LA ineptitude/disinterest - is this normal?

[herbaceous]

Hello

We have been attempting to get into the adoption process since last summer. We live in northeast London and have been turned down by all the East London boroughs, and Essex (which is quite nearby).

The only glimmer of hope is an LA adoption consortium. We went to their open evening in November, filled in a form, and a few weeks later were contacted by someone saying did we want to be interviewed. Yes, I said.

In early new year, a SW from a certain LA phoned, leaving a message, asking if we still wanted an interview. I phoned twice a week, for four weeks, to say 'yes', and she never once picked up the phone or returned my calls. Eventually, two weeks ago, she left a message giving me a number of date options. I have phoned twice a week for two weeks to say 'this date please', and she hasn't phoned me back. Is this normal? Is this the sign of how it will be for the next X years, as we plough through the process? Is it some kind of test of patience?

yes I would say its fairly normal in some boroughs. You don't have to use a LA though. HAve you tried Coram or Norwood I hear good things of both of them

I have been waiting for six months for Coram to send me some info about concurrent planning! For adoption, they've said we would only be eligible for older children, or those with SEN, which I'm not sure we could cope with.

We're involved with Norwood via the North London Adoption Consortium.

It's all enough to make me despair.

hi herbaceous, yes its a taste of whats to come, it gets worse you have to have a will and nerves of steel. we have been thru coram twice now, starting again next week.
as they are a charity they will only take you on if they have a good chance of getting the money back off the la for any child they place with you. if you are white, over 40 and want a baby or a child under 2 you wont have much chance.
they are doing less concurrant planning now as lot of la are using the process themselves, thus saving money.

Guess what. I'm white, and over 40. Basically, persona non grata for adoption. It's driving me crazy.

why wont you consider an older child? there are varying degrees of sn children.
you are given no guarantees with young babies either as their birth mothers more often or not have a drink, drug or mental health problem,you have to wait until they are older for things to emerge, our dd is now starting to show some problems, only evident after we adopted her at 14 months, started to develop after she was 2.

I suppose because we have no children, so suddenly having an older child would be more of a leap. And more challenging to those with no experience. Also, as (s)he will be our only child, the older (s)he is, the less time we'll have with him/her. And other, vague, stuff like that.

We'd be pleased to adopt youngish siblings, however...

If you're prepared to adopt a sibling group, it would probably accelerate things a bit, the SW's face lit up at the open evening when we said we definitely wanted at least two, and we ended up with under 2's, much to our surprise.

Social workers are often out of the office a lot so it's normal for them to be hard to get hold of, but sounds like your situation is particularly bad.

I sympathise, we are enduring radio silence from the LA over an issue at the moment and it's annoying watching the post because I don't want to pick up the phone again.

herbaceous - I'm sorry but IMHO you wont get anywhere with them.If you are white, in your 4os, living in the SE and want to adopt a youngish child you will need to go overseas

if you haven't got an interview yet , you wont even start an assessment til nearer the summer and you will be 2008 before you get to panel

I'm sorry i wish i could be more positive

oh and in answer to your original post, thsi uninterest is totally normal, its not a test its just how SS treat people. and yes it will be exactly like this for years to coem

Wrong!

She phoned me yesterday - while on a windy train platform in Newcastle - and we've got the interview tomorrow morning! Eek. What on earth will she ask? Do I need to spend tonight cleaning the house from top to bottom!

SW's are a bit like te hqueen who think that all toilets smell of fresh paint, they think all houses smell of bleach.

Inital interview will probably be about an hour and they're unlikely to get furtehr than your lounge!

A strange smell of cat pee seems to have arrived in the house, so I'll try and eliminate that. Perhaps I'll try the old house-selling trick of making the place smell of bread and coffee. And fresh flowers.

this will just be to exchange basic info so don't bother cleaning! or with the flowers and coffee

she will probably just go through the information on the form, tell you a bit about the process & check if you have any questions

after the meeting the agency will decide if they are willing to assess you , given your circumstances and the type of child you want

as hifi says, they will only assess you if you are able and willing to adopt the kind of children they have available

if so, they will put you on a waiting list for a course or to be allocated a sw

once you have been on the course and allocated a worker you will start your home study.

good luck

they will look at whether you can comfortably fit a child in your home, as in a couple of bedrooms.it also helps now if you don't have to work after a child has been placed, they dont look very favourably on working mothers.
dont be annally tidy as they think you wont like the mess a child will make.
depending on the age of the child they will insist on certain safety features added to your home, they usually pay for this. just stair gates, low window locks, cupboard locks, cooker guards.

ooh good points hifi

just to add - they will want you take YEARS off work after a child is placed, not just maternity / adoption leave

Thanks all. Lots of useful info.

Apparently they like to see houses with pets and lots of books. There's no danger of it looking too pristine!

I discussed my possible adoption plans with boss yesterday, and he was most accommodating. I can work part time from home, or even take a sabbatical. Or give up altogether, I dare say!

I would advise you to tell the Sw that you are planning to take a 5 year career break and then work part time

and that you can manage financially

if you have a child with SN it can be hard to get suitable childcare, even when they are at school

They want to know that you are thinking of the childs needs and planning how you could meet them

my SW didn't question my post adoption plans too much - just said that I intended to take as much leave as was necessary and if necessary would work part-time afterwards. It was a five minute discussion. I wonder if its because they weren't placing one of "their" children?!

and my intial assessemtn wasn't anything like that detailed - it was basically making sure I understtod the difficulties of adoption, the potential time frame what age of child I was expecting. Basically htey wanted to test that I had a reasonable expectation of the process and wasn't completely barking mad. The intrusive questions/safety checks etc didn't come until much later.

oh kewcumber, i didnt knwo that you hadnt been properly assessed. let me think up some particularly stupid Sw questions for you

ponders

two real examples here.....

KC - what will you do if 5 years after you have adopted you meet SOMEONE or fall pregnant????

KC - how woudl you feel if your son married another foreigner and your grandchildren were foreign???

Build up an iron carapace for dealing with LA social workers. Be extremely persistent and assertive. We were told 'You will wait'. It took two years to get approved as we didn't seem particularly useful to them, I think (white 40ish, had birth children to be considered). After approval WE identified our adoptive child, from the same LA - they did not approach us about her and had not considered us a match for her. She has some not inconsiderable health needs but is a wonderful little girl and things have gone very smoothly.
Be persistent if this is what you want to do. It is their job, it is your life. That's the difference.

pmsl Kris - I was very lucky with my sw then. Only a few mad questions and she was easily distracted from them. One fairly normal question that I always thought was stupid

SW- "what are you going to do with teh child once you are home?"
KC - "Err what?!"
SW - "what are you going to do with teh child once you are home?"
KC - "what you mean, like put them in a pillow case and hang them form the bannisters?"
SW (sighs) - "I'll put down "swimming" shall I?"
KC - "right oh, probably for the best"

Well, it was all quite good! It went on for ages, and asked lots of penetrating questions. She fell panting upon the fact that DP is from an Irish family, as in Camden (where it looks like we're going to going through) there are lots of Irish children up for adoption.

Oh the SWs ADORE matching ethnicities, it's one of their all time favourite things! Well done on getting through your first meeting. We went to court today for the absolute final hearing!

congratulations to you both