Agencies in Kent

[DefinatelyNotAnAthlete]

Hi,

I want some honest opinions about the following agencies please, if anyone has used them:

1. Adoption Partnership South East
2. Diagrama
3. PACT

We have attended the information events for all of them. Found PACT the most 'warm' from the social workers that were there. However, a friend is on stage 2 with them at the moment, and it sounds like they are having a very difficult time with PACT. PACT also told us that we were only just in their radius, but they do have a SW who lives nearby, and therefore they were willing to take us on. But what if the SW ever left? Their post-adoption support seems amazing though (although most of their events seem to be more London based).

I am tempted to go with APSE; I can see the benefits of a RAA, but unsure what their post-adoption support would be like (I believe we would have access to the Bernardo's CAFIS support though, if we went with them?). I've also heard that they might be very slow during the process.

This leaves Diagrama. I found their SW to be the most 'cold' on the evening, but I do understand this is not the person we would be dealing with anyway, so I am cautious about judging them for one SW, who was likely very tired, and wanted her work day to be over, at 7pm!

Thank you all! Very keen to get this started, but feel even more lost now than I did before we attended the information evenings!

I would take offers of post adoption support with a pinch of salt tbh. Mostly it's hard to access the kind of support adopted children need, and help is mostly provided through statutory services like education and the NHS anyway.

What are they suggesting btw? Is it courses for you?

No, they (PACT) just seemed to have a 'community' feel after adoption. Even fun days post-adoption (which do seem to be London based), and said they would be really proactive in ensuring the child gets access to therapy etc., if they need it.

The problem with the information evenings is that I found them all the same (in the sense of this is the process), and all rather 'sales-y'. I felt that none of them actually gave me anything/a feel about which would be the right one to choose, hence why I'm asking if anyone has any lived experiences of any of them.

I went with PACT but that was over 25 years ago so I can't advise you on them.

Voluntary agencies are mostly used where the local authorities can't find a local match. I am not in the loop around placement now but it used to be that local authorities would try to place their children locally, or within a consortium. I assume that the regional adoption agencies are that local option now?

If so, places like PACT are particularly good if you have an unusual ethnicity, as the la might not find that within the region. And sometimes you have no choice if the local agencies say no.

And voluntary agencies get paid by getting you placed with children, so they can act more quickly in terms of process.

But I would check out more closely how easy it is to get children via the voluntary agencies like PACT.

I genuinely think that post adoption support is a red herring though. There are statutory requirements on this and few agencies will offer more than they have to.

We adopted from APSE. Our LO moved in with us about a year ago. Our adoption SW was amazing, however you don't really get to chose your SW. They are allocated based on location and availability. If you really don't get on, you can ask to change, but this will mean more details.

The pre-adoption training was very good and realistic. And they offer many post-adoption trainings and social events. There are montlhly peer group meetings depending on your location (Kent is a big county), they have online meet-ups, online and in-person training courses etc. I've already attended therapeutic parenting courses and when our LO was first placed we were offered about 10 sessions of family therapy to help us in the first days. We are now putting together an application with our SW for additional therapy for our LO.

So I have to say so far, we've had a really good experience from APSE both pre- and post.

In terms of timelines, they prioritise EP cases, and between S1 and S2 you need to wait for a SW to become available. There's a chance you could get a different SW for S1 and S2. In our case we had the same one and waited for 6 months between S1 and the start of S2.

The reason we chose APSE over other agencies was because we had heard they had really good post-adoption support. I had also looked at their Ofsted reports and the agencies reports and they all looked very good. The last reason was that RAAs work very closely with LAs in terms of family finding and LAs prefer to place children using RAAs, so they can let you know about potential matches very early on. We were matched to our LO even before going to adoption panel. Because of the close relationship between the RAAs and the LAs our SW could access information that we requested more easily, either because she knew the children's SW or because they had a shared system.

If you have more questions, feel free to PM me.
All the best

Thank you both so much; your information has been really helpful.
We are leaning more towards APSE.
@GreenMountainView - Thank you for your kind offer to allow me to PM you; I may do later. Just one more question, if you don't mind - how long did the whole process take for you from start to being matched with your LO? You said you waited for 6 months between S1 and S2 - was that through choice? Also, did they want to observe you with children during S2? (I appreciate this has turned out to be more than one question! Thank you!).

I'm in early Stage 1 with PACT, and I've found them good so far. They've been very flexible, understanding and easy to get hold of.

@DefinatelyNotAnAthlete apologies for the delay. We were away over Easter. S1 took about 3 months, but this was because the DBS checks took 3 months to come back (because of post-covid backlogs). The 6 months wait was because we were waiting for a SW to become available, it wasn't our choice. At APSE EP takes priority and SWs are allocated based on availability and location.
S2 should have taken 3 months, but it took 5 for us because it was over the summer (we had conflicting leave periods with our SW) and some other personal circumstances. Even though our panel was delayed, we were matched to our LO before we went to panel, because the SWs felt everything was in place and we would be approved by panel.
The matching process was also long, from the day we expressed interested in our LO to matching panel it was about 5 months.

Even though it all sounds long, the actual S1/S2/matching process is quite intense and on top of everything there's the volunteering with children. We didn't have any friends' or family children we could baby sit, so we volunteered with the Beavers (6-8yr olds). All agency open days that I attended were quite clear that this is an important part of the assessment. I actually found APSE more flexible than others, in that the age of the children didn't matter so much, as long as we did something. This was important because we wouldn't have been able to volunteer at a nursery due to work commitments. Other agencies were more firm, that we would need to volunteer with children of the same age that we are interested in adopting.

At the time I was a bit apprehensive of the volunteering, but in hindsight it was very useful. We met many different children, with different needs and temperaments.

Happy to help if you have any more questions.

Thank you both. We have pretty much made our decision to go with APSE - we am seriously considering EP, and think a RAA may be better for that?

Interesting what you said about the volunteering; I got the impression that they were more flexible with that too. I do work in a secondary school, and all said they would prefer me to gain experience with younger children too, but APSE where also the only ones who said, "Son't underestimate your experience with older children though. Every child grows into a teenager at some point." They were also the only ones who didn't spexify the voluteering needs to be consistent and weekly. DH and I are meeting with a school holiday club next; hopefully, we can make this work with DH's work. We have a sibling who has children ranging between 1 - 12, who we've had overnight at some point.

My only concern with APSE was that I was told RAAs have a lot kess SWs available than VAAs, and so the process can take longer.

We have a call with APSE next week. I think after thst we need to go to an in-person evening wuth them before we can aoply to start.

@DefinatelyNotAnAthlete we've always had a relaxed attitude going into the process, that things happen when they are meant to happen, we just need to do our bit. It turns out our LO was removed from BF around the time that we applied, and when we were allowed to start looking for a potential match, they had just had their placement order granted and we were told about them. So even though our assessment was a bit longer even among other APSE families, we were matched very quickly and we received the support we needed to make it a success.

As for childcare experience, my husband had some experience from working in primary schools a few years back which APSE counted as important, so he had to do less volunteering than me. I also heard from other families that they arranged to care for nieces and nephews or friend's children to cover this part, e.g. by taking them out once a week. The important thing is that you spend time with them without the parents being present. So definitely worth exploring.

All the best!