SN adoption

[cheeseandchive]

New to the site, hoping you can give me a bit of advice.

DH and I have worked with 'mainstream' (sorry, don't know the correct term!) and special needs children for quite some time - he is a primary school teacher and I have worked with Deaf children with additional needs. For a long time we have wanted to adopt, particularly a child/children with special needs, and now we are married and are settled in a place of our own (and I graduate in 18 months, I'm a mature student) we want to start the journey towards adopting a child with special needs. Just for the record, we have no DCs of our own and, as far as we know, can have them, though we have never TTC.

I know there is a lot we need to think about between now and then; financial implications, what kind of needs could we best support, who will support us through it etc. We thought that the best way to get more experience and really get a start would be to provide respite care for weekends etc.

So can you direct us towards some resources that will help us think this all through and start us on our journey? I know it's a huge commitment that requires sacrifice upon sacrifice (though I'm no martyr!) and we're willing to be challenged on it and asked difficult questions because, ultimately, it's part of loving our kids that we think about it as seriously and realistically as possible. So please feel free to tell me about your experiences, ask "have you thought about X?", or post info/links to resources that you have found helpful.

Thanks!

It m,ight be worth looking at your council website and seeing what they say? I think it is quite straightforward to become a link worker for a child with disabilities and they are crying out for people

I think you will do great you have the chance to research and have got info and experience dealing with special needs which is something most of us didnt have. We were plunged into the world of special needs unprepared yet we do great so you should ne fantastic having prepared.

I also think you are doing a amazing thing and I hope it goes well.

Don't overestimate the support there is available once the child becomes legally your responsibility. The world can be quite brutal to children with special needs and their families and in order to access any help usually requires you to go through a period of humiliation and criticism of your parenting.

Having said that, I think that happens during the adoption process of any child anyway so once you have a child you'll probably just be relieved they leave you alone.

Some of us here have moved several times in order to support our children and one or two of us have sold our homes. Nearly all of us have been blamed at one time or other for our children's disabilities or accused of making them worse.

If you can cope with all of this regardless (and I sincerely hope you can as there is no greater need than for parents like you who can and do make a difference to the life chances of some children with disabilities), then fostering and respite is a good way to begin.

Keep it in mind though, that in many Local Authorities, the children with disabilities who get respite are from homes that social services have concerns about. So you might not get a child with 'just' a disability iyswim.

Hi, I would say the best place to start is with your local authority family placement team, (I am a mum to a child with ASD and LD, and and ex SW with D/deaf people, and family placement social worker; recruiting, assessing and training prospective foster carers for children with disabilities).

The process to become a short break carer is quite involved, but should be quite clear, and all authorities will be looking for people,

The one thing I will say is that going through the process of approval and the (sometimes) long process of getting to know the child who will be having short breaks with you can take a long time and if you are only looking to do that temporarily before you look to adopt you may find that they are less happy about that, as some of the children with more profound needs can take a long time to settle to overnight/weekend visits, and to get to that point and then to stop in order to adopt might be problematic for the child and for the families involved... feel free to pm me about the proccess and general info if it would be useful.

I have to say short break care, (what they used to call respite) is one of the really lovely bits of SW (IYSWIM) as in my experience the parents and siblings, the child themself, and the fostering families (with or without children) all report the experience as a real positive for all concerned.

god starlightmckensie, are you me?! (i have a new social worker btw who seems FAB and is already making changes to care, thank god)

My friends have recently adopted . After seeing our lives, they were much more scared of taking a child with significant special needs, as they'd seen how little help there can be if you're unlucky. They found the local service quite off-putting and unhelpful, I think the adoption charities tend to be much better in the training given and how they manage the assessment and placement process.

We have after having 3 homegrown adopted 8 SN children ( because of the type of children we have adopted 3 sadly have died) However it is, despite the sadness the best thing we have ever done. Our children's age range is
45 to 7 hence my name.

Please feel free to PM me but if you are committed go for it and kick SS's
objections out of the way (shows commitment)
good luck

Thanks for all the advice and support everyone. I may well take you up on the PM offers in the near future.

2old, so sorry you have lost three of your children, what an amazing opportunity you have had to give them a loving home in their lifetime.

sign, I hadn't thought about the implications of short-breaks as a route to adoption for the child, that's definitely something we will give some thought to.

This stage is mining for information while we wait till we can do something practical, can anyone recommend any good online resources either to do with adoption or special needs? I want to learn as much as I can so want to read as much as possible! I have contacted my local council for their fostering and information packs, however it would be great to read about real-life experiences or really detailed info about a range of special needs so we can understand more.

Thanks so much

Agree with sign My cousin started down her route by doing respite care for
children with special needs.
I was so lucky I happened by chance to be at our first adopted son's delivery
as a midwife!!!

In terms of reading about real-life experiences of parenting children with a range of disabilities, there is a lot of stuff out there... I would recommend 2 books and 2 blogs:

Blue Sky July by Nia Wyn (CP)

George and Sam by Charlotte Moore (autism)

livingwithrettsyndrome.blogspot.co.uk

lifeloveand.com

Both the blogs are about Rett syndrome. Imo both give a real insight into what it is like to parent and love a child with SN, both quite different in style.

Good luck

My parents began as respite carers for disabled children and had lots of children over the years. Some as share care set ups, so they'd stay 3 nights a week, others just 1 night a month, depending on what the families had been assessed as needing. My partner and I are now registered as foster carers for a teenager with severe autism, who my parents and I (I was 18, living at home at the time) began giving short breaks to 12 years ago, he's been full time between our house and my parents for the past 11 and half years! He has severe needs and we have had to fight for the therapies he needed, we've had to pay out a large amount of money sometimes to get him the help he needed, but he is part of the family and we treat him as such. He is with my partner and I full time at present due to my mothers ill health. Whilst it is not easy juggling a career and a child with such a high level of need, it is incredibly rewarding. We have not had our own children yet and I'm sure that will present many challenges, but we wouldn't have it any other way. We live him dearly and are incredibly proud of him. We have been able to give him a good life, one he would never have had otherwise as he was destined for residential school as he was so challenging. The system can be a nightmare at times, but on the whole our council have eventually done right by us!

jomaman thanks for those resources, will get reading!

Sounds like you are doing an amazing job, PleasantSpice, keep it up!

Thanks everyone for all the advice and pointers