anotherbrick
August 30, 2020 18:26
Hi, we are in the very early stages of the adoption process. We had our first home visit last week which went beyond expectations and were very excited to get stuck into paperwork and make some real progress.
However, over the weekend we have found out that 20 years ago my husband's cousin made allegations about my husband's father. The incident happened during play - the cousin who was 10 years old at the time said that my father-in-law had touched her chest. My father-in-law said that he did but that it was an accident while they were playing and he eventually got a suspended sentence. My husband was also roughly 10 years old, was interviewed by social workers and was also apparently told about the situation but has absolutely no memory of any of this. I should note that the cousin apparently apologised to my father-in-law in recent years and both have been in the same room multiple times and the families spend time together etc. However, I'm not sure that makes any difference to the adoption panel.
We are completely distraught. My husband is of course dealing with a lot of different emotions and is trying to make sense of his childhood, but both of us are particularly upset about the effect this will have on our adoption journey. I can't phone our social worker until Tuesday and so I was hoping I could get some advice here. Is there a worst case scenario of not letting us adopt at all? Should we expect to not let our children see their grandparents at all? Or could we spend time with them as long as me or my husband are always supervising? This is our only set of grandparents who live locally and we spend a lot of time with them. They are the only ones who know that we are adopting and are very happy for us yet did not mention this at all.
anotherbrick
August 31, 2020 22:15
Thank you for your reply Ines. I had seen that on the adoption UK website and it's a small comfort. However, I am struggling to imagine that any social workers would want to place children with us if this is in our profile.
But I will phone our social worker as soon as she is back in the office tomorrow morning. Thanks again for your message!
noodle_doodle
January 6, 2021 18:26
Hi Anotherbrick,
I hope you and your husband are doing ok.
We too are in a similar situation. We are currently trying to start conversations but we have a similar situation to you, which happened years ago, which resulted in my partners Father being given a caution.
Can I ask what information your social worker gave to you on this, which you're happy to share? We are really excited and keen to start the process and hope someone else's actions wouldn't be held against us and our ability to provide a safe and loving home to a child.
Anything you can share would be greatly appreciated.
anotherbrick
January 6, 2021 18:57
Hi Noodle,
I’m sorry to hear that you are going through something similar.
I wish I could give you a straightforward answer but there doesn’t seem to be a “rule” for exactly how social workers should deal with this. I think it may depend on your agency/LA. We are thankfully still in the process as our social worker did not seem particularly phased by it and although she asked a lot about how we were feeling and how our relationship with the family was, she did not even suggest that we waited a while to absorb the news. (This may be because my husband brought it up with his family and as they told him he started remembering details himself, so the shock died down quickly. His main worry was how this would affect the adoption process.)
The mitigating circumstances seem to be that it happened a long time ago, that he is off the register and is allowed to be around children and that we have now spoken openly with him about it. But we have also been very transparent about the situation and said that although we do not think it was more than an accident, we are obviously biased and so if they require us to take special precautions we would be willing to do so. So far they have not said that it would be necessary but I won’t feel sure until we have gotten to panel. My father-in-law has also offered to meet with any official to explain the full story if it was useful (but nobody seems to want to take us up on that).
My main advice would be to very open with the social workers and be prepared to discuss it and how it has potentially affected you in great detail. Fingers crossed for you and please let me know how it goes!
noodle_doodle
January 6, 2021 20:13
Hi Anotherbrick,
Thank you so much for your quick reply, I really appreciate it.
I'm glad to hear that your social worker is happy to go ahead and talk it all through with you, I hope all continues well for you. I was worried for us that it would be a straight no - which we have had already from an agency we contacted, so are looking elsewhere. We've said we want to be as honest as possible from the start, we feel it's completely for the best.
Thanks again.
