We are experiencing massive problems with Adopt London South. They never pick up the phone and don't get back to us. We get emails signed by the "team" and have no idea who our case worker is and what is happening or if anything is happening.
Are others experiencing the same?
Could you try ringing the duty social worker? That’s what I did in the end
I have managed to communicate with a team member (no name given), but am left with incorrect and missing information. I have no idea what is going on and worryingly neither do they, I think.
I have also been struggling to get through to them. This merger is putting families at risk of breakdown.
... and severely impacts vulnerable children's mental health.
I assume most families don't have the energy to make some noise about this. I am not even sure what to do about it.
The problem isn't just with Adopt London South. It feels like they pushed ahead before they planned it all out. You're right, it is putting families at risk. We've found that having new SWs have caused delays, miscommunication and worse still impacting our child too.
I hadn’t clicked that you were talking about the new regional authorities - ours is London West (I presume) - Ealing Hounslow possibly Hammersmith? Luckily we were kept updated by the person doing life story work as to what was happening - and our SW luckily kept her job - and again luckily I bumped into her in the park on my way to work and she was able to send her new email address - otherwise I wouldn’t have the faintest idea. I had thought you meant initial contact with PASW
I absolutely knew this would be about regionalisation. Our small local authority, with its long-serving and loyal and passionate pasws, all of whom were knowledgeable about and cared for our families, was assimilated into a regional agency. Naturally, ‘our’ pasws (with whom all our local families had built up collateral over many years) were sent (unwillingly) to other boroughs on the far side of the region and sws with no local knowledge were drafted in as ‘support’ for ‘our’ families.
And don’t get me started on the ‘duty’ system of emergency post-adoption support. I would literally have to have my neck in a noose before I bothered to phone to ask for help.
In my darker moments, I imagine that someone up there wants to test adopters to the absolute limits of breaking point and ‘regionalisation’ is just another mechanism in an impressive armoury with which to torment us! By the way, I don’t believe that the earth is flat or that aliens landed in Nevada. ?
I’m glad someone has posted this.
I too am having problems with this service. I have complained to the duty sw and threatened to take it further up the line.
I have an outstanding matter which was raised in August pre merger and I have had to push to get any action out of them. Fortunately, I had a chain of emails as written evidence.
I am also having issues with the letterbox team. I sent our contact in November and when I called to see if it had been passed on they said (2 months later) that they were still trying to get hold of the old agency (pre merger) for details of where to send the letter to.
Not impressed.
I too have had problems. We have tried to find out news of birth siblings for three years now. Just had vague emails from them saying they are dealing with it. No concrete help. Frustrating to say the least.
This is an evaluation of the regionalisation. I am very much looking forward to the next one, which will hopefully include adopters' views!
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