Help - is our SW telling us to halt the process?

[Dominoodles]

We're at the end of stage 2 and awaiting final PARs before panel. Our SW has, throughout the process, generally been great. Most of the strengths and weaknesses she has identified in us we are in total agreement with and have actively worked on - BMI, savings, etc.

Unfortunately she seems certain that we have 'buried trauma' from our childhoods, and from our past infertility. She admits there are no current issues stemming from this, but is worried that a child in the house might trigger some unknown trauma. We were referred to their inhouse therapist who confirmed she had no concerns, but this didn't dissuade the SW.

She has now advised that while she wants to put us forward to panel, but due to her concerns she would require us to attend private psychotherapy sessions (£400 a month!) for an undetermined amount of time, allowing her full access to the therapists' notes until she feels satisfied enough to actually being linking/matching.

We've sat down and asked the SW what exactly is causing these concerns, but while she acknowledges there's no sign of anything right now, she wants us to pre-emptively resolve any potential issues. The concerns in particular are with my DH's parents being divorced and him having to be an independent child, and her belief that my introversion is not natural but instead something I need to look into in case it is due to my childhood experiences. She believes that infertility is inherently traumatic and that we need to do the private therapies to resolve any lingering feelings before adoption.

At this point, we've jumped through so, so many extra hoops to prove ourselves. The fact that there is still no end in sight, and we can't save money like she wants while also paying for private therapy, makes us feel like this is the SW's way of telling us to back out. It's really disheartening.

Does anyone have any advice? We've been honest and open throughout this process and honestly can't see a way out.

That sounds like she’s massively over-reaching! We might all have buried trauma but the PAR process is the process - she can’t endlessly go digging based on a hunch.

I don’t have any experience of this so hopefully someone will be along to advise. But can you escalate to her manager?

Or you could gamble and go to panel and have it out there?

I think there's a few things to really think about here. It sounds like there are things she needs to hear from you about your childhood experiences and your understanding of how these have shaped you.

While introversion isn't necessarily an issue, it depends on how introverted you're talking about. Adoptive parents need to be able to call on a support network, they need to facilitate their children socialising and the reality is adopted children can be like limpets. Even after 7 years I rarely have time when we're all home that I don't have a child hanging on me (I mean physically being as close as they can, not just being around me or in the same room as me). You need to think about how, as an introvert, you'll cope with that level of contact with other people, how you'll resource yourself and how you'll find the time and space you need to recharge. Children can't wait for you to be ready to interact with them, so you need to give this some thought. It's also worth thinking whether your introversion does stem from childhood - how was home life, school, friendships etc for you and how do you think those experiences have shaped the person you are now. If you have an introverted child, how will you support them to participate in school and other activities?

In terms of your husband I'd be looking for him to have a good understanding of how his parent's divorce impacted him, and what is was like for him to have to be independent (again, depending on how independent we're talking about). Adopted children are often used to having to be inappropriately independent because their care wasn't good enough, having to care for siblings, find food, organise themselves at a very young age. This can carry through into being unable to accept care from adults - if your husband doesn't understand the impact of this on him he may not be able to support children to feel safe enough to depend on the adults around him.

There's literally nothing that will trigger your own stuff like having children, so your social worker is right to want you to have fully explored these issues before matching children.

Infertility can be inherently traumatic, what work have you done individually and as a couple to come to terms with infertility and not having a birth child. This doesn't necessarily need to be therapy but to have recognised, accepted and mourned that loss of your planned future. How have you communicated this with your social worker?

In terms of therapy, and the social worker having full access to notes etc, I don't know any therapist who would agree to this. Therapy is intended to be a safe, confidential space and that means you can't go in expecting that what you say will be conveyed back to your social worker, so I wouldn't agree to that as an adopter or a therapist. The social worker could ask the therapist to provide a report that states their view of your ability to cope with the rigours of parenting an adopted child without sharing what was said in session.

I do wonder if you've made a common mistake in presenting everything as being absolutely fine, that you've coped with life and taken everything in your stride thinking that if you admit to there having been difficulties it'll mean you won't be able to adopt? It's not uncommon but as a social worker, if someone is saying to me their parent's divorce was fine, being overly independent as a child was fine, infertility was ok, I'd be wondering what was going on under the surface. These aren't experiences that have no impact, you need to be able to articulate how they impacted you and how you've coped with that impact.

As hard as it is, she's doing her job - there are things she can anticipate causing difficulties and she's trying to address these. Better to do that now than find yourself really struggling with things you've said aren't an issue later down the road. I don't think she's telling you to stop the process, she's telling you to fully engage with the reflective part of the process. To be honest I wouldn't take you to panel at the moment, these are all things that should have been discussed throughout the assessment and during your sessions with your social worker. It sounds like she's started to write your PAR and realised there are gaps. I wouldn't necessarily require you to attend therapy but I would be looking for evidence of reflection and consideration of the impact on you as parents to an adoptive child.

We might all have buried trauma but the PAR process is the process

That's exactly how we end up with adoptive parents really struggling to engage with their children's trauma - the PAR process is supposed to bring to light (and address) any previous trauma so it doesn't present itself in the parent/child relationship, so parents are aware of their triggers and have strategies to deal with them in the moment, so they don't find themselves reacting to their child without understanding where that reaction comes from.

Social workers need to know that prospective adopters are reflective, that they understand their own history and how it impacts them now, that they are used to taking a step back and looking at what's underlying things for them - because those are skills they will need in abundance with any child placed with them. If they can't or won't engage with that process in their own lives, how on earth will they support. child to do it.

Hiya ! This is what we're confused on. The introverted thing is only very slightin childhood. Im quite social and we spend time with kids a lot, so there's no issue there. She just found it odd when I said I was a quiet kid, and wonders if there was a reason for it.

We're actually feeling like we did the opposite of pretending everything is OK. At the start we were told to be honest and we have been 100% forthcoming with every detail. We really took 'be honest' to heart. Unfortunately it feels like we may have actually been too honest, allowing the SW to read into things.

She wants to put us forward to panel and plans on a positive recommendation. The report she sent is overwhelmingly positive aside from this one therapy thing.

Hi, we eventually fostered to adopt in 2018 having started the process in 2016. Our SW also delayed our going to approval panel by one month (at the time the delay was indeterminate) because she had concerns about the impact of my childhood on me. I had already undergone psychoanalytic therapy for 2 plus years (x2 per week!!) before entering the process and had outworked a lot of significant trauma which i was very open about. Nonetheless, she still felt unable to take us forward until she had personally spoken to my therapist (who was most reluctant on privacy grounds) which did manage to largely resolve her concerns. At the time, I was unhappy with her decision and felt targeted and triggered but looking back she was bang on. I was really grateful that she was brave enough to scrutinise and challenge our core selves (its a rare occurence!) and I have been triggered by one of my children in exactly the way she predicted. I'm so glad I was forewarned and made aware.

I appreciate how expensive it is to undertake therapy, it would not be easy to save at the same time. In any case, I would not recommend having therapy at the same time as going through the adoption process as both simultaneously would overwhelm most peoples emotional capacity. I would ask her directly how she thinks the two are manageable.

As an aside, we're not against therapy or self improvement! We just can't afford it while also meeting all their other requests and with zero timeline. That's what is making us feel like we're being discouraged.

I think having a conversation with your social worker about what she thinks your priorities need to be would be useful. Therapy isn't cheap and while I think she's right not to put a limit or timescale on it (because then the potential is to go through the motions for 6 sessions to tick the box), you can't fund both therapy and savings in the medium to longer term. I'd also discuss attending therapy to suit her rather than because you feel you need it.

I'd be asking her to be quite concrete about what you need to show her to progress your application ie what is her "feeling" based on. For example, many adults have parents who divorced as children, most don't seek therapy for that experience, why does she think your husband does need therapy? What makes her think there are unresolved issues stemming from infertility? If it's just a catch all "there must be something", I'd ask for your file to be reviewed by her senior - has she given you a copy of your PAR to read, there may be something there that might give you a pointer.

Therapists aren't magicians, if she can't explain what she thinks you've not worked through, a therapist isn't going to be able to tell her either - they will literally work with whatever you take to them so have no more insight or information than she does.

We've already had a sit down with her, but she can't tell us what we would need to do to show our efforts in therapy, nor her expectations for it. We feel she's being a bit unfair with the infertility stuff, her report includes where I told her about all the work I put in after our ivf to emotionally move past the desire for pregnancy (something that took a lot of working on myself), and in the next line states she thinks i'm in denial because if I didn't want to be pregnant I wouldn't have done ivf previously. There is nothing I can do to convince her I'm not lying about this.

That’s not on really, expecting you to undertake potentially £1,000s of therapy when there’s no real outcome expected is effectively a fishing exercise. I’d ask for a meeting with her and her senior to explore things further - I’d be reluctant to go to panel with an expectation that you need to complete therapy before matching because you don’t know how they’ll read it.

I think panel would be very surprised to be expected to recommend prospective adopters who the social worker clearly feels are not ready (otherwise why the need for therapy?). The social worker is uncertain but cannot say why. What she says does not make much sense to me. Most adopters start by trying to have birth children and many go through ivf. What is the point of therapy if neither you nor her know why you are doing it? @Jellycatspyjamas is giving very good advice. I would follow that. Involving a senior might give your sw more confidence, because then she is no longer solely responsible.

@Jellycatspyjamas has said everything I was thinking. This Adopter is top dollar and incredibly knowledgeable..

We were not stopped but social worker was a bit concerned in the early stages that my DH was not very emotional. However his one on one meeting with her worked wonders and in both panels (approval and matching) this was a stand out point. How he was able to show emotion and understand how things in his life had impacted him. Trauma etc. I think everyone has things buried we don't want to talk about but being open and answering the questions openly opened up the world for us. It changed my DH for the better. He is so much more open with me and now is a better parent for it

Hi @Dominoodles I've been thinking about this for a little while.

Stage 2 is really tricky, isn't it! One thing that helped me was to think about it in light of the idea that sometimes social workers weren't really asking you to do the unrealistic thing, they were looking to see how you would react to being told to do the unrealistic thing. If we flapped or muttered or grumbled too much or too little, it would give the wrong impression about how willing we were to stand up for our boundaries, and subsequently how we could stand up for our child's, or how open we were to guidance. You need to get the balance right because as a parent you will get loads of stupid advice, but also will need to parent according to books and research etc, so you need be confident in navigating that balance

So if an unqualified professional (which I assume she is- she isn't a therapist) was recommending therapy for your child that would cost so much, AND you had already seen someone who said it was ok AND you didn't believe it was the right course of action, what would you do?

I say this as someone who was hauled over the coals for health issues. I ended up having to be firm but clear about what my capacities were and weren't, became a little but arsey that I would only be working to what a medical professional recommended for me and not be swayed by someone's biased internalised belief system because that was the right thing to do, AND specify that I believe in clear goals and personally understanding the pros, cons and limitations for any intervention or treatment. I provided various self made documents for panel at our own behest detailing our actions and subsequent outcomes and perceived efficacy and how they linked to show I understood the narrative and how they linked to my own life story.

After some particularly frustrating meetings (about 2 months of not moving on one particular issue), we finally decided that a "dazzle 'em with paperwork" approach played to our strengths, and when questioned about something for the millionth time, ind started ask in a very surprised way whether they hadn't received the email with the plan/reflection/research/NHS guidance/NICE guidelines/ governmental case study we had provided for them after our last conversation with them, along wkrh the highlighted part of our plan where we took the key recommendations and implemented them along with a review of the success or lack of and any subsequent reading to mitigate those effects, and also that we understood their time in the meeting was limited so that we return to the conversation once they had had the time to read it... or we could paraphrase it for them and move on? Or bluntly asked whether this was going to be an insurmountable barrier to adopting, and if not, getting them to be very specific about the achievable outcome withing the limited timeframes of our sessions? Not being rude about it, but just having to be clear that we were happy to research and advocate for what was right for us, what the limitations that might be and how we were being as realistic as we could be bearing that we had not been through this process before and making it clear that we didn't expect hand holding but we did expect a level of clarity, and if the SW we were dealing with weren't able to provide it, we would be happy to seek further advice from more senior practitioners who may have more expertise in these areas.

One of the things that panel commented on was the level of coherency in our approach, because we researched our little socks off and talked about it as a couple before we sent any email, spoke to a social worker, or had any sessions that actually helped us to clarify a lot of points in our own relationship- for example, we discovered that me using humour to defuse public situations made the OH feel anxious, but some situations were helped by a judicious anecdote, i felt defensive about very specific issues and my memory goes blank so it is helpful for her to step in if I'm waffling. Our social worker made it a point in panel to note our teamwork, and not to brag, but the word "formidable" was used, which we decided to take as a complement 😉

The social worker's job isn't just to mindlessly gather information, but to also assess how you react to certain situations. Ours said some outrageous stuff that now completely contradicts what we know about her later on, and what we know the process to be. Luckily someone had given us the advice about everything being a test- whether thats your ability to get time off work at short notice, how you react to an insult from someone in authority, what you do when faced with continual incompetence, a slightly homophobic comment, a frustrating tendency to repeatedly press a specific button... they can all help shape an impression of how you might deal with both a child and the agencies that might be involved in your child's life. You have to be able to advocate for them and yourselves as a family.

All of these skills and principles have proven invaluable as the mother of my two L.Os

That being said, obviously the stage 2 process is difficult even when you know the outcome, and trying to please adults who are pretending to be like children (or at least, you hope they are pretending because by God you would hope that the levels of incompetence have to be faked, right....) is a bone achingly wearisome task. You have my sympathy because it is a full time job trying to get that balance right.