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HamLot7788 October 22, 2022 12:34

Hi,

Not sure if this is normal in the process, surely it could happen to someone but unlikely from our point of view. I’d like to post something from our experience about the adoption process so far.

We started the process with an agency before Summer 2021. In September 2021 we presented all the documents, health checks, attended to training, etc. and we were assigned a Social Worker who interviewed us a couple of times online before Xmas and after Xmas, she never came home to meet us in person.

After a few months of no information from the agency, the manager contacted us just when we were going to do it, we asked what was going on and she mentioned some vulnerabilities that we clarified at that time. We also asked for the full report that the social worker wrote about us as we were concerned. When we read the report we got astonished about how much information she got wrong from us.

She also hugely misjudged us, although we can understand that judgement is part of the job, what really worry us is the amount of information that we needed to clarify, I’d say more than 80% of our weaknesses / vulnerabilities coming from misunderstandings like things that we said but turned upside down.

We understand concerns, opinions, judgements as part of the SW job and perhaps the need to reflect, to deepen into someone’s facts in life. However, what really worry us is that they won’t trust us because of the wrong information taken and the amount of things we had to amend and report back. It felt like we needed to justify everything because someone apparently didn’t openly listen to us.

We believe that the fact that the interviews were online and not face to face played against us, moreover that SW left recently the agency and that could have also unconsciously conditioned our assessment.

Now we feel like we are more than 6 months (probably a year) behind because of this situation and not sure how smoothly is going to be going forward.

Has anyone been through something like this? As we are exploring how we can move on, could you give any advice please?

Thanks a lot.

Edited 22/10/2022

chestnuttree October 23, 2022 16:05

This does not sound right. Your time frames are being missed by quite a big margin. Adoption is a slow process, but if weaknesses have been identified the agency should have told you what was needed to progress. How long ago did the sw leave? Even if some information was recorded incorrectly, this should not make up the majority of the report. Some of this information you should be able to evidence as false, which would show that some fault lies with the agency. Are they taking responsibility for that? What do they propose? Would you consider changing agency?

The report needs to be correct otherwise panel will pick up inconsistencies.

HamLot7788 October 29, 2022 10:51

Thanks chestnuttree. Yes, they understand that there were misunderstandings even though they seem to question how come there were so many which is fair enough - I would do the same. At this moment, we are exploring contacting other agencies because we feel like we are not making much progress.

chestnuttree October 30, 2022 11:41

That sounds like a good idea. You have been with this agency over a year now. If they have had concerns, they should have let you know in a timely fashion. That is too long to just linger about.

Have you considered a voluntary agency? They usually have an interest in progressing their adopters, because they will only get paid after the match. They might not be the best choice if you are looking for a very young child though. It all depends.

Keep at it. It takes lots of adopters a long time. It took us 2.5 years from first meeting to children placed. I know others for whom it took longer. So while incredibly frustrating and far from ideal, you are in good company.

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