After having a 7 year old girl placed with us over a year ago, we are finally at the point of applying for the adoption order. Our child has been assessed by CAMHS who recommended once a week play therapy to begin, possibly two a week pending a six month review. Our child does not have special needs, but has a horrific background, and the therapist's view was that she is likely to need therapeutic intervention for most of her minority. Alongside this we are having parallel therapy to support her, and couples counselling. This is all being paid for by different departments across the LA/Trust. The issue is that in the draft adoption support plan they will not commit to funding the therapy package beyond saying that they will apply to the ASF once we have adopted. No mention of matched funding for any duration at all for the 3 years they have responsibility. We are very concerned that if we do not have some detail/guarantee of matched or full funding of the therapy going forward (esp if the ASF ceases to exist) that we may be left without any therapy at all if they then refuse to support the therapy recommendations. The question is, what can we do to secure a more precise and longer term commitment from the LA to support the therapy going forward? Is it worth going to a solicitor? Can we refuse to apply for the order until we get more of a commitment from the LA? We feel strongly that we do not want to simply accept what they're saying and want to secure the best plan for our daughter.
Getting financial support for therapy written into adoption support plan
Dear Mongrel,
Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will be along soon, but if i were in your shoes there is no way I would be applying for the AO without a package of support being written into the adoption plan. Once the AO is granted you can bet your life the social workers will "run for the hills" and leave you to get on with it on your own. Considering your daughter is 7 and has a horrific background it goes without saying that she will need substantial long term theraputic intervention and so for your sake and that of your daughter don't let them get away with it. I would tell the social workers what you want, have it backed up by Cahms (and tell them you want their advice on a worst case scenario basis) and if SW's refuse tell them you will be getting a solicitor involved. In fact i would go and see a solicitor anyway and get their advice. Don't forget, you are in a strong position here, your daughter has been with you for over a year and no doubt was hard to place. So there is no way they would remove her from you even though they might threaten it. Please stand your ground on this. In fact i would insist that they pay for your daughter to be properly assessed as to her needs and what the follow up will entail in terms of therapy. I think there are organisations who can do this (the names of which completely escape me for the moment).
best wishes xx
Dear Mongrel,
I am not an expert on this but it is my understanding that it is up to you when you apply for the AO and they can't force you on this. There was a very minor issue that we had that I wished we had sorted out before the AO. It took over a year and a half to sort it out post AO, as contact from children's SW was non existent post AO (this was me being naive and just wanted the AO sorted as quickly as possible, and luckily for us it was a very minor thing and just more of a bit of hassle rather than actually impacting our children).
On the other hand our SW recommended that we put a condition in AO regarding contact with birth family, and I am so glad did as we have needed to refer SW back to that in post adoption contact which has put us in a stronger position.
You probably do need to stand your ground on this one, and yes maybe contact a solicitor (although I am no expert on this)
Good luck xx
Read-Only
This topic is read-only. You must log in to reply.
