Friends have put us down as referees

[titchy]

Which is fine and we are delighted to be their referee. The forms arrived today and I wondered if anyone could let us know what they are looking for in terms of answers as we obviously don't want to cock this up for them.

In particular one question is something like 'How well do and understand the need for adoptive children to have links with their birth families'.

any other pointers would be great too!
TIA

Bumpety bump - please!

I think there is a vrey recent thread ib this in adoptions - it will probably give you all the answers you need.

on something like this you need to have a chat with your friends about it, unless you have already of course

What are your friends views about a child or children having contact with their birth families before and after adoption? What type of contact woudl they feel comfortable with? Letter, telephone, face to face or none at all? How would they help a child understand their life story and why they needed to be adopted?

How do you think they would deal with some of the sad and difficult issues that might be involved eg mental health problems, substance misuse, neglect, violence and abuse? How coudl they help a child come to terms with these and come to an age appropriate understanding?

You need to talk over these issues with your frineds to understand how they think & feel. Its not a simple matter of
" yes i think they will be ok with that"

But then you obviously knew that or you woulndt be on here asking for advice

the thread is here

Hi

I've just written a reference for some friends who are hoping to adopt. The questions were a lot more general and were about them as people and their ability to relate to children etc.

I think the question you quoted is actually quite difficult to answer, and in my opinion is something that Social Services should be assessing, not a referee! However, the advice given by KristinaM is excellent - it really helped us to talk to our friends about it.

Good luck with doing your reference.
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