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you have to start from scratch who ever you adopt through. even if you foster for your LA the adoption team is usually a separate department and while they may access your fostering form f they will still complete their own because adoption is different to fostering and they need to focus on different things during home study. I fostered for a private agency when abroad and then adopted my son through the state system there, but was a long time ago, but have friends locally who have fostered for the LA and then had to go through the full home study to adopt a child they currently care for.

Yes i know they want to do there own form f i just wanted to know if my new VA will want to have a look at my file from fostering whilest i understand they will be asking for a refrance from my old LA will they want to look at my file

Hi,I'm not aware that the VA who did our home study for our adoptions ever looked at our fostering file with our LA. They never told us that they needed to or wanted to. They certainly asked for a reference. Hope you get on OK.BB

I'm surprised BB if they didn't. certainly when I started to foster this time round the LA requested my file (such as it was!) from the neighbouring LA where I had fostered 15 years earlier (moved abroad in between times). I cant imagine that adoption should be any less thorough than for fostering. they also wanted a reference form the agency abroad as well, though that wasn't provided as no one there at the time knew me from before.

Oh dear i am even more confused now I rang BAFF and they said they they would only request the whole file if they had any concerns and that they usually only require a refance from them.It would take a sw maybe about 2 to 3 weeks to sit, read and analyze it all it took my ex ssw three weeks to go trough it all and she knows me and that with her canceling all her meeting and working from the office the whole time because i have been fostering for nearly a decade now And if this was somthing they do then i would of thought this would happen quite soon

Can you not just ask them what they're planning on doing?

to be fair, the file requested from my previous fostering would not have (and didn't) take more than a few minutes to read! it was very basic (and written in the early '90's), they are far more thorough now so maybe they do only ask for a reference. at the end of the day will it make any difference to you whether they do or don't request the whole vile versus a reference?

The reason why i am not very keen is because i really feel this will add more time to yet a drawn out process.Also i really feel that i would be grudge going through a whole fostering assement if they are going to look at my form f frim fostering We have never had a bad foster carer review it gose with out saying that i had issues with childrens sw over the years i dont think you can be a foster carer with out ruffeling a few feathers but....over all our file is very postive I really would of thought that a refrance would be enough and that if my LA had any concerns they would put that in the reference

Ask the question. But it is what it is. You're going to have to jump through whatever hoops they put in your way so may as well get used to it.The process will take as long as it takes. No point getting frustrated at stressed at every little thing or by the time you get to approval panel you'll be a nervous wreck.In reality you have no control over the speed of the process or how they manage it. So you may as well take it in your stride, develop a thick skin and an awful lot of patience.And in the meantime just ask.