Belonging

'Is she yours?' asked the woman.

Honestly, if you could spend 10 minutes in my head you'd know what that question does to my stream of consciousness. That is a question and a half. I've written, re written and re re written a blog on the language of property, adoption and children.

I've not posted it. I just can't seem to articulate the swirl of ideas and thought that are sloshing around.

I think if I lived in a country with a more expressive language I'd do a lot better. I've pondered how we refer to our children using the language of property and how that I sometimes feel uncomfortable and how sometimes I don't. I understand that belonging is a basic human need to promote love, safety and nurture.

I understand that my children have 'belonged' to a host of people, parents, aunts, uncles, the state, then a whole new set of people mam, dad, aunts and uncles. I posted this:

I say belonged but as I'm writing I can feel my ability to communicate clog up. We use the language of property when we talk about this link between us and our children and it seems clumsy and inadequate. When we give ourselves to someone we belong, but we're not property.

Often I use and see words that make me feel uncomfortable, adoption orders are granted and I declared 'they're mine'. They are, but they aren't, they continue to 'belong' to a host of people far and wide. To deny that is foolish, to counter that for some of our children's welfare a severance from individuals is essential and appropriate. However, the link remains.

Like the quote asks, who belongs to this child?

Reflecting on our journey I'm sad to say that I didn't always have that view but I did have control and I should have acted differently. Hindsights a killer.

I apologise for an incomplete and unsatisfying post, my words fail to express all of the swirling thoughts.

Anyway, the GoodMrsC answered the woman 'yes', she's much better at this stuff.

Unresolved narrative

It's been a hard week for a load of different and mainly external reasons. Of course it goes without saying that I can't say what, when, who, how or why. Of course I can confirm that they're all related directly to the early lives my children and their route to my door. I'm not down or depressed. I just am.

I was speaking to a friend about something or other and he noted that some folks he knew struggled with what I wrote sometimes as there was, as he said it, 'an unresolved narrative'.

Well if it makes you feel any better so do I.

I write what happens, what I see and what I think. Of course I filter and edit it but it's an account of our lives from my perspective. Other perspectives are available of course but I feel that I'm fairly representative of a large number of parents who care for children who have experienced trauma, loss, separation and have travelled through the care system.

I write to make me feel better, to get the dirty water off my chest. I'd love to write about all the warm hugs and beautiful moments that blossom out of difficult experiences. Perhaps I do but in different less obvious ways, I think I find hope.

Today as Mrs C and I returned from our recent sessions with one of the massive's therapist I confessed that I didn't know how all of this is going to turn out for us as a family. Not the immediate but the long term. Not depressed just pragmatic, what does the future hold? I never thought that we'd retire to the seaside, see the grandkids once a week for a slice of Battenberg cake and a Wurthers Original, crikey no.  But I'm not sure how in the medium to long term some of my children's adult lives are going to play out. Our journey so far indicates that for some it will be ok but for some it's not so clear,  so our narrative is unresolved, but can anyone's be resolved?

This week my heart skipped as I walked through the shops, Lotty's 10 year old hand took hold of mine and we walked and talked. Her hand felt small but it was just so natural with an easy familiarity that was precious. Big deal, you say but I'm her dad and I'm the proudest dad in the world because she loves me. I also know that in 5 years this time holding hands will not happen.

Sometimes I hold onto that second in time when my hand is held because in that moment my narrative actually feels pretty much resolved.

Decisions Decisions.

I'm under no illusion that the decisions we make for our children will be open to a revisionist scrutiny  on the couches of some therapist or other. They will illuminated by the clear light of hindsight and a full knowledge of all the facts. In many ways I'm still not over my mothers decision to cut my hair between the years 1974 to 1993. My therapist says some things can never be undone and I will never get over it. I'm sure that my children will no doubt bear similar burdens, though I hope not.

We've recently vexed over the choices that face us in relation to schools without end.
Do we jump out of the learning stream that we're in its inevitable march towards our local learning factory, a school that several respected professionals turned pale when we mentioned was the destination. Perhaps designed and acceptable for cookie cutter children, I'm confident there's no such a thing, but it's not a place for my little girl. It's not a place she'll feel safe and I'm not sure it's a place she is safe.
So where do we jump to, into a different stream, a three tier system with a middle school as a half way house that would stave off the leap to big school and the challenges that brings. But to do that  I have to pull all of the little ones out of the current stream and set them in the three tier system to tie up the logistical challenges. Lotty's and  Flossy's lifelong friends will be left behind, not an easy sell.

One a transition to safety without the protective factors of friends vs a transition into danger with the protective factor of friends. Oh, and to add to that there are no places at the moment, we know we have priority access as 'previously looked after children' *. So do we cross our fingers and  hope that a couple of appropriate spaces open up between now and September.

The Twitter machine told me that "you choose the staff not the school" and as we chatted to the SENCO in the middle school by the end of the first sentence I knew that she 'got it'. More than that she got it and knew what we were going to ask  before we asked it. A trauma aware school.

So last week we made our choice and filled in the form and now we wait. My children don't need a learning factory they need a safe place. When, and only when, they feel safe then they can begin to think about learning. The middle school it is.

It's our best guess with the information that we have. We might be wrong and the implications may be long term. Of course the decision will be open to scrutiny in the years to come but that's the nature of parenting, adoptive or otherwise.


*not a nice phrase

An Adoption Support Charter

I had a thought, I should write an adopters charter. Then I thought, I'm sure that I've read one somewhere. So, after a little Googling I discovered a charter produced by the Department of Education in 2011 here . Surprisingly, or not, there's not one mention of post adoption support I honestly don't know what to say about that.

So I've written my own little charter, an Adoption Support Charter.

Adoption Support Charter

As an Adoption Support Service:

1. We commit to being available and if not get back to you promptly
2. We commit to listening.
3. We commit to being honest and keeping you informed.
4. We commit to supporting parents to support their children.
5. We commit to show empathy and compassion.
6. We commit to offering emotional support and advice.
7. We commit to being honest about what we can and can't do.
8. We commit to work in partnership with you.
9. We commit to advocate for you, two voices are louder than one and signpost us to appropriate professionals, services and training.
10. We commit to employing Social Workers with appropriate interpersonal skills and appropriate knowledge and giving them the time and resources to support families.

As Adopters we commit to:

1. We commit to not waiting until we are desperate or in crisis before we contact you.
2. We commit to listening.
3. We commit to working collaboratively with you.
4. We commit to being honest. 

What interests me is that often the stuff that can make the biggest impact has limited cost. The principles of respect, kindness, gentleness, encouragement and availability, these are the things that can make all the difference. We all know that resources are under ever strain but the foundations of all Post Adoption Services should be on these, or similar, principles.

We could debate the specifics of the service and we should, but I'd like to see the kind of things I've listed as a start.

I often hear 'there was no money for services but my Social Worker was great and really helped'. I also hear 'my Social Worker made me feel like I was the problem, I'd rather not have him/her in the house'.

That is a shame on my profession.

Shame game

I was prepping for a thing I am doing this week and was considering the influence of shame and came across some thought provoking quotes*.

                 Shame: a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behaviour.

                 ‘Shame is a soul eating emotion.’  ― C.G. Jung

                 ‘The difference between guilt and shame is very clear—in theory. We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for what we are.’ - LEWIS B. SMEDES, Shame and Grace

Shame in our house is an easy target to hit for some of our children, in fact the real trick is not hitting it for them.

‘Don’t do that, don’t do this, why have you put that there, why did you say that, where have you been, what are you doing?’ Regardless of the intonation or innocence of the questioner these words, like arrows, score direct hits on feelings of shame. Understandably this precipitates a reaction, pushing back and fighting. It’s a well worn path that we often try to avoid but seem to find ourselves travelling.

Appropriate parenting uses tiny drops of shame to moderate behaviour with immediate restoration. Though I confess that Peanut seems impervious to this approach after cutting a chunk of hair off her head this weekend she was given an appropriate stern talking too. She was then given the love, restored to the fold and all was well, though her hair was hacked it was redeemable. Peanut then slinked off and and removed 50% of her fringe to the hairline giving herself a semi mullet. Mrs C, an ex hairdresser, was mortified/devastated, I suggested that Peanut is to only be allowed out of the house in a balaclava for the next six months while it grows out.

Not helpful.

Peanut though without remorse or shame noted in her defence ‘it’s dad’s fault, he says I look like Dora the Explorer, so now I don’t’. In my defence I wasn’t in the house. The more astute will be wondering how a three year old got her hands on a pair of razor sharp professional hairdressing scissor not once but twice. As the qualified Health and Safety Officer/Social Worker of the home I’d like to claim ignorance.

I digress.

In light of the stuff I’d read and pondered on shame I started to think about the ‘why’ questions that I hear myself ask Flossy.

Each 'why' seems like an accusation directed to the core of her being and punch straight into that shame.

‘You are bad’ is what is being heard. Frequently we are mopping up the aftermath of overwhelming shame. Teachers, friends, wider family members passers by in the street set it off and we mop it up.

I’d never given it much thought as to why ‘why’ questions don’t work. Maybe this is part of the answer.

Oh, and we compromised and found a headband for Peanut.

*I didn’t get where I am today by not knowing how to Google stuff

White noise

I was a cookie cutter kid and I just drifted through school the top end of average at all but English where I was strangely significantly below average. Or as I reflect now plain lazy and a slow writer. I had the wherewithal to manage the usual issues at comprehensive and was socially able enough to not be bullied or ostracised. The world of education has changed since the early 80’s. My parents were more than pleased that I didn’t follow in my brother’s footsteps. He had a flamboyant and quite remarkable distain for the requirements of the schooling system and infamously skipped one of his final exams to go and see the Rolling Stones. By comparison I was probably just white noise to most of my teachers, neither ‘nowt nor summat’.

This is not going to be the case for Flossy. She is many things but she is not white noise in a school environment especially a comprehensive school she definitely a Rolling Stones kind of pupil.

In relation to Flossy’s education my attitude stinks. She can get her GCSE’s anytime between now and the end of her life. But she only gets one pass at adolescence. She’s going into year 6 in September and that gives us a year to find a ‘safe’ comprehensive. Mrs C and I decided in May that Mrs C that we were going to give no consideration to the looming issue of school til we’d moved house. As we know you should never open a European land war on two fronts.

So, we’ve moved house and now is the time to start to think about the future schooling shenanigans. We want a safe place, Flossy needs a safe place. On a most fundamental level what can she learn in a scary place? Her feeder comprehensive, or Stalag Luft VII as I affectionately renamed it, is exclusively for ‘cookie cutter kids’* or so Ofsted concludes. Our preferred choice, a Catholic school Sarah and Gracie went to, is unfortunately in a ‘no go’ area for a range of reasons geographic/family reasons. So, we are plotting and scheming, consulting a range of professionals and casting our net further afield to locate more nurturing and sympathetic environment. We get ones pass at this and the increasingly punitive education system, or so it seems, needs to be negotiated with the least trauma possible for Flossy. We’ll travel if we have to and we’ll go where we have to and do what ever we have to do.

What do I aspire to for six years from now? To be the father of a child that feels included and welcome in society rather than excluded and alienated. Doesn’t seem like much but I’m taking nothing for granted.

*Clearly there’s no such thing.

Farewell BAAF

The Adoption Social’s request of for thoughts on BAAF’s demise made me think on my own experience and reflections of the of the organisation. Having read the excellent blog by Amanda Boorman I felt compelled to put fingers to keyboard. It’s my views and perspectives on one part of the story and one role of BAAF. If you object then comment, tell me I’m wrong. I reserve the right to change my opinion in light of a better one, the facts or a whim.

Without fail everyone I spoke to in relation to BAAF’s demise exclaimed surprise with open mouth. ‘BAAF have closed!?, how, why, what?’

Thinking back to my journey into adoption it took me a while to realise that the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) wasn’t the official body for the oversight of adoption and fostering. Actually, it took me a few years before this penny dropped.

That’s how they seemed to be positioned. As an adopter and foster carer I was trained with BAAF resources, assessed several times using BAAF standard forms through local authority adoption and fostering services built on the foundations of BAAF guidance. All the professionals involved referred to the BAAF guidance and advice on every aspect of the process. BAAF training is considered to be the gold standard in relation to knowledge and practice for adoption.* The bookshelves in local authority departments are universally stocked with best BAAF practice guides and publications on a myriad of issues and topics relating to adoption.

Moving into my Social Work career in fostering I see the same applies. BAAF assessments models are the standard to work to and their guidance and training is taken as definitive and treat like law. Got a question? Then go to the BAAF book.

If BAAF says its ok, then it is ok.

Why would I not think that they were not they ‘official’ body for adoption and fostering but they’re not.

I've had little personal contact, as an adopter,  with BAAF other than a rather snooty rebuttal when I offered to help my local office with any publicity for National Adoption Week. I was on the telly every week for 6 weeks navigating the adoption process. As it was watched by up to 4 million viewers each week I thought that Mrs C and I could help the local campaign. I was made quite clear we could not. 

My professional contact, Social Worker to Social Worker, was much more amenable, perhaps that reveals something, perhaps not?

The ins and out of why they have come to an end is way above me and I have no inside information as to its demise other than what has been published. My heart goes out to the redundant staff as they face challenging days ahead compounded by the apparent suddenness of the news.

So, what does all of this mean for professionals, adopters and adoptees?

Adoption is in a time of change. The historical model of the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s is behind us, though sometimes it seems that it lives on in some heart and minds. Challenges to adopters and adoption that were once unusual are now standard. Adopters are an increasingly militant group not just accepting what we’re given, pushing back a bit asking why. Also, government are not sitting back and letting adoption tick along and increasingly they are making significant policy decision that impact on adopters and adoptees, perhaps not needing to refer to BAAF for approval. 

Was BAAF a product of its time unable to keep up in a changing landscape? A behemoth of adoption that no longer reflected the dynamic needs of the professional and amateur adoption community? I don't know.

Who will fill this position, the definitive voice of adoption & fostering? More to the point do we want it filled? 

*Though I have to say prohibitively expensive training.