Reflections on support for parents during assessments/care proceedings – would this have helped?

[PeteG1]

Hi all,
I hope it’s okay to post here—I've been reading threads in this section and have been really struck by the depth of experience and insight people share around the system.

By background, I’ve worked in children’s services for a number of years (safeguarding, court work, children in care, and management), and a lot of my role has involved completing assessments and reports that inform court decisions, including where permanence planning is being considered.
Something I’ve been reflecting on recently is how differently the process can feel depending on perspective. From within services, there is often a clear structure and rationale behind assessments and expectations—but I’m very aware that for parents, the experience can feel confusing, pressured and not always clearly explained.

There can be a lot of written material, tight timescales, and while there are some resources available, they’re not always easy to navigate or make meaningful use of at the time.

I’ve had a couple of experiences of helping people informally (outside of my role), particularly around understanding reports and structuring responses, which has made me think more about whether there’s a gap for more independent-type support in this area.

I’ve been wondering whether support around things like:

• understanding what assessments are actually saying
• identifying what is being asked of parents
• structuring responses or evidence clearly

…would have made any practical difference in real situations, or whether I’m overestimating the impact that could have.

I’d really value any perspectives from those who feel comfortable sharing—particularly from people who’ve been through proceedings or assessments:

• Did you feel you understood what was expected of you at the time?
• What aspects of the process were hardest to navigate?
• Do you think more support of this kind would have been helpful, or not necessarily?

I’m not offering anything here—just genuinely trying to sense-check whether this reflects people’s lived experience and whether this kind of idea has any real value.

Thank you to anyone willing to share their thoughts.

I'm not sure if you are referring to perspective adopters or birth families here

Thanks, that’s a really helpful question—and probably something I should have been clearer about.

I was thinking more broadly rather than one specific group. From what I’ve seen, there can be gaps in support at different stages and for different people involved.
For example:

• Birth parents, both pre- and post-adoption, particularly around understanding assessments, decisions and how to respond or engage with the process
• Adoptive parents, especially where post-adoption support feels limited, particularly in relation to assessments, therapy, and navigating what is (and isn’t) available
• And also young people/adults who have been through the system, who may later want help making sense of decisions or assessments that were made about them, or support in communicating with/challenging the local authority

I think what’s made me reflect on it is that while there is support available in different forms, it can sometimes feel quite fragmented or difficult to access in a way that actually helps people make sense of things.

Really interested in whether that resonates at all, or if your experience has been different.

Just curious to know what support you think is available? In my experience, of 17 years, the support varies from extremely poor to non-existent.

That’s really helpful to hear—thank you.

I think that’s probably exactly why I’m asking the question, as my experience has been quite variable as well. There are forms of support in theory (post-adoption support teams, therapeutic services, independent advice, etc.), but in practice I’ve often seen it be difficult to access, inconsistent, or not always meeting what people actually need.

I think what I’m trying to understand better is whether the gap is less about there being “no support at all” and more about the support that does exist being hard to navigate, limited, or not translating into something meaningful in real situations.

If you don’t mind me asking (and I completely understand if you’d rather not say), is your experience from the perspective of an adopter, birth parent, or someone who’s been through the system themselves? I’m trying to get a better sense of how it looks from different sides.

My perspective…single adoptive parent of two. Seventeen years in with an 18-year-old, 10 years in with a 10-year-old. Please Google BBC Adoption to find out the current state of play for very, very many adopters. I have been arrested and detained in custody for 21 hours on a false allegation of assault by my AD1. My AD2 regularly threatens to push me down the stairs. Disclaimer: I accidentally fell down a full flight of stairs nine months ago and was blue-lit to hospital on a spinal board. We had a good PASW but she is now on long-term sick leave. We won’t get a replacement. My AD1 is currently a NEET, my AD2 is currently EBSA. A local adopter friend had a false allegation of stabbing her child and was only spared arrest because the AD makes allegations against her teachers. I’m in a local peer support group of 10; two of us have spent the night in a cell on an accusation of assault against our AC. My friend who was recently accused of stabbing her child was told by the RAA that there was nothing they could do to help and the only assistance they could give would be a post-adoption assessment but the wait list is currently 14 months. My friend could be dead from CPVA by then. So when you talk about ‘support’, honestly there is none. Oh, and when we have had years of being battered black and blue, and had everything of every value stolen from our homes, and seek to have our adopted children accommodated by the state under s.20 of the Children Act, then we are punished by our LAs and put through Child Protection investigations (on the grounds of emotional harm because seeking a s.20) and then further punished with care proceedings in the family courts. Please, read the extensive BBC coverage. There are thousands of us fighting back now.

Thank you for sharing that—I really do appreciate how much you’ve said there, and I’m sorry it’s been so difficult.

What you’ve described around risk, allegations, and the lack of timely support is exactly the sort of reality that doesn’t always come across clearly unless people speak about it openly like this. The timescales you mention, and the sense of being left to manage very high-risk situations without meaningful support, are particularly striking.

I will take a look at the BBC coverage you’ve mentioned—thank you for pointing me towards that.

What really comes through from your post is not just a lack of support, but how serious the consequences of that can be in day-to-day life. It sounds incredibly stressful and, at times, unsafe.

Part of what I’m trying to understand better is whether anything—whether that’s clearer advice, earlier intervention, or more genuinely independent input—would make any practical difference in situations like this, or whether the issues are more systemic and go beyond that.

If you’re comfortable sharing, do you feel there are points earlier on where different or more effective support might have helped, or does it feel like the system just isn’t set up to respond in the way it needs to?

These responses from the OP sound very AI-like to me :/
Sorry OP if you're just getting help with the drafting, but your reason for asking all these questions sounds a bit vague and I just wanted to note this for anyone who comes along to respond

@PurpleGreenO I agree, there’s something a bit “off” with the OPs responses. If you have a professional role in adoption you would know full well about the utter lack of resources available, and the level of risk and crisis some adopters live with.

In case @PeteG1is genuinely wondering, the main issue is lack of resource in every sense of the word. Lack of social workers with specialist training, excessive case loads meaning they can’t do the direct, early intervention work that is needed, eligibility thresholds pushed to the limit because there is no money for local authorities to pay for support, profiteering from service providers paid for from post adoption support fund and on and on.

Im not sure what you’re actually asking in terms of help to understand assessments, the answer is to resource the existing system properly to enable social workers to practice well, and accessible advocacy services for adopted children and their parents. A whole other service/approach would inevitably remove yet more money from the system, which isn’t going to help anything.

After reading it back I can see why it might come across a bit like that. I’ve probably overthought how I’ve worded things.

I’m definitely not coming at this from a “things just need explaining better” angle or ignoring the resource issues. What you’ve said about capacity, thresholds and lack of specialist support matches what I’ve seen too.

I think what I’m trying (maybe badly!) to get at is what it actually feels like for people dealing with it day to day. Even where support technically exists, it doesn’t always land in a way that’s usable, and people can be left trying to work out what’s being asked of them or how to respond.

One thing I’ve been wondering about is whether there’s any place for a more independent “advocate-type” role, someone who understands how the system works in practice and can help people navigate it at key moments. It feels like there are points where things could go in very different directions depending on how things are understood or presented, but I might be overestimating that.

Also, in really pressured situations, I do think sometimes the way concerns are interpreted can end up adding more pressure onto adopters rather than helping resolve things, especially when there isn’t much time or context around what’s going on.

I completely agree that properly resourcing what’s already there is the main issue. I’m not thinking in terms of replacing that, more just trying to understand whether there’s anything missing around helping people actually navigate it as it is.

I can see where you’re coming from - thanks for the explanation.

There are many advocacy organisations to support, but they are as under resourced as every other service.

I’m a social worker and an adoptive parent, I have +25 years experience in child protection so have experience of the system pretty much from every side. I know I have been able to argue my DC into supports because I know the systems inside and out, I know the language used (and the unspoken inferences), I know what should be done legally and what can be done. I’m a powerful advocate for my kids and take no shit from professionals who try to suggest my parenting is the reason for my kids difficulties, rather than the 6 years of constant trauma from birth. I’m in a privileged position but still find it a full time job making sure the kids get their needs met.

Yes there are key stages where the right kind of provision can make a massive difference. The right school provision with staff who work in tandem with parents, therapeutic support as early as possible (my DD had consistent CAMHS involvement with a specialist from age 8 to 14 which was life saving for her), scaffolding at key transitions eg into high school, through puberty and into adulthood, proactive justice services for kids edging into offending behaviours. There’s a need for better understanding of parenting strategies beyond conventional therapeutic parenting especially for kids where violence is a concern.

It’s fair to say that advocacy or guidance might help parents who don’t know systems, or who are intimidated by professionals, or have difficulty reading between the lines etc but realistically there are far too few supports, and the wrong types of support available once things really start going wrong. All the advocacy in the world won’t magic up a specialist in child to parent violence or a DDP trained therapist if there isn’t one. So you’re left with a social worker who’s done a 1 day course in PACE being expected to hold an increasingly complex case load without the time, knowledge and experience to do so. And parents absolutely at the end of themselves with worry about their child and their own safety.

Its an absolute mess, and one that won’t improve until adoption is seen as the specialist parenting role it is, and receives significant investment in time and training.

I am not sure what OP is trying to achieve here or just trying to be goady. The current support system is woefully under resourced and we as adopters know this. Adding advocates would not have changed anything for us and to be honest if there are discussions to be had about my children there is no better advocate than us living it. We had a family support worker who we ended up ditching as their "help" made things worse, broke down relationships we had built with professionals and just didn't get us.

Thanks I really appreciate you taking the time to reply in that level of detail.
I should probably say as well, I’ve got a good understanding of how the system works (and doesn’t), but I don’t have lived experience as an adopter, so it’s genuinely really helpful hearing it set out like that. Especially from someone with a similar professional background who can also see it from that side, it’s very clearly put and gives a lot of context.

What you’ve said about it effectively being a full-time job, even with that knowledge, really stands out. And the point about knowing the language (and what sits underneath it) is exactly the sort of thing I’ve been thinking about, how much of that isn’t obvious if you haven’t been in it.

I completely hear what you’re both saying about resources though. If the right support isn’t there, specialist therapy, the right school, properly trained professionals, then no amount of advocacy fills that gap.

I think where I’m coming from (and I’m still working it through) isn’t about replacing parents as advocates or adding another “professional” into the mix, especially where that’s been unhelpful in the past. It’s more trying to understand whether there are points where having someone who understands how decisions get made, how things are written/interpreted, etc, could help people navigate those moments a bit differently, particularly for those who don’t feel confident pushing back or don’t know how to. Hopefully at an early stage.

But I also completely take the point that when things are really difficult, what’s missing is actual provision, not someone explaining the lack of it.

It’s genuinely useful hearing both sides of this, especially from people with that level of experience.

I see what you mean, and there could be some validity in that kind of support, but for it to be effective they would need to be dipping in and those key transitions consistently throughout the life of the child, rather than being involved piecemeal. By that I mean a specialist engaged right from placement who tracks the child through to adulthood.

The problem with being involved, for example, in just high school transition, is that so much has gone before that anyone coming in at that stage has a huge amount of catching up to do. If I think about my DD13, some decisions about her now rest on things that happened 2/3 years ago, but you need to understand her trauma history to make sense of why she’s now struggling. Bringing someone up to speed and them really understanding how those situations impact the way she (and I) are viewed by professionals is quite a task. Someone who has lived that with us, or who has supported that process is in a much better place to advocate or support.

I think that’s why previous posters would suggest such support would be less helpful, because I know I end up repeatedly reminding professionals of the journey so far. I also then need to do their thinking for them to make all the links explicit that I know, because I know my DD.

In my case the most consistent professionals have been community paediatrics, who have followed my kids for 9 years now, who understand the connections and links between her development, physical and mental health and have backed me every step of the way both with social work and education - as well as health services. That kind of long term, consistent involvement is golden, and very rare. Something like that from an independent social work position could be invaluable.

I think the OP is possibly looking for a business opportunity based on the latest looney-tunes proposals from the government for adoption support at key transition times ie the move to secondary. There is a current consultation which closes on May 5th. This probably won’t affect you @Jellycatspyjamaswith you being in Scotland. Obviously, the progress of all adopted children is absolutely linear and they will all only need support when they are, say, moving from primary school to secondary school. 🙄 @PeteG1 if you are looking to exploit the already scarce resources available for those parenting society’s most vulnerable children, please join the queue behind the corporate therapy companies who have already ripped off the ASGSF. Also, @PeteG1 adopters are the most resilient, resourceful, dogged, determined advocates I have ever met. Plus, we all support each other and for free.

@ThePieceHallthank you, I’ve not been fully up to speed with Westminster, been very involved in work at Holyrood so this passed me by.

@ThePieceHallis right, while there are some fairly predictable transition times for most young people, for adopted kids they aren’t linear and not always predictable. Who would have thought P5 to P6 would be a bigger transition for one of mine than the move to high school?

Thats why having a consistent, supportive professional throughout the child’s life is much more worthwhile than someone around for singular transitions. I’d also say there are generally transition supports available, poor though they may be. Whole life support, connected into all necessary professions is expensive to do well, or cheap to half ass, I don’t think there’s a working “business model” that could do it well, be profitable and actually add anything to the process.

As I said the issue isn’t that parents don’t understand assessments, or that they can’t advocate for their children. It’s that the very specialist services don’t exist in an accessible way, everyone has a new, shiny model that will fix everything (and oddly enough costs exactly the total funding available) and a whole life approach is sacrificed to expediency rather than effectiveness. Adoption needs long term, consistent support by people with expert knowledge.