Twister

Flossy's gone on a trip.

Three days two nights with her year six schoolmates. Since this time last year when the academic year above Flossy undertook their Year Six right of passage we've been painfully aware of it's looming presence.

Flossy has been nervous married to giddy excitement manifest in the usual 'flamboyant' behaviour. Did I say nervous, I meant all consumingly, physically overwhelmingly punch your lights out if you mention it nervous. This feeling has been precipitated by the usual letters and school meetings about the upcoming trip.

I can confess to having had some very tricky moments.

Added to that we've had to prepare the school. Mrs C has had to give Flossy's new teacher a whole raft of appropriate background information  and lay out the raft of procedures that would be beneficial to follow around sleeping, eating, etc. The usual stuff that makes us sound like overbearing and oversensitive parents. I guess we are that's therapeutic parenting for you.

The inevitable game of dysregulation Twister was played this weekend when we all collectively unraveled in turns and had a proper hoo haa ding dong of a time right through to Monday morning. You know name calling and argy bargy. Then in a moment that bubble burst, we restored (I know all the phrases) and we had nothing but excitement and appropriate nerves until she left.

So off she's gone. Smiling like a cheshire cat. Away from the home for only the second time in 10 years.

What a hole it leaves in the house,  a lot of background stuff, mainly tension, that we don't even notice anymore has gone with her.  Of course we live on tenterhooks dreading an out of hours call from the school but I'm sure it won't come.

More encouraging I'm look forward to her excited return, phew, it is better with her than without. I didn't say easier.


On another note we got a school letter informing us that she has to go dressed as her favourite Rohld Dahl character next week. I swear they are trying to kill us...........there is no one thing that has caused more chaos in our house than bleeding dressy up days.

Now, where did I put Twister?

Call me maybe

Me: Excuse me I was looking for a first phone for my 11 year old.

Sales assistant: Ah, you’ll be after a ‘trainer’ phone.

Me: Yes, ideally I’d like it to be as uncool as possible and with as limited use.

Sales assistant: of course sir, come this way, would you like it in kindergarden blue or vomit green?

So the conversation went on my recent trip to buy a phone.

It’s an oft discussed topic mobile phones and children. There’s a raft of good and helpful advice available and for each potential negative there’s a positive. So, after much thought and a veritable Magna Carta of rules, codes of conduct and terms and conditions set before Flossy we have relented and she got a ‘trainer’ phone for her 11^th birthday.

We’ve walked this path before and Sarah got a phone when she was 13 some 10 years ago. Of course it was the source of much strife and the police were very helpful. To be honest I’ve only ever found the police to be very helpful, and dare I say it more empathic than some Social Workers I’ve met.

Though it had been the object of much discussion, debate and dare I say a little tension I agreed and went and bought a phone that texts and calls. No more and no less. It feels like the right time and like any tool has the potential for good and bad so we are going to practice the good and limit the bad with a low tech phone.

Flossy got her phone and initially was a little crestfallen that it wasn’t an iphone 6 plus with unlimited data, hey the kid’s allowed to dream, she was then rather excited.

I felt fine, clear guidelines were issued and sanctions were discussed.

It lives in downstairs, it is not to be abused, Flossy buys calls, any calls to the police (other than genuine) will instigate permanent loss, threatening texts/calls will initiate time limited removal, etc. If all is well then we’ll consider moving up a phone model to something a little less uncool.

I felt fine right up to the moment when I put Flossy’s number into my contacts. What a funny feeling it was like a changing of the guard. A good and bad moment. Exciting as she grows into a young woman terrifying as she grows into a young woman.

I paused as I entered her details, things may never be the same…………………

Un petit film

Triangle

As theoretical model the adoption triangle is fairly clear.

Though it reflects the individuals at the core of the adoption process it doesn't reflect the nature of the relationships or the process of adoption.
I find myself waking in the early hours with my mind ruminating on the the challenges faced by all the players in adoption. Increasingly my mind  sticks on the position and status of the members of the triangle.
In part this is highlighted by my own children moving into adulthood but also informed by my own professional and personal experiences.

The twitter adoption community feeds and threads are full of comments about challenges faced, mainly anonymous, and often aimed at Social Workers, Local Authorities, policy and government.
I'd do the same but they know who I am. It all points to the unseen member of the triangle

I would propose that we re draw the adoption triangle and reflect the status of the parties and players.

We could  argue about the position and size of my infographic bubbles. But for many of the players this is how it feels.

What scares me is if I was to have drawn this 50 years ago I'm not sure it would be any different.

ASF

To cut a long story short I was invited to be a part of the Department of Educations Adoption Support Expert Advisory Group at the end of last year. Clearly, I need more things to do in my life but this seemed like too good an opportunity to pass. So, with a little trepidation I got myself down to that London, cycled through the city and rocked up to the Department of Education's HQ.

It was a long meeting with some of the great and good of the adoption landscape, civil servants, experts and the like. I worked hard and managed to not shame myself or the person who nominated me though it's early days and my capacity for stupidity is bordering on world class. I confess to feeling like Mr Bean as I got slightly lost on my way to the toilet in the corridors of power I broke into a minor panic anticipating Hugh Thornbury morphing into Malcolm Tucker at my ineptitude. He did not.

I'm there for no other reason than I've adopted children and appear on first glance to be able to string a few words together. I'm conscious that there are many adopters with a range of experiences. Reflecting on my position I can't help but think of the scores of adopters that find themselves in a position that they did not necessarily anticipate as they set out on their road to adoption.


We anticipated living with our children within the realms of normality, perhaps not in a little house on a prairie bubble of loveliness but at least in the spectrum of normal. We love our children, as Mrs C says every child is a gift. Some of these gifts come with shadows cast across their short lives and in need of support that stretches our knowledge and abilities.
So, we find ourselves at the mercy of the state, perhaps financially, but certainly in relation to provision of therapeutic support. Too many of us have been told their are no funds available or wait months for emergency referrals only to be told that they don't meet the threshold for services.

The Adoption Support Fund is a finite resource with its long term future yet to be clarified but it is here now and those of us who need it should grab it while we can.
Of course there are questions, uncertainties and as a new service areas for clarification and improvement but my hope is that it is symbolic of a change in government perceptions from a romanticised happy ever after 1960's model of adoption. That this will help to transform adoption into a contemporary service that is formed to meet the needs of children and adults. Where not only our right to assessment is enshrined in law but the needs identified in that assessment are met.

So, if you feel you need help call your Post Adoption Social Worker and ask them for an assessment of your family's needs and at least begin a conversation.

If you have a thought, question, query or comment then get in touch through twitter, blog or Google+. I'm not an apologist for the fund nor am I responsible for it but I endeavour to represent adopters in all their incarnations.

Life Story Book

I apologise in advance as the following blog has no whimsical anecdote or profound insight that will ruminate in your soul. It is just a plain old moan.

We seem to have a pants time of it with Life Story Books for Flossy and Lotty. I understand the usefulness of them as a tool for unraveling their journey. Though the big three did not have life story books they had albums of photos and they were a wonderful tool to use to illustrate their story. We kept them safe but where they could access them when they wanted.

Flossy and Lotty's first Life Story Books books were rubbish, and I assure you I am choosing my words carefully. We received them after their protracted and painful journey into adoption and from the outset we realised that we could not use them. The main reason being they had birth mum's address in. You don't need a crystal ball to work out what they would do in a fit of teenage rage 10 years down the line.

We contacted the LA and asked for them to be changed or amended as they were laminated. We were politely told 'no', just 'stick something over the address'. To be honest it was the least of our worries so we tucked them away.*

Turn the clock forward 5 years and with the imminent arrival of Peanut looming and the knowledge that birth mother had moved we felt it would be good to get the books out and see if they would be of use. Time had faded the memory of the other reasons that we weren't impressed. Incorrect names and dates, Disneyesque sentimental twee poems (don't get me started) and when your seven year old can point out spelling and grammar mistakes on each page then you know that things aren't good. We cleared up factual errors and let the girls keep them, shaking our heads in dismay.

Along came Peanut and as the opportunity arose we requested that the Flossy and Lotty be issued with LSBs that matched the one to be issued with Peanut. After showing the rather embarrassing previous attempts the head of service agreed and apologised for the shoddiness and the incompetence previously shown.

We got new Life Story Books, all was as it should be and the girls were pleased and they were stowed away in their rooms. Occasionally, they come out and they have a look.

So, to this week. I arrived home in the late evening gloom after an evening presenting the Skills to Foster course, all emotive stuff. Lotty was waiting for me and asked me to look through her Life Story Book. It was unusually peaceful and after my evening the significance of the Life Story Book was perhaps more focused than usual. I read through the pages, we looked at the photos and the clip art used to illustrate points. I then realised that every piece of clip art (there's a lot) was of a white face, a white mother and baby, a white family and so on. For the observant Lotty does not have a white face, the photo's in the Life Story Book reflect this fact.
                                                       

I feel a little embarrassed that I'd not noticed sooner and I'll admit that my appreciation of race and identity is a work in progress. For all children identity can be challenging but to ignore such a significant aspect in what are widely hailed as significant tools for adoptive parents is just plain crap. We have never relied on the Life Story Books  to do the work that is our responsibility but it should be a tool available to us, beneficial and informative.

For us this is clearly not meant to be.

While I'm on, I'm still waiting for Later Life Letters from 2008, but I'm not bitter.

* Rest easy in the knowledge that in the intervening 5 years we had done a significant amount of work in relation to life story just not used the book.

Fawlty dad

Clearly, through my twitter feed I portray myself as a Dan Hughes/Bryon Post über dad.

This is a thinly veiled facade.

A recent interaction.

Me: Flossy, I understand that you're angry, but if you don't stop calling me names I think we're going to have to cancel football. (Dan Hughes voice)

F: So, your going to take football off me? Stupid (Shouting, with a hint of sarcasm)

Me: Only if you don't stop calling me names. (Bryon Post voice)

F: Why should I stop, you've just taken my football off me. You're the worst dad in the world. (Shouting)

M:No, I said "if you don't stop calling me names" I'd take it off you. (Bryon Hughes voice)

F: You did not, I've lost my football, waaaaaaaa, I wish I didn't live with you, I wish I'd stayed with birth mammy.

Repeat the last two interactions 5 or 6 times. It felt like more.

Flossy leaves, I am left alone, exasperated. That crazy ambivalent/disorganised blend.

My inner Dan Hughes crumbles.

And with no audience for comedic effect I scrunch myself into a ball and make a writhing, primeval sound and my outer Basil Fawlty prevails.

Strangly, I feel better.

Nine to Five

Following the trials and tribulations of prospective adopters this week in the twiterverse I was reminded that as adopters we've given our lives to a system that for most of us is an alien world.

Social workers, panels, health and safety inspections, DBS, NSPCC and Local Authority checks, references, personal and professional, the list goes on.

Until we stepped into this world we'd been the masters of our own destiny, captains of our own ships, as it were.
But we give ourselves to a behemoth of a system that sets us on slow, hopeful course for children.

This wedding of ourselves to the system does not end at approval we move to waiting for matching (the worst bit), then pre adoption order. If things work out then that may be the end, but perhaps not, adoption support workers, CAHMS, Educational Psychologist etc. all may become an integral part of our lives.

Fundamentally, we are undertaking major works in our lives, choices and decisions that will echo through future generations. For our Social Workers it is a job, they may be passionate and compassionate but it is ultimately their 9 to 5, and rightly so in the interests of their wellbeing.

This, necessary,  imbalance lies at the heart of frustrations that I'm sure all adopters and prospective adopters have experienced.

We live our lives in real time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, this is in contrast to Social workers, who run at about 8 hours a day Monday to Friday.

Our week lasts 168 hours and social workers about 40, give or take.

When the Social Worker says "So, if we arrange to see you next week" for them that is 40 hours away, and they have lots of other people to see and cases to run.

We are just waiting while the process moves on, 168 hours waiting. The system holds the power and we are mere cogs in a big machine.

But the waiting is loaded with all kinds of silent obstacles:

Why did the SW ask that question?

Is the house not clean enough/too clean?

Why did they not ring me back?

If I leave another voicemail message will they think I'm too needy?

If I don't ring will they think I'm not bothered?

Mrs C and I have passed through that trial, and I assure you the first time was the worst. But the system is woven into the fabric of our lives.

We remain at the whim of secretaries making appointments for Flossy.
For Gracie we leave a message on a social workers phone on a Thursday but no answer by Friday tea time means a certainty of no word til Monday at best.

It is a circle that cannot be squared and we have accepted the inevitability of some aspects of it.

What have we learned?

To make friends with everyone we meet.

Push nicely.

Where possible only ask questions that we know the answer to.

And lastly write a letter to the head of the Local Authorities Children's Services and kick up a biddy great big fuss, ha ha.

(That's another story)