Foster For Adoption and holidays

[Gogandthepeoplefromhonda]

We are currently in the adoption assessment process and leaning towards FFA, hoping for a young baby.

Social workers so far have massively underplayed the length of time various stages of the process will take, so we are assuming that this will also apply to the time it takes to (hopefully) get the placement order and adoption certificate, assuming the courts decide that the child stays with us rather than returning to birth family.

I’ve read a few threads on here where it has taken two or three years between a child being initially placed through FFA, and the child officially being adopted.

What happens during those few years regarding holidays? Is it possible to leave the country at all? Or even have a UK holiday given that there will be regular contact arrangements to keep to? Presumably foster parents occasionally get to go on holiday?

Does anyone have any experience of this please?

No it's not possible to leave the country.
Even if it was, you wouldn't have a passport as you need the birth certificate in order to apply. You'd probably be able to take them on short trips within your area of the UK but SW would need to be kept informed.
I live in Scotland and couldn't even take them south of the border.

Ouch. That could mean several years of not getting to see my siblings/parents.

No, you wouldn’t be able to and even UK holidays with contact would be difficult I think. We did traditional adoption and it still took 8 months for the order to come through and we had apply for permission to go on a UK holiday and we didn’t even have contact to consider.

My understanding is, FFA means you are a foster carer first - however long that takes.

Would they be able to come to you? I know it's not easy. I have family overseas and thankfully they were able to come over at Christmas. X

@Noimaginationforaun
I don't know any FFCs don't take kids on holiday, including abroad.

I've been fostering over the last year and took my foster child on several holidays. We did have to get permission to switch one ccontat with his dad.
Ive also been on holiday with friends who foster babies and toddlers and they 've done face time with parents on the beach.

@Gogandthepeoplefromhonda you would be best speaking to your own SW, there were will be a lot of variables, including how often the contact is, whether the parents show up etc but you won't know that till you have a child in place.

My parents are in their 80s and unable to travel, so they would be the main issue.
But as @Ted27 says, maybe there is room for manoeuvre regarding contact that would still allow me to get away for a long weekend or something occasionally.
The social workers made it seem as though the decision about FFA children being returned to their birth families would happen within a few months, but all the threads on here are talking about much longer time scales.

I did F2A and was told the decision around adoption would be a few months. It took nearly 2 years to be matched so definatly take what that SW said in terms of time scales with a pinch of salt!

Everywhere is different as, for 3.5 years, until adoption order I was told contact was a court order and I was under a legal obligation to attend. We still went on holiday (never out of the country) but I would drive back mid week with LO to be at contact. Probably best to check with your SW what the expectations would be.

It’s really variable depending on the child, their circumstances, where the birth parents are in assessment, your own circumstances and the social worker/local authority policy. I’ve had foster carers taking children abroad and others who for various reasons couldn’t because of issues around the child/birth family.

I’d talk to your social worker about it quite openly, it’s not an unreasonable thing to ask. If the child can’t go abroad for whatever reason it’s possible to have the child in respite care do you can see your parents. The passport issue isn’t insurmountable - as a social worker I’ve applied for passports for children in care to let them travel, the local authority can do that as corporate parent if the birth parents are reluctant.

The social workers made it seem as though the decision about FFA children being returned to their birth families would happen within a few months, but all the threads on here are talking about much longer time scales.

The decision to make permanent arrangements for the child can happen very quickly, the legal process to secure that decision is what takes a lot of time. There are court processes to go through which the birth parents can contest and appeal - generally speaking even while working towards reconciliation social workers have a good sense of whether that’s likely to be successful, they then need to assess, gather evidence and go through the courts.

We did foster to adopt, social services/LA applied for a passport (we paid for it) and provided a letter of permission for our holidays abroad. We had holidays in the UK as well.

Regarding contact, yes it is court ordered, but there is still scope to be flexible, in our case sessions were not attended by the birth parent, so our daughters contact order was amended as it was deemed not in her best interest to make very long journeys on such a regular basis.

We are 6 weeks into a Foster to adopt placement. Holidays arnt aloud and between our social worker, child’s social worker, court guardian, 3 x a week contact with birth parents, health visitor on top of enrichment activities like swimming, play groups and general life im really not sure where we would find time for even a night away as the only time we don’t have something on is Saturday and Sunday.

we maybe thought the same before our placement that the no holidays was a bit OTT. Now where in the thick of it and can see just how much all these visits happening at different times and breaking routines have and the impact, we can see just how disrupting a holiday could be.

we where told even on pure adoption to forget holidays for at least a year.

could family not come to you ?

Thank you all.

I wasn’t expecting to be able to go abroad on holiday for a year or so, but I hadn’t realised that could extend out to 3+ years, which is something I’ve read in a couple of places. I’m not too dismayed about the inability to travel abroad for a while though. That was just idle curiosity.

More Important is the fact that I hadn’t realised that I wouldn’t be able to get away to visit my parents, who unfortunately are not able to travel at all due to their age and medical conditions. Realistically it is a day’s travel in each direction, plus with a young child I had thought I would need to break the journey over two days, so four days of travel altogether, which obviously wouldn’t be possible if I had to attend contact sessions three times a week.

I was expecting to be home-based for a year, but not potentially three or more years while all the various stages of decision-making and court proceedings take place.

Thank you @Jellycatspyjamas for your info. I’m surprised at the possibility of respite care, especially for a young baby, as I thought that FFA was about minimising disruption to care. In my head, that meant that a baby would stay with the foster parents if they had to go somewhere, as that would be less disruptive for them than respite care with unknown carers, but I am learning that contact trumps everything else.

I guess I have been surprised by the 2/3/4 year timescales that I’ve seen discussed, as prior to this we have been told that FFA would be very restrictive but that things happen quite quickly. So a year or so of contact commitments and limited travel was what I was expecting.

As with all things adoption related, it’s always trickier than I had thought it would be. And we haven’t even got to the hard bit yet!

@Brendaloves
Can I ask please how old your child is? And how much time elapsed between you being told about them, and them coming to live with you? And how soon after them coming to you did contact start up?

I know that every case is different, but I feel as though the social workers so far have given us quite a hard sell for FFA and are glossing over some of the trickier aspects of it.

I hope it is going ok for you