busy times!
Jul. 9th, 2019 02:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
llywelaThe weekend before last I was in Coventry for my brother-in-law's ordination - we made a full weekend of it with lots of sightseeing and a tour of Cadbury World while we were there.
And now this weekend coming is to feature a trek all the way up to Yorkshire for 'Family & Friends Adoption Training', although given that we've had an adoptive family member for more than 20 years now, I'm not sure what they are going to teach us, beyond perhaps everything we've been doing wrong all this time! But with D&R's final adoption panel so close now, every little bit of support helps.
They had a meeting last weekend with the kiddies's current foster carer - the respite carer who has had them full time for about 2-3 weeks, that is, since their long-term pre-adoption placement blew up. The meeting itself went well enough, the foster carer seemed lovely, and a bunch of dates were agreed for various steps in the process, but on the downside, she brought along her own social worker, who has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the adoption, yet kept interfering - and not in a helpful way. Such as trying to insist that both children absolutely must sleep in the same bedroom as D&R for at least 6 months after they move in, because that's what they are used to in their foster placement...which is an emergency placement that they have only been in for 2-3 weeks, and in which the fact that the carer could only have them in cots in her own bedroom was seen as a negative that nearly led to them being placed elsewhere. So why is this cramped short-term measure being trumpeted as the ideal? Your guess is as good as mine. D&R's own social worker will fight their corner on that point - the children already have beautiful bedrooms of their own all set up and ready for them to move into.
The arrangements for the transition also proved a sticky point. The foster carer has an 11-year-old of her own plus a long-term foster child of about the same age, and kept bleating about how very attached they have become to the children (who, again, have only been with them full time for 2-3 weeks, and it turns out they'd only had them for respite care a couple of times before that, so this isn't exactly a long-term attachment). So the foster carer's social worker is insisting that her own children have to be part of the transition process, which is planned over two weeks - first week D&R spend every day in the foster carer's house, slowly taking over all parenting duties, then the second week the foster carer is supposed to bring the children to them every day, and stay in the background while they parent the children in their own home. This is the sticking point. It turns out that a) the foster carer doesn't drive, so wants D&R to collect her each day (she lives 40 minutes away), and b) she wants to bring her own children to D&R's house every day to be part of the transition. Which is really inappropriate for all kinds of reasons, not least of which is that a couple of pre-teens are not going to have the maturity to step back and allow someone else to do all the parenting of a pair of cute toddlers they are used to playing with and helping with. We suspect that the real reason the foster carer is making such a point of all this is that it will be school holidays and she doesn't have childcare.
And then there's the fact that the foster family live in Huddersfield - the same city the children are being removed from, and where D&R have been told never to take them in case of being recognised by the birth family - heck, those girls could be in school with members of the birth family, for all we know. And...one of the pre-adoption play dates being arranged for D&R with the children is in a soft play centre in Huddersfield...where their older siblings (who've been placed separately with a family member) could well be taken during the school holidays.
I suppose the real issue is that the foster carer has never done an adoption handover before, she only agreed to be part of all this as an emergency measure, and she is finding it all quite weird and hard.
It just all feels like such a minefield, and really highlights how different the rules are for foster care versus adoption. D&R have been given such a strict list of rules to abide by - down to not taking the children on holiday for a particular length of time, so that they will feel secure in their new home, not introducing them to new family members for a particular length of time and then how to go about those introductions, heck, even the initial slow, steady transition to their own care - whereas those same children, while still in the foster care system, even when they are on the verge of being adopted, can be moved to a new placement with a complete stranger at a moment's notice, their foster carer can introduce them to whoever they want, take them on holiday whenever they want, and no one bats an eyelid.
Honestly can't wait to get these kids out of the system and into a loving and stable family.
The final paperwork has been submitted. The intention is to keep their forenames and give them new middle names, as Yorkshire recommends not changing the names of adopted children - this can differ wildly between different local authorities. But if the names need to be changed for security reasons, those prospective new names have also been chosen and submitted. (I actually kind of hope they do end up changing the names, as it is quite an identifiable combination, but if not I daresay we'll learn to live with them!)
Still to come: farewell contact for the children with various members of their birth family, with whom letterbox contact will be maintained; an observation 'bump into' meeting for D&R with the children followed by play dates; pre-adoption medicals for the children; and then the adoption panel on 12 August!
And now this weekend coming is to feature a trek all the way up to Yorkshire for 'Family & Friends Adoption Training', although given that we've had an adoptive family member for more than 20 years now, I'm not sure what they are going to teach us, beyond perhaps everything we've been doing wrong all this time! But with D&R's final adoption panel so close now, every little bit of support helps.
They had a meeting last weekend with the kiddies's current foster carer - the respite carer who has had them full time for about 2-3 weeks, that is, since their long-term pre-adoption placement blew up. The meeting itself went well enough, the foster carer seemed lovely, and a bunch of dates were agreed for various steps in the process, but on the downside, she brought along her own social worker, who has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the adoption, yet kept interfering - and not in a helpful way. Such as trying to insist that both children absolutely must sleep in the same bedroom as D&R for at least 6 months after they move in, because that's what they are used to in their foster placement...which is an emergency placement that they have only been in for 2-3 weeks, and in which the fact that the carer could only have them in cots in her own bedroom was seen as a negative that nearly led to them being placed elsewhere. So why is this cramped short-term measure being trumpeted as the ideal? Your guess is as good as mine. D&R's own social worker will fight their corner on that point - the children already have beautiful bedrooms of their own all set up and ready for them to move into.
The arrangements for the transition also proved a sticky point. The foster carer has an 11-year-old of her own plus a long-term foster child of about the same age, and kept bleating about how very attached they have become to the children (who, again, have only been with them full time for 2-3 weeks, and it turns out they'd only had them for respite care a couple of times before that, so this isn't exactly a long-term attachment). So the foster carer's social worker is insisting that her own children have to be part of the transition process, which is planned over two weeks - first week D&R spend every day in the foster carer's house, slowly taking over all parenting duties, then the second week the foster carer is supposed to bring the children to them every day, and stay in the background while they parent the children in their own home. This is the sticking point. It turns out that a) the foster carer doesn't drive, so wants D&R to collect her each day (she lives 40 minutes away), and b) she wants to bring her own children to D&R's house every day to be part of the transition. Which is really inappropriate for all kinds of reasons, not least of which is that a couple of pre-teens are not going to have the maturity to step back and allow someone else to do all the parenting of a pair of cute toddlers they are used to playing with and helping with. We suspect that the real reason the foster carer is making such a point of all this is that it will be school holidays and she doesn't have childcare.
And then there's the fact that the foster family live in Huddersfield - the same city the children are being removed from, and where D&R have been told never to take them in case of being recognised by the birth family - heck, those girls could be in school with members of the birth family, for all we know. And...one of the pre-adoption play dates being arranged for D&R with the children is in a soft play centre in Huddersfield...where their older siblings (who've been placed separately with a family member) could well be taken during the school holidays.
I suppose the real issue is that the foster carer has never done an adoption handover before, she only agreed to be part of all this as an emergency measure, and she is finding it all quite weird and hard.
It just all feels like such a minefield, and really highlights how different the rules are for foster care versus adoption. D&R have been given such a strict list of rules to abide by - down to not taking the children on holiday for a particular length of time, so that they will feel secure in their new home, not introducing them to new family members for a particular length of time and then how to go about those introductions, heck, even the initial slow, steady transition to their own care - whereas those same children, while still in the foster care system, even when they are on the verge of being adopted, can be moved to a new placement with a complete stranger at a moment's notice, their foster carer can introduce them to whoever they want, take them on holiday whenever they want, and no one bats an eyelid.
Honestly can't wait to get these kids out of the system and into a loving and stable family.
The final paperwork has been submitted. The intention is to keep their forenames and give them new middle names, as Yorkshire recommends not changing the names of adopted children - this can differ wildly between different local authorities. But if the names need to be changed for security reasons, those prospective new names have also been chosen and submitted. (I actually kind of hope they do end up changing the names, as it is quite an identifiable combination, but if not I daresay we'll learn to live with them!)
Still to come: farewell contact for the children with various members of their birth family, with whom letterbox contact will be maintained; an observation 'bump into' meeting for D&R with the children followed by play dates; pre-adoption medicals for the children; and then the adoption panel on 12 August!
no subject
Date: 2019-07-09 08:31 pm (UTC)Not everything is text book and should be a case by case situation.
Having said that, square your shoulders, keep breathing, the light at the end of this tunnel is getting brighter.
::: HUGS :::
no subject
Date: 2019-07-12 09:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-10 03:42 pm (UTC)I hope it all goes as smoothly as it can.
Carol
no subject
Date: 2019-07-12 09:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-10 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-12 10:00 am (UTC)