Letters

I'm pondering a request from my local Post Adoption Support team.

Now, the vulgar subject of money was inevitably going to come up sooner or later in a blog, but I've wholly resolved my working class pride and willing seek an adoption support allowance from my LA. That's not what this is about. 

One of the requirements of the form I received said: 

'Please provide evidence that your children live with you at your home'

Now, I was good and said that's fine to the person on the phone, we get on well in spite of my chaotic record keeping and the bundle of papers that we loosely call my accounts that I present to her annually. However, TheFearsomeMrsC was not so benevolent and called our post adoption social worker and requested that she walk down the corridor and inform the finance team in no uncertain terms where the massive resided. It's a touchy subject at the moment as our 2015 downsizing plan has been put in serious doubt. Did I mention one of the birds that had flown the nest returned with an egg. 

Anyway I'm way off point, I did what they asked and requested letters from the school. Of course, if I wanted to put on my "anti oppressive social work practice hat"* I could argue that having to explain my need for support to a different service to access another service is potentially humiliating and demeaning and wholly none of their business, therefore oppressive. I'll not open that can of worms here. 

Well, I'm in the process of getting the letters but I remain intrigued by the bureaucratic necessity to ascertain if the children remain at home while I still access support. The obvious reason is that someone has accessed financial support while their children were living elsewhere. Now, as attractive as that may seem at times, it seems a little odd, so it got me thinking.

Now, I could be wrong and totally barking up the wrong tree but is the idea that adoptees need to move their children out to 'other arrangements' isn't beyond my imagination but the idea that it's becoming so common that there's a bureaucratic response to it is slightly worrying or at least thought provoking.

The whole adoption 'disruption' narrative seems to be more prevalent than ever. Children that struggle or can't live with their adoptive parents is not new but yet we continue to struggle with the language and meaning. I was recently contacted by a twitterer with a view to completing a study and it's all a bit tricky, complicated and delicate. What do we actually mean. Beyond the Adoption Order by Selwyn et al spoke of it and raised it's spectre but acknowledged the tricky language and meaning. We've danced around the issue as a family, there was lots of disruption but never a 'disruption' we remained wilfully joined and despite the struggle and separation we remained family. I've friends likewise where their jointedness and sense of family is never in doubt but their ability, willingness and capacity to co habit, parent and child, is gone. Of course where those children go and the circumstance are hugely variable with some back to care and some to a relative or friend. We're not there, but I'd be lying if there hadn't been some tricky days in the past. For some of our children being parented is just too damn hard, for some of us being parenting is, likewise, just too damn hard. No judgement.

Anyway, I got my letters and will send them off to jump through that hoop.

Increasingly my blogs are like the margins of a maths exercise book, my workings out.

*Yes, I do have one, I have a hat for every occasion.

A Long Hard Week

Remotely reading accounts of children's violence against parents unfold over Twitter makes for a hard week. It's not just now and then but a theme every week, be that 4 year olds or 14 year olds, either way it's hard to read.  

 

Lots of us walk that CPV* path and are still on it, it's a hard path that is exacerbated by the professional responses that have been thought up in a common sense empathy vacuum. 

To feel abandoned or accused by the very people that should help you is a double blow, worse than no help at all,  much worse. As Helen Bonnick said in our podcast one professional can make all the difference, finding that professional can be the trick, but we found ours, many don't.

This week I've seen voices get stronger,  dots starting to be joined. Emails bouncing round my inbox with ideas and suggestions, plans and schemes on twitter with experts in different fields drawn into the debate. I've had conversations with friends planning to make a difference. 

If the Post Adoption professionals are not prepared to navigate the legal, ethical and emotive seas that safe holding, risk assessment and restraint inhabit then perhaps we ought to raise our sails and set off without them.  

Social worker's bread and butter is managing and quantifying risk but for a host of reasons this issue is not one that many will embrace or are allowed to embrace. Safe holding has perhaps been linked to attachment holding which has had tragic consequences. So the pendulum has swung and social care has stepped away and we're met with blank stares when asked what to do, or we're made to feel like monsters for even suggesting that we take control. But there are other voices and professionals with different views. 

Let's keep talking

Forgive the brevity it's been a long hard week.

*Child on Parent violence

ASF: Start your engines.

For the last 13 years adoptive families have been saddled with this cruel legislative joke.* We have the right to have the needs of our children and families assessed in relation to adoption support by our local authorities but they have no duty to meet those needs.

"Yes,  Mr C we think you need Non Violent Resistance training to therapeutically support you with your aggressive child. Oh no, Mr C we're not going to give you it."

That sort of silly conversation.

So, the much lauded Adoption Support Fund (ASF) draws closer to it's national launch on the 1st May with the £19.3 million put aside to support the therapeutic needs of adoptive children. If you're like me my mind implodes with if and buts before I've reached the end of that sentence.  Is this a sticking plaster over the aforementioned legislative gaping wound? Ifs and buts, too many for me to list.

Then with weeks to go to the launch date the announcement of 'training' for Social Workers in regard to the ASF. It all seems a bit last minute. So, it seemed to make sense to see if I could blag my way onto the training and see what was going on. So I did.

Firstly it was a bit odd to sit with managers, Agency Decision Makers, Post Adoption Support Workers (PASW). All my region's movers and shakers some of whom had assessed me at various stages of my adoptions and their careers.

The main gist of the training was in relation to the procedure for applying for the fund. The pot of money is there to be used and in all honesty I couldn't think of a simpler system for applying from a Local Authorities (LA) perspective. Submit the online application, confirmed authorisation by a designated person in the authority and the answer will come within 5 working days and the monies by the end of the month. As bureaucratically streamlined as possible. The training is to be supplemented by phone support, visits from allocated advisors and webinars. You'd have to work hard to not understand or mess it up.
In fairness this is not beginning of the training that the LAs have had and was more a top up prior to launch.

The fund managers and the other trainers were clear that the money is to be used and used as creatively as possible within the remit of therapeutic support for children. What does that mean? Well, that's where the training got interesting, support can be identified, by SWs or Panels, and funds accessed prior to an Adoption Order. It can then be used after the order is in place, potentially supporting the placement of difficult to parent children. Groups of parents can be trained to therapeutically parent their children (filial therapy). Sibling groups can receive therapy even if some of them are over 18, young people with SEN can be funded for therapy up to the age of 25. Transport and accommodation for you to the therapist or for the therapist to you. The list went on and the creativity demonstrated by one of the pilot authorities was genuinely exciting.

So, that was good.

And the not so good?

Adopter engagement only constituted a small portion of the training. If adopters don't ask for it we won't get it. I know adopters that are on the fringe, they don't read blogs, magazines, go to events they are just living. I know adoptive families that are in need but remain off the radar.

Just as significantly adopter collaboration was not mentioned, addressed or highlighted. Like most adoptive parents I'm no expert in the benefits of specific therapies or what therapy would be most appropriate for my child. But I'm pretty sure I want to be in on the conversation.

I have concerns about the process of assessment, prior to application to the fund, maybe not a problem generated by the ASF but it will certainly highlight weakness in local provision. To my eyes this will be the bottleneck. The pilot schemes varied widely in number of applications and this concerns me what if you live in an authority that drag their heals. What if your relationship with your Local Authority is poor or acrimonious, then they are the last people you want back in your home.
Questions about the quality, quantity and location of provision.

There are as many questions as their are adopters.**  Specific questions that need to be asked and answered.
The timing of the General Election has limited getting some answers including long term funding plans. However, the fund is available now and we should access it now. Take what we can while we can.

In short:

1. Request an assessment of your need from your Local Authority's Post Adoption Service or placing authority if within three years of adoption.
2. If you are assessed as meeting the requirement for therapeutic support or intervention then work with your SW to identify what you want and need.
3. They'll access the monies
4. You'll get the support.

Yes, that's an oversimplification but in essence that's it.

My hope fuels my fear. My hope is that every adoptive family that needs therapeutic support calls their Social Worker as soon as they can and requests their assessment. My fear is that social work teams are not ready or do not have the capacity and structure to manage number of assessments.

So, where are we left? do we step back and wait and see? or do we make the call request an assessment and push?

Even if this lasts for 12 months I say push. At the least the next generation of adopters will have a raised expectation of support for their children and together we may precipitate a permanent change in legislation.


*The Adoption and Children Act 2002
**If you have questions contact your LA's PASW, Hugh Thornbury Adoption Uk's CEO on Twitter @TalkAdoptSupp or  me.

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.

Hurt: Part 2

I didn't anticipate the reaction people had to my last blog. I'd written it in a fit of pique after what is becoming a regular bust up at the weekends. The usual argy bargy leading us down a path we all regret. I spewed it into the drafts folder of my blog account and laughed to Mrs C that I'd just written a blog I couldn't publish.
She read it, insisted and after some thoughtful editing I posted it.*

Before I'd even Tweeted that I'd posted it or linked it up I started to get a few notifications, initially telling me to tweet a link then, after posting, the few became a torrent. Conversations snowballed and before I knew it I had only a thin grasp of what was going on. I was included in conversations that spiralled around the subject of holding, restraint, Social Workers and child violence.

Hundreds of notifications universally positive** and thankfully none of a sympathetic 'ah, hun you ok' type. Comments coming thick and fast all expressing the varied approaches and policies that Foster Carers, Social Workers, Therapists and Local Authorities had.

Parents and carers, some behind veils of anonymity, talked of holding their children to keep families safe without permission from the powers that be. Others told of pragmatic advice to just do it. Others of being instructed to not do it in any circumstance.
Encouragingly there were stories of people finding support and training, enabling them to therapeutically protect themselves and their child. Knowledge of de escalation techniques, backed up by sensitive and proven methods of control, safe holding.
Helping children to keep their inside and outside worlds safe.
Helping children and parents regulate.
Helping families to stay together.

Trying to make sense of it now I believe the crux of the issue remains that the risk of not using safe holding to keep my child, and others, safe is lesser than the risk of letting the behaviour run its course.
Professionals need to have a nuanced and long sighted perspective. Weighing cost and risk now against the potential long term consequences for parents and children. And dare I say it the stability of the family unit.

Amongst the notifications were some quiet voices, messages from scared, weary parents not knowing where to turn. Trapped between the policy decisions, short sighted risk aversion and the violence they were living with. People struggling not knowing where to turn.
Distressing to hear, not knowing how to affect actual help from a virtual place. Some still lingering with me now.

Was this just a Twitter storm in a teacup one weekend in March? Others have blogged, written and Tweeted before so I don't know. In the midsts of the notifications a swell of proposed actions was suggested, a gathering of voices to raise speak out and make this plight known, a 'flash mob' of blogs, or  'blog bomb', a gathering of experience and knowledge.
All to try and affect a change to a more informed model of practice for professionals, empowering, equipping and enabling the many carers and parents who live and love children who sometimes are unable to control their hands and feet.

So watch this space.


If you are struggling and are looking for support or advice I can recommend
The Open Nest who are able to offer advice, insight and support
or DM me on Twitter if you want or through the blog.


*I took out the sweary words and toned down my critical tone (come on I have my HCPC registration to think of).
** one comment accused me of being an angry foster parent, I invited them to look closer. They did and bravely apologised.

Hurt

I'm caught between a rock and a hard place.

My local authority don't feel that training adopters to restrain their children is appropriate. This is in direct contrast to my unwillingness to be assaulted, allow my family to be assaulted or have my home destroyed.

If you're a Foster Carer I'd say, step back and make yourself safe, they're not your child. You can call the duty team, call the police, call your Social Worker, put your 28 days placement notice in and invoice your LA/IFA for the damage.*

If you're a children's residential worker, step back and make yourself safe, they're not your child. Call a colleague, call the police, call the duty team, go off shift and have a day off.

Physical violence has been a constant feature of our homelife for many years to varying degrees.
I assure you a punch to the face, headbut or kick from a child hurts. Not a one off but sustained purposeful assaults. It hurts my body it hurts my heart. 

I've resigned myself to be verbally abused but I will not let my house be destroyed or my family be hurt.

When our crap hits the fan we need to keep our her safe and the rest of us safe.
We know how to de escalate and the stages that precede violence.
We've had the interventions and therapy.
We also know when the die is cast and it is going to only end one way, violence.

She needs me to be strong and safe but she hates me for it.
Sometimes she needs me to help her control her outside world to keep her safe, to help her control her inside world.

We can't be the only family that sometimes have to hold hands rather than get punched or have our front room windows broken or wrap our arms around a child and hold them close to stop being head butted. It's not pretty, it's not nice but what is our choice.

But if I hurt her then what and what if there's a bruise?
I'm just doing my best trying to keep us all safe.
Increasingly the most common question I'm being asked is "How are you keeping safe?'

There are no courses on how to keep you and your child safe in such incidents and dare use the word 'restraint'.
As I said my LA don't believe in restraint, so do they believe in me holding my child to keep me and them safe.

If it goes wrong and there is a bruise everyone can wash there hands, 'Our policy is that we don't restrain children'. 

I know that this is 'off message' and not the happy ever after, it is not the 'Halo'.

But I can read and each day on Twitter I see careful words being used to describe people being assaulted, intimidated, bullied and having their property destroyed.
Perhaps they sometimes 'hold their children's hands'

If I was being cynical I'd suggest that this blog won't get re tweeted by the big guns, that to acknowledge my quandry and run a course, with advertising and publicity, means that we have to acknowledge the truth in the phrase, 'Hurt children hurt' is more frequently true than we would like to admit, that some adopters get punched.

*If you're lucky

Off grid

After an eight and a half hour conversation with @TheOpenNest and @UKTransracial it felt like we'd just about got started.

Mrs C and I had been invited to the remote secret lair of The Open Nest and nestled in the northern woodland we shared stories and caught up on all the latest comings and goings. We'd given the 'massive' the slip and having assured their wellbeing with a subtle blend of bribery, threat and a crack team of babysitting ninja's we revelled in the 'off grid' day.

But the meat was in the conversations we shared, the kind that you can't have in 'nice' company. I often worry that my blogs focus on the negative, with limited reflection on the positive elements of the adoption experience. I shy away or draw a veil over some topics for fear of compromising my children and myself or opening cans of worms, allowing the worms to wriggle off into unfriendly corners of the internet. Similarly when I meet adopters or prospective adopters I try to be careful and sensitive to their experience, hopes and location on the adoption journey as not to be perceived as a bitter or cynical old salt.

But in this not so polite company, sat around the open fire, we opened the cans of worms and shared thoughts, experiences and worries.
Conversations about violence, harm, destruction, love and shame.
About balancing control against risk.
About family, fears and hopes.
About safety and danger.
About power, control, social work and money.
About politics, personality and policy.
About race and culture.
About the future and the past.

Stuff that needs to be talked about, but with limited safe forums.
Rich soil for blogs.

We talked right through the day and into the night. I believe we all need friends in the woods.

Post Adoption Support

The question 'What do you want from adoption support?"  has been bandied  around the Twittersphere a few times lately by different people. It's something that I've thought hard about but found it difficult to pin it down to one thing. We could all list many things we need and want all unique to our circumstances and needs.

I guess the primary functions of PAS is to support adoptive parents and to support adopted children. Added to that is the service offered to birth parents of adopted children as they try to reconnect post 18.

In the last few weeks we as a family decided that we needed to access our local authorities Post Adoption Support (PAS) services. It is over 7 years since we had our last significant contact but the purpose of this recent call has been to document some of our current experiences and initiate a formal assessment of our need. We have clear shopping list of what we need to enable us to remain safe and stable at this point in time. Realistic, pragmatic and achievable. We don't want parenting advice or referrals to therapeutic services as Mrs C and I have forged our own route in regard to this. Through our GP, LAC Paediatrician and the fearsome Mrs C's dogged determination we have very good therapeutic input.

We opted out of the whole Post Adoption Support system in 2008 for several reasons. The main one being the support we were given was the exact opposite of support, undermining our confidence and invalidating our experience and intuitive concerns for our child and ourselves. Secondly, we sought out a group of supportive, wise and experienced friends and drew them around us for support and lastly we had appropriate therapeutic support for the children.

In view of the above and the suspicion that we could do just as well as the SW we met we took it upon ourselves to learn all we could, however we could, from anyone who made sense.
Free training, bought training, Adoption Panel Training, Psychotherapist training (Mrs C) and Social Work Training (me). Books, internet, anything.
Sucking up everything we could that was helpful, and it was.

But considering what we want and what I hear people asking for the underlying principle is the need for validation.
Not to be dismissed with stock phrases we've all heard, "every child does that" "they're picking up on your anxiety". Words that undermine our perspective and invalidate our judgement.

Whether you're stumbling and anxious after 2 days into a placement of a 12 month old 'bundle of joy' or on the ropes after living 8 years with a child of 'pain and hurt'. Validating your experience, worries, concerns and anxiety is first step in meaningful and effective support.

The conclusion of all the training and experience that Mrs C and I have acquired is that we have validated our opinions, not only to ourselves but to those we meet.

However,  on hard days sometimes all that dissolves and we falter. But to hear kind and gentle words of validation can rekindle hope. Every day on Twitter and Facebook I see the words of validation that are as affective support as you'll find anywhere.
The mutual support found online and in support groups is seeped in validation, sweeping away self doubt and questioning.

One of the most profound piece of support that we were ever given was during the days Gracie left home:

 "Well done, you managed 15 years"

Words that validated and acknowledged our experience. Words that we hung onto and still do a year on.

I believe that validation is the foundation of support that we as adopters need.
Acknowledgement and giving value to our words, thoughts, worries, hopes and expectations seems rather cheap.
Odd that it seems in such short supply at times.