Hi all, I know the blog hasn't been updated in a long time but there's been a whole lot of not much to report really. I'm hoping this will change in the New Year, as next year will be the time the adoption process starts moving forward. I hope.
In the New Year I will be looking to get J and myself onto some volunteering programmes to get our required experience working with young children. This hopefully will then mean that when we do the preparation course in May we will be well on our way to being up to speed with what we need to do.
I want to make our adoption a priority for next year. It needs to be the thing we focus on if we want things to start moving forward. I'm currently sitting on my couch smelling my Christmas cake baking - it'll be interesting when we get to Christmas next year to see how far we might have come by then.
I hope you all have fabulous holidays, I'll check in again in the New Year.
Wednesday 5 December 2012
Tuesday 28 August 2012
Hi everyone!
Wow, my pageviews have zoomed up! How exciting! Hi to everyone reading the blog, and major apologies that my updating has been quite frankly terrible...I will try to rectify that!
So, last time I updated we were about to go on the information evening. We got a LOT of information.
It was run by the local council - as that's who were going through for our adoption - and it's pretty obvious that it's a very different procedure from going through a "private" adoption. Firstly, they were very clear that the kids they place are not given up voluntarily. The kids that come through the council are ones that have had to be removed from their homes due to the parents being unfit. This means that the child automatically comes with a whole load of emotional and mental baggage.
A couple spoke for about 45 minutes on their experiences of adoption, right from the point they decided to go through with the process up until the adoption itself. I knew it was going to be along process, but MY GOD it's a long process...allow me to outline...
- Go to an information evening. Get a whoooole load of information. Express your interest in adopting.
- Get yourself some experience with young children, if you haven't already. This involves volunteering at a children's centre or school, and having children of friends come and stay in your house.
- Have some more conversations with the social worker. Get invited onto the preparation course.
- Attend the three-day preparation course. Apparently, this is an extremely challenging course as it looks at your views on parenting and your own upbringing as well as a whole load of other stuff.
- Be approved to start putting your portfolio together. This includes details of everywhere you've lived, references, personal testimonies, your criminal records checks, your home visits, references from employers, interviews with family members and a reference for your pets.
- Once all that's done, it goes to the adoption panel. They sit and look through your portfolio, and then they interview you. If all goes to plan, then PING! Now you can adopt!
- Then, you wait. And wait. And wait. Your social worker will be looking for children to place with you. Once they find one they think might work, they ask you about it. If you think it might work, the child's social worker contacts you.
- If both social workers and you agree that this would be a good placement, you can start the process. You can meet the foster parent, if appropriate. You can meet the teachers and the social worker. But you can't meet the child. Not yet.
- Back to the adoption panel. If you're lucky, panel says go.
- Now, you can meet the child. First for just a few hours - going round for dinner - then for half a day - going to the zoo - then for a sleepover. The idea is that each time you meet the child you take some of their stuff back to your house. That way by the time the child actually comes to live there, everything is already there and set up. There's no big "moving day".
- Child moves in. And you try it. At this point the child is partially under your care but also still under the care of the state. After ten weeks you can apply for an adoption order.
- Back to the adoption panel. They grant the order. Job done.
Exhausting. Just typing it is exhausting. But first thing's first. J and I need some more child care experience. I work with young people, but they're all of secondary school age. However, there are plenty of Children's Centres around, and we can volunteer there. So that's a start. The first preparation course is in October, but there's no way athat J and I are going to be ready for that in time. Apparently the next one is in May, so that's our aim.
And so it begins.
Coming up on the blog: book reviews!!
So, last time I updated we were about to go on the information evening. We got a LOT of information.
It was run by the local council - as that's who were going through for our adoption - and it's pretty obvious that it's a very different procedure from going through a "private" adoption. Firstly, they were very clear that the kids they place are not given up voluntarily. The kids that come through the council are ones that have had to be removed from their homes due to the parents being unfit. This means that the child automatically comes with a whole load of emotional and mental baggage.
A couple spoke for about 45 minutes on their experiences of adoption, right from the point they decided to go through with the process up until the adoption itself. I knew it was going to be along process, but MY GOD it's a long process...allow me to outline...
- Go to an information evening. Get a whoooole load of information. Express your interest in adopting.
- Get yourself some experience with young children, if you haven't already. This involves volunteering at a children's centre or school, and having children of friends come and stay in your house.
- Have some more conversations with the social worker. Get invited onto the preparation course.
- Attend the three-day preparation course. Apparently, this is an extremely challenging course as it looks at your views on parenting and your own upbringing as well as a whole load of other stuff.
- Be approved to start putting your portfolio together. This includes details of everywhere you've lived, references, personal testimonies, your criminal records checks, your home visits, references from employers, interviews with family members and a reference for your pets.
- Once all that's done, it goes to the adoption panel. They sit and look through your portfolio, and then they interview you. If all goes to plan, then PING! Now you can adopt!
- Then, you wait. And wait. And wait. Your social worker will be looking for children to place with you. Once they find one they think might work, they ask you about it. If you think it might work, the child's social worker contacts you.
- If both social workers and you agree that this would be a good placement, you can start the process. You can meet the foster parent, if appropriate. You can meet the teachers and the social worker. But you can't meet the child. Not yet.
- Back to the adoption panel. If you're lucky, panel says go.
- Now, you can meet the child. First for just a few hours - going round for dinner - then for half a day - going to the zoo - then for a sleepover. The idea is that each time you meet the child you take some of their stuff back to your house. That way by the time the child actually comes to live there, everything is already there and set up. There's no big "moving day".
- Child moves in. And you try it. At this point the child is partially under your care but also still under the care of the state. After ten weeks you can apply for an adoption order.
- Back to the adoption panel. They grant the order. Job done.
Exhausting. Just typing it is exhausting. But first thing's first. J and I need some more child care experience. I work with young people, but they're all of secondary school age. However, there are plenty of Children's Centres around, and we can volunteer there. So that's a start. The first preparation course is in October, but there's no way athat J and I are going to be ready for that in time. Apparently the next one is in May, so that's our aim.
And so it begins.
Coming up on the blog: book reviews!!
Thursday 5 July 2012
Tonight's the night...
So tonight is the "official" first step on our adoption road - we're going to the open evening. The introduction evening. The beginning of our lives being scrutinized by officials to see if we're deemed fit to be parents. It looks like it's mostly going to be talks by people from the adoption team, as well as some adoptive parents. And then at the end we fill out the information form to say we're interested in doing the preparation course.
It really is a long-winded process. We've already been screened once to see if we're able to come to the evening to see if we might be interested in being put forward. Now that's thorough. But I'm excited, and I want everything to work, even if it does take a while.
When we first got in touch with the adoption team at the local council. we were contacted by one of their workers who gave us a reading list of books to look at. We've managed to get a couple from the library and I might see if I can't snaffle a few cheap copies off amazon.co.uk at some point. BUT, in the meantime I'm working my way through Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes A Baby's Brain. It seems to be pretty child psych oriented but I'm literally only a few pages in - I have to sit and wait for 2 hours while my car is serviced later so I'm sure I'll have the chance to look at a good chunk of it then.
And so it begins...
It really is a long-winded process. We've already been screened once to see if we're able to come to the evening to see if we might be interested in being put forward. Now that's thorough. But I'm excited, and I want everything to work, even if it does take a while.
When we first got in touch with the adoption team at the local council. we were contacted by one of their workers who gave us a reading list of books to look at. We've managed to get a couple from the library and I might see if I can't snaffle a few cheap copies off amazon.co.uk at some point. BUT, in the meantime I'm working my way through Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes A Baby's Brain. It seems to be pretty child psych oriented but I'm literally only a few pages in - I have to sit and wait for 2 hours while my car is serviced later so I'm sure I'll have the chance to look at a good chunk of it then.
And so it begins...
Wednesday 20 June 2012
Third time's a charm...
Hi all...this is another restart of the blog. There are reasons, (plus the blog's changed names to match our changing plans!!) but I'm hoping to get better at my blogging...here's hoping.
So. Here's the plan.
J and I have been married for just over 4 years. Now is the most settled we've been - we have a gorgeous home, we're slowly stabilising life and income and career (also I'm now thirty *cough*) so it's time to look at a family. Well, continue looking at a family. J and I have looked into and explored a few avenues including the process of creating a baby through a fertility clinic, and it all comes down to £££ and the fact that we just don't have enough of them for treatment. Treatment that isn't guaranteed to work.
Which has lead us down the route of adoption. It's a long and uncertain process but the hugest factor is that it doesn't cost a fortune, and there's also the fact that we can give a good life to a child that otherwise may not have that chance.
So that's where we are. We've been invited to an information evening at the beginning of July, and before then we have a reading list of books to look at (which I'll write something about once I've read them!) This is the start of a long process, so the chance to write about the process should be interesting.
And so it begins...
So. Here's the plan.
J and I have been married for just over 4 years. Now is the most settled we've been - we have a gorgeous home, we're slowly stabilising life and income and career (also I'm now thirty *cough*) so it's time to look at a family. Well, continue looking at a family. J and I have looked into and explored a few avenues including the process of creating a baby through a fertility clinic, and it all comes down to £££ and the fact that we just don't have enough of them for treatment. Treatment that isn't guaranteed to work.
Which has lead us down the route of adoption. It's a long and uncertain process but the hugest factor is that it doesn't cost a fortune, and there's also the fact that we can give a good life to a child that otherwise may not have that chance.
So that's where we are. We've been invited to an information evening at the beginning of July, and before then we have a reading list of books to look at (which I'll write something about once I've read them!) This is the start of a long process, so the chance to write about the process should be interesting.
And so it begins...
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