ASGLB New Chair - Stakeholder Participation

A duty call, adopter sufficiency, contact and support.

Frankly, it all been a little bit terrible. The giddy joys of caring for vulnerable but determinedly spikey children has been all a bit 'in yer face' of late and we've all been frayed round the edges. I find myself asking big and unusual questions, 'what bits of my life can I remove and still keep an income' being the main one. If there ever was a time when we needed two present parents it feels like now.

Set against that is the increasing opportunities to help people living with challenging and aggressive children.

I find myself inhabiting two worlds, helper and helpless. In 2008 it became quite clear that we would need to become the help that we needed and that's ok to a point but, well not really, as there comes a moment when you need a grown up in the room to sort it all out. We're not sure where we're at right now, we've created this PACE/NVR/permissive/authoritarian fusion of parenting that seems to work to a point. It's when we pass that point that seems to be the issue, we can hold all this crap together right up to then when we can't then we need to go look for a grown up.

So, it came to pass. Duty was called and though it was a long story it came down to one phrase uttered with a hint of embarrassment by a duty social worker at 5 to 5 on a Monday evening.

'Sorry, it's up to you, you'll have to sort it out as there's nothing we can do'

Ok, let's unpack that a little.........How far past normal do you think we'd travelled to get to the point of calling you? This is the culmination of 10 years of therapeutic parenting, social work and psychologist training, I commissioned two reports on violent and aggressive behaviour, I co authored four reports on it. I train social workers, LSCBs, teachers and police on it. I even got sent on my own course by a social worker.

When I call duty I bloody I mean it.

So, we did 'sort it out', it was scary seat of our pants stuff with some excellent support from school staff who went above and beyond.

Set against this I've been thinking about 'adopter sufficiency' an seemingly ugly phrase that reveals the business of it all. Anyhow, lots of people are worried that the numbers of prospective adopters are falling again. Heads are being scratched.

When I asked people a few weeks ago 'what would put you off adopting?' except one answer the resounding response was:

'nothing, but it would have been nice to know more about our children and therapeutic parenting'

I genuinely believe that this is one of the the two defining issues for the future of adoption, the other  contact and links to birth families.

Prospective adopters take 10 minutes online and see the dearth of support that many face, and even if it's not universally bad there are enough complaining online to define the narrative. Adoption is a buyers market and if there is no after sale support then you walk away, look for a different seller or seriously consider the transaction in the first place (sorry to use ugly language*).


As for contact, new adopters fear it and old adopters are open to having it.**
To that end the irony of getting the news this week that the adoptive parents of my childrens' youngest sibling don't want contact with us feels like a kick in the guts for all of us including the sibling. No reason given just an email saying we'll get letterbox contact, and that feels like a joke from this side of the news. Frankly, sat in the position of many birth families I can't help but feel as real sense of absolute catastrophe, this stuff will echo in my children's and their child's life long after all the adults dead. I sent the social worker Professor Beth Neil's research on contact in a fit of pique. I know that all the power sits with the new adopters and frankly it stinks.


So, all this also impacts on sufficiency. Support is hidden because it acknowledged the likely truth of you needing it, but adopters arn't stupid they know they'll need it and prefer honesty. Then contact, if we have to open the doors wider to prospective adopters that are, and always have been, reluctant to incorporate safe and meaningful contact with first families then what does the future of adoption look like? We may keep it on life support but it will be built on the injustices that caused it.

Granted, I'm a little tetchy at the moment, I could pull the whole damn adoption house down.



* not really

** generally

Empathy and some thoughts on the Adopter Reference Group

So, up again I went to the Adopter Reference Group to look at and reflect on the issues that the Adoption and Special Guardianship Leadership Board consider and discuss some of the current issues that our community are negotiating at the moment. 

The discussion fell back into schools and again I find myself slightly out of step on that subject. For us to see the culture and practice shift that we want for our children in education we need to present an irresistible argument to education professionals, policy makers and politicians. With 26,000 schools in the UK and 55,000 adoptees under 18 years old in a pool of 11,000,000 children adoptees represent a very small cohort

Even in the group of children with SEN, 1,276,000 we are aren’t even at 5% and of course not every adopted child needs additional support in education.  The needs of adopted children may pull on the heartstrings of educationalists for all the cultural and emotive reasons we know but they don’t scratch the surface of the actual need in schools. The argument to change school culture and practice, to raise awareness in the workforce of trauma, loss and separation and to support the needs of vulnerable children becomes irresistible when adoptees are seen amongst the many more children that are living through and with the impacts of early adversity. 

1 in 5 children will experience domestic violence

1 in 20 children will experience sexual abuse

1 in 10 children will experience neglect

1 in 14 children will experience physical abuse

1 in 29 children will experience the death of a parent 

Foster care, kinship care, special guardians, private fostering etc.

Those are features in many adoptees narrative, however they are not exclusively theirs and in reality many more children experience high levels of challenge but adoption is not their story. 

I could go on………..

The case for empathy, compassion and a culture/policy/paradigm shift is clear when adoptees are seen in that community of children. Of course, within that community specific needs and nuances are represented with our children having some. However, the baseline shift that we’re looking for would change everything for those children and it’s likely for all children positively.

Here’s the rub, we need to form alliances and to do that do we need to shout a little less about adoption? Tricky, is it a word that opens doors and gets the ears of professionals? It is in my experience but do we need to help open the door for many that don’t have that luxury. 

So, that was what I was thinking and I did reflect a little of that as we chatted about education. I may have got a little passionate. Hey ho.

Then we went onto consider the work that is being looked at in relation to modernising permanency. It’s a broad subject matter and with several strands as support and contact are considered in relation to children’s identity as well as workforce development. 

I’ve lots of thoughts on that issue and it’s a fundamental issue for services at this time of RAA induced flux and remains a hot topic when broached with adopters and families. I’m going to keep my powder dry on that one. 

I apologise as this feels like a sketchy reflection of the discussion and more an essay on my thoughts on the topics raised. 

That said, continuity of NHS numbers were discussed, an issue that is significant for children with many children with complex health needs who need continuity of treatment and care. In a world of social media children being tracked down through this seems increasingly unlikely in my view. So that’s back on the table.  

The case for the continuation of the ASF beyond March 2020 is being pulled together, the Treasury will, rightly, want to see evidence of it’s benefit to children and families and that is being pursued. 

The issues of adopted children, quite obviously, remain central to the focus and efforts of adoptive parents and the dedicated staff of the DfE and the Adoption and Special Guardian Leadership Board continue to focus on those children. It remains a privilege to speak as a member of the adoption community and though the wheels of change move slow they do move but we need to keep oiling and pushing.

Together

It seems like utter bunkum to review the year, so I won't.

However, my thoughts are drawn to trends and developments. There's a lot going on, with shifts in emphasis, agencies coming and going, the whole RAA thing seems to be unstoppable with all that means. That all seems routine and beyond the control or influence of most of us though.

For me there's an increasing shift to see the needs of adoptees and foster children in the context of all children's experiences. It's clear, the lobby for supporting children who have experienced trauma, loss and separation is stronger when we pull in the vast array of communities that care for those children, primarily biological parents, kinship carers, carers, kinship carers and adopters in order of decreasing numbers. The number is then increased from the ten's of thousands to at least the hundred's of thousands. A much louder voice. In what seems like and increasingly punitive environment we need a louder voice.

That of course is a challenge for organisations that are built on the premises of supporting and training adopters/adoptees. They've historically needed to highlight the difference/uniqueness of adoption or at least the shared benefits of supporting adoptees in whatever context they find themselves in.

What has influenced this shift in me was an occasion this year when I stood in front of a group of 25 adults to talk about childhood challenging violent and aggressive behaviour, one person in the group was an adopter, two were carers and the rest biological parents. Dare I say that the needs of the adoption community are dwarfed by the needs of biological parents of children with special educational needs, complex biographies, loss, separation and trauma. Next year my diary shows me moving beyond my safe country of adoption to new lands.

It's all food for thought, don't believe that I see the needs of adoptees and adopters as any less, just that my knowledge of the wider context and level of need is perhaps better informed than it was a year ago. I also understand that public opinion remains mostly with adopters and we get a bigger slice of the cake than most. So, is everything ok in the world of adoption support? hell no, am I advocating us just gratefully accepting our lot? hell no. On Christmas day I got news though a birth family member of another injustice heaped on my children*, it reminded me that there's so much to do for so many of us. Looking further forward, I'm not sure where adoption will be in ten or twenty years. As an adopter will I become an ugly manifestation of a then unacceptable practice, I guess that's a much bigger question about the future of adoption and if adoption will choose to embrace the inevitable challenges that are coming. It's clear that a lot of the RAAs are re arranging the proverbial deckchairs while the future of adoption seems uncertain. One of the most depressing things I learn this year being that meaningful contact between children and birth parents is less than 20 years ago. How can we arrest this slide into uniformed popularist practice? I've some ideas but I wield limited influence within my own circumstances let alone beyond that.

So, that's all a bit rambly, rest assured I am optimistic for the future and have personal, family and wider aspirations for the coming year.  Will there be challenges, hell yeah, I'm currently suffering chronic whiplash from the levels of sass coming from a thirteen year old Lotty and the weekend seems like an unachievable target right now. I will hold fast, perhaps next year I'll find some new friends to hold fast with.

Anyway, here's my 'tops' of the year.

Book: Ruthless Trust, Brennan Manning

Album: Ozzy Osbourne, Tribute

Family Member: MrsC

Moment: There's lots of things I 'should' say but riding through the night on the the Dunwich Dynamo was hauntingly remarkable.

Have a great year, hold fast.


*I'm holding my tongue and considering my next move, but I'm as cross as hell at what seems social work practice that errs on the side of caution and the easy route rather than on best practice and forethought.

Special

Peanut was rather pleased with herself as she showed me the contents of her box of secrets, she read out a letter she'd written.

My name is Peanut, I am 7 years old, I am adopted and I am special. 

Oh, is that a secret? I asked

No she said, I told my teacher that's why I'm special. 

Heartwarming, well kind of.  Of course, she is special and I can wholeheartedly agree.

The perspectives of adoptees on adoption feels illusive to me. The perspective of my children more so, I wonder if they dance around their true feelings to protect me. Like us all they grow up in a world where they have limited choices about the decisions that are made over their lives. What can they say, what perspective can they have, I can recall overhearing my then 7 year old eldest daughter being asked if she was happy if she'd been adopted. A stupid question but she didn't skip a beat and answered 'yes'. Heartwarming, but what else could she have said and what else did she know. It affirmed our relationship but is no measure of all that had happened to this little girl, it really was an inappropriate question.  I wonder what she'd have answered at 12, 18 and 25 years old if she'd been asked. Like all people our views change and perspectives are informed by life experience and time to consider bigger pictures. All of us are allowed to change our opinions.

National Adoption Month comes round from the US and the voices of adoptees are more prominent on the web. It never fails to surprise me that heated discussions rage as some of the voices tussle and for one true perspective on adoption. It spills into other arguments and sometimes turns ugly and people are hurt. I watch but feel it's wholly inappropriate for me to do anything other than listen.

Back to Peanut, right now she's special because of her adoption but as she grows her views may change and one day she may speak out against adoption. One day she might rage at the sky for all of it, and why not. I hope that she feels that she can, it doesn't change how I feel about her and I'm sure it won't change what she feels about me. That's the thing that seems most important, court orders come and sometimes go, decisions are lost in the fog of children's social care filing systems but our relationship will endure.