I’m a family’s first port of call

Every person we work with has begun the adoption journey for a different reason. I am here to help them along the way. Sometimes an assessing social worker has a relationship with a family for several years. At every step of the process we are often that family’s first port of call for support.

The assessment process can be intrusive. Topics and memories may come up that are quite raw. Some prospective adopters may worry that if they share certain things, this will automatically disqualify them. I let them know that being honest actually builds trust between us and the family. I am interested in finding out how families might use, or build on, those possible difficult experiences in their parenting. Everything is done with the best interests of the children in mind.

My role is to encourage and assess. Prospective adopters will do a lot of reading, thinking and discussing during the assessment process, and it is normal for them to have emotional highs and lows. I am there to help a family through the process, but they also have to help themselves by being open and willing to learn.

In my agency, the Preparation Group training is held over four days. One example of what training might focus on is contact, which prospective adopters are often quite nervous and unsure about. Training helps them to understand how contact beneficially links a child to their past, instilling them with a sense of identity.

Sometimes prospective adopters will have their heart set on a child. I am supportive and empathetic, and work with them to look at how that child would fit into their existing and proposed lifestyle, and their capacity to parent that child.

A family may also get drawn in by a photo of a child needing adoption, while not looking at the reality behind the photo. There might be a long legal process, complex contact arrangements, a lot of uncertainty. These are all things which the family and I would need to discuss. I have also worked with carers who have ‘fallen in love’ with a child that is then matched with another family. That’s heartbreaking. I help my family work through that loss and start looking again. I help them shift their focus on to the next child, the one who will hopefully become their child.

Once matched, prospective adopters are usually away from home during introductions, because the child they are hoping to adopt may live in a different part of the country. They may also have to meet total strangers, like a child’s foster carers. It can all seem quite scary. Then there is the crucial period following placement. Through all of this I am there to give pointers and suggestions, to let them share their thoughts and feelings, and provide support.

You need time and emotional commitment to get through the adoption process. Sometimes I meet families wanting to adopt when the timing doesn’t seem right. Prospective adopters need to provide consistency and stability, so I talk to them about how it is important that they are really ready to take on the adoption task. I may also need to explain that it takes more than just love to be an adoptive parent – parenting someone else’s child is a different experience to giving birth to your own.

But what motivates me is seeing the outcome. It’s nice to watch people at the end of the process, and see what they’ve learned about both themselves and adoption. And I find it so rewarding to see a family being matched with a child, and to know that it’s a great fit.

Photograph posed by models.

Originally published in the Be My Parent newspaper in November 2007.

This article is published with the kind permission of the people involved. You may download it for your own reference but if you wish to use it for any other purpose, please contact Be My Parent for authorisation: Be My Parent, BAAF, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Telephone: 020 7421 2666/5/4.

Last updated: 14 November 07

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