamic can be very challenging and unsettling to all concerned.

Was the dynamic between a sibling pair and your current child something you discussed in your preparation and PAR? I’m surprised no one in the process has expressed concerns to be honest, because I’d have a lot of concern about introducing a sibling pair to a home with a settled adopted child. Not least I’d be worried about disrupting an existing placement. It’s very different adopting another singleton because the sibling dynamic is build from placement without needing to focus on introducing a new sibling to an existing sibling relationship.

The ADM is there to act as a backstop for the assessment and panel process, it’s intended to give a dispassionate eye to the process which is important but does bring its challenges.

In your shoes i would meet with the manager and explore it with them. They may not change their mind, but you may have a better sense of clarity about why they’ve made the decision they have, which will give you an idea of whether you want to appeal the decision or help you accept it.

I just wrote a big reply and then lost it, but it was in a very similar vein to @Jellycatspyjamas .

Firstly though, I’m really sorry this happened. If it was discussed/challenged robustly during stage 2, then I think further advice from your SWs supervisor should have taken place.

I adopted a sibling pair, there is only a year between them. Their relationship is very intense - although sometimes they want to kill each other, for the most part, it is them against the world. They are highly effective at working together, which doesn’t always work for a harmonious house. It’s a different situation, but I wouldn’t adopt a third child, as I think it could be explosive. I don’t think my two could share each other. It would be a too bigger risk as we are living fairly harmoniously at the minute, a third child would tip the balance off kilter I think.

There is a process by which you can question/challenge the decision, sorry can't remember the details just now.

The Social Worker's and Adoption Panel's recommendations are just that. - recommendations. The final decision lies with the designated decision maker, always a Senior Manager in Children's Services.

Hi Skip121

I'm a long time lurker/learner from the adoption board. In truth my little one only came home 10 months ago, so I don't have a lot of experience but perhaps a small insight.

Firstly I did want to say how sorry I am for you that this has happened. It must be have been an awful shock, and that will take time to process. The approval road is hard enough without a complete curve ball coming out of nowhere after the 11th hour.

Secondly, my thoughts (for all they may be worth) are that the ADM may also have been thinking about the impact on any sibling group you were matched with if integration with you and your existing child didn't go well. I know no-one has said that to you yet, so I may be completely wrong. But the reason I say it is because my little one was originally part of a sibling group of 3 that were placed together and that placement disrupted incredibly quickly, within weeks of the children moving in. (How SS went from fully supporting and approving that match to removing the children so quickly is something I'm still working through).

What I do know is that the impact of that short placement and disruption on my little one has been profound. It is something that my DH and I, and the siblings parents, will probably be dealing with on and off for the rest of their lives.

It also seems to have had a profound effect on my little one's SW team. We were approved by a VA and so our SW was independent of our little one's LA. Our SW was very clear we were being asked to jump through a lot of extra hoops as part of our matching process (and post introductions). Our little one's SW team were so wary of getting it wrong a second time. The LA's matching panel also seemed to have it on their minds. If your ADM has had similar experiences professionally that may have played a part in this decision.

My little ones first placement didn't involve any existing birth or adopted children; and the placement still wasn't a success. I'm not for a moment suggesting the same would happen in your case; just that because early disruptions do happen and do seem to emotionally affect the professionals involved (as well as the children) I can see how someone not close to your specific case might have (entirely unrelated to you) reasons to pause for thought.

I may be totally off base with the above, so please feel free to disregard. But I feel for you that there has been such inadequate explanations so far. I think my DH would have taken something like this very hard. It's not like any of us go though this process lightly. But I do think it's possible that this decision is not about your specific circumstances, and more to do with the ADM's professional views/experiences, and that may be a helpful thought.

@LittleBear21 really good points made there, I hadn’t thought of it from that angle.

I would certainly meet with. manager.
I would also email your SW and ask for information about the Independent Review Mechanism. This is an option open to you if you are in disagreement with a judgement made.
Here is a link with some more information but the adoption team should be sharing information with you. Asking them for it will make it clear that you are serious about challenging their decision.
www.gov.uk/government/organisations/independent-review-mechanism
No decision made should come as a shock to you; if there were ANY doubts about your suitability to adopt a sibling group then you should have been prepared for this long before the ADM judgement!

@Skip121 I am so angry on your behalf. It’s almost like they know sibling groups are harder to place so they haven’t looked at your family critically and just went ahead with sibling groups without considering you or your family.

we had a birth child (not an adopted child) when we went through the adoption process. We had the space and financial ability to support a sibling group and thought about it going into it. One of the first questions asked was about what we thought we could adopt and we said we would be happy to adopt siblings. Due to having a child in the family, we were told that we wouldn’t be approved for siblings. The reasons being:

siblings, no matter how young, have a sibling bond, our child would be excluded from that bond and potentially threaten it leading to our child being excluded.

siblings often compete with each other, having to compete with a child already established in the family, may be overwhelming for all.

our child’s needs may be overlooked due to introduction of more than one child.

going from an only child to having more than one sibling may negatively impact our child.

the list was quiet extensive. But, importantly, it was explained to us on our first meeting with social work. They saw us adopting siblings as a risk they were not willing to take for the children involved. It may not have worked out that way but the belief was it would have been harder to create a family unit with siblings joining the family at the same time who already had an established relationship. We were approved to adopt one child and told that we could always adopt more in the future if circumstances allowed. They were open and honest from day one.

we did go on to adopt a single child and he is doing well.

i wonder if it is a case that the he adm have the same concerns my agency did at the perceived risks and called a stop to it. I am so sorry this wasn’t discussed before now

Hi All,

Thank you so much for all your insights and advice, it's so nice to hear from people who understand this weird situation as most people find it hard to relate.

We'd definitely considered the possibility of displacement of our current child and had listed out all the steps we would take to try and mitigate that. My other half is also a psychologist and even brought up a list of local agencies we would seek support from should that be an issue. But again that was something we did off of our own back and honestly nobody seemed to be that interested/concerned at the time. Our child even expressed his support for a sibling group which was noted in our PAR, but I do understand theory and reality are often different.

I think for us it's the 'out of nowhere' sensation of having this being dropped on us despite being actively encouraged since our expression of interest to go down the siblings group route, to the point of us even having to remind our social worker that we would also consider a single child during the considerations stage.
We literally attended a workshop they'd booked us on for adopting sibling groups the day before we heard this news which I think may have added a bit of salt to the wound.

I think for me it's the feeling of having this done to us rather than either something we'd discussed and mutually agreed or even been matched with a single child as they were a good fit for our family, both of those I'd be okay with. I know that's not particularly rational but I'm having trouble getting through the frustration this has caused us.

I think we'll speak with this manager and see what comes from there.

A huge thank you to all of you for your thoughts and for sharing your experiences, it's always nice to know we're not the only ones in these situations!

@Skip121 you can't compare adopting a sibling group with a birth child to with an adopted child. Normally I don't agree with social workers, but I do think they are right on this occasion. Obviously, you're disappointed, but please put yourself in the place of your adopted child. They will feel loved and supported by you, but that does not compensate for the lack of genetic mirroring, and the impact of this is rarely understood. This will be further compounded if you adopt a sibling group, your adopted child may potentially feel incredibly 'different' - and sadly that is a fact of adoption. Love and security cannot make up for a lack of genetic mirroring. It really is too much of a risk for them. It sounds like your social worker has handled this all very badly.

I’m really sorry that this has happened. It’s hard to believe that this wasn’t questioned before. We adopted siblings and it has been a million times more challenging than we had ever imagined and their needs are much more complex than we were led to believe. They have a trauma bond which makes their lives and ours very challenging. Of course, not all siblings are like this but there is a risk that the challenges could impact your child significantly. Because of my personal experience I think the ADM are wise to be cautious but the social workers should have explored this more thoroughly and not just have taken a positive view. Hope you find a positive way forward.