Over My Shoulder

Back in the early days when we were young and the Big Three were the only three we looked differently on the world. There were parts of the city we wouldn't go as a family, even when we were in the city centre there were times when for no reason I would start to feel uneasy, watched, conspicuous.

Surely among the thousands of people that we would pass someone must recognise the children, someone from their old life. We've all had the experience of being on holiday and bumping into someone we know, a mutual friend or an old neighbour. So surely someone would recognise us it seemed inevitable.

Once we were in our home town and all of us hand in hand going swimming and as we walked into the centre Birth Mam walked out of the door. She wasn't, it was someone who looked like her but for a split second we thought it was. Our world froze for a second,  the children oblivious, but Paula and I shocked.

The edges of our family have blurred and the line between adoptive and birth family is ragged and in part dissolving. I found out today that we had been seen. Sat in a city centre restaurant two years after the Big Three joined us my children's aunt and grandmother had watched as we sat and played out the usual family scene. They watched not malevolently but frozen transfixed by the sight of their children. Observers of this scene unable or unwilling to act or intervene so close.
But then leaving and letting the scene play on.

Speaking to the aunt last night she was sure I knew and I saw, I can't recall.
I don't look over my shoulder anymore.

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.

National Adoption Week: Thoughts and Questions

I'm pondering the upcoming National Adoption Week. With all the media coverage and hoopla that comes with it. I wonder how representative it is of contemporary adoption. More to the point I wonder how representative I am of contemporary adopters and how representative our family's experience is.

I wonder if we fit the acceptable narrative of the adoption story. Increasingly and for many years I don't accept the standard narrative as being standard at all.

Across the six children and three adults that make up our family we represent a range of experiences, the usual hat trick of Trauma, Loss and Separation; Child to Parent Violence, Social Service involvement, breakdowns and make ups.  We've got shouting and fighting and laughing and loving. We've had unexpected Facebook family resurgence, incredibly positive birth family contact and some not so easy. We're like a walking case study.

Recently a young couple asked me for advice in relation to their plans and hopes to adopt. I can't recall what I said specifically at the time. It was probably encouraging, telling of the positives and trying to open their minds to the potential challenges. It feels like a well worn conversation.
But since then their question has rolled around my mind.

'We're thinking of adopting, what advice could you offer?'

I'm not sure what to say anymore. I don't feel jaded, negative or cynical about adoption, not at all. Sure, I have lots of questions that I struggle to answer about structures, ethics, process and power dynamics within the world of adoption.  But I believe that children need secure, stable, loving and nurturing parents. Of course that can encompass a broad and diverse range of families/parents/children/beliefs/lifestyles. But fundamentally I believe in lives built on those core principles.
The more I know about adoption and the business behind it the more I feel that my knowledge is limited. I've sat on the adopter side of the triangle for so long that I realise that I know so little about the other two sides and the social care business that controls it all. I see that the voices of adoptees and birth families struggle to be heard and sometimes we struggle to listen to them as it provokes difficult questions. This is increasingly where I'm feeling the need to listen and this is where I'm learning the most. It's fantastic to see this being addressed by The Open Nest with their adoption week conference focusing on the voice of adoptees.

So, anyway,  what advice would I offer.

I may not offer advice anymore. But I can tell you what I'm learning about the other voices and about my journey.

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. 

Jigsaw

I have to say that my views on contact have shifted slowly from a position of indifference, duty and obedience to my Social Workers instructions to where I am now.

As a new adopter, and a young opinionated man, I was a little callous to the plight of my children’s birth family, after all weren’t they the reason that my children had to journey through the looked after system. They were the root cause of many of my children’s challenges and struggles and they had reaped what they’d sown. Perhaps I was a little insecure.

I dutifully applied the dogmatic method of contact and its rationale given to me by my Social Worker that birth parents were not a positive influence and we should be careful. We did, actually Mrs C did, what we were instructed to do as previously documented in my post on letterbox contact. A couple of bits of information came back through the system, very limited though.

Slowly my views changed.

As a member of an Adoption Panel I read a multitude of Child Protection Reports (CPR). The vast majority documented tragedy and abuse layered on the misfortune, vulnerability, tragedy and the historic abuse of birth parents. One piece of the jigsaw.

As a student I worked with a small charity that supported the families of children in the care system. I read and saw enough to make me ask hard some questions of myself and the system, to look closer and think harder. Another piece of the jigsaw in place.

Again as a student I spent six months in a children’s services office and I saw that what had seemed so black and white was never so. Always the stories were nuanced, impacted by services and finances, complex family dynamics and a range of factors often beyond the control of the protagonists. The jigsaw picture began to take form.

Almost every day on Twitter and Facebook I see the frustrations and questions of adopters to their Social Workers that get them re framed as problem families. I see Social Workers failing adopters; miscommunication by adopters; misinterpretation of behaviour and words leading to difficult questions being asked. I can’t help but think of birth families negotiating the Child Protection system, nowhere near as user friendly as the adoption system. The picture is almost clear in my mind now.

But, as I write this I feel hackles rising, and I agree many adults have committed unspeakable cruelty, neglect and worse acts on their children. That they lose contact and rights over their children is without question. I see many children and young people so traumatised that they cannot even consider contact with the perpetrators of their pain, but that is not the picture I see.

I see that families are complex but I cannot believe in a system that by default considers all fathers, mothers cousins, brothers, sisters, half brothers, half sisters, grandparents, uncles and aunts as harmful to children.

Of course real life is complex, messy and refuses to be boxed by generalisations. I hope that a system of the future could consider a range of models for contact with a range of family members. Not just the dogmatic letterbox once a year to parents. But a dynamic, flexible channel that serves the best interests of the children not just adoptive parents or Social Service teams. 

For us we are now trying to help rebuild positive links to my children’s family.

Thinking back now I would have fought for another way of reaching my children’s family, of finding men and women who may not have been able to care for my children and their family but loved them none the less. Men and women of peace and love.

Yesterday we had the last BBQ in our old house we sat with men and women of peace and laughed and cried and delicately and sensitively started to work out how to share the young adults that we both love.

Truth, Lies and Social Workers

A twitter conversation drew me into thinking about the murky world of the information that we are given as adopters. It reminded me of a lesson we had at the beginning of out journey.

Mrs C and I were allocated our very own Independent Social Worker. The BBC* had commissioned her to just look after us and make sure that we negotiated the adoption process without mishap. It was a rather interesting experience; she had no managers breathing down her neck; no hoops to jump through; no gates to keep or agenda other than supporting us through the process. We would ask questions and she’d give us answers, no ducking, diving, flannel or patter.

It became a little more interesting when we then asked our assessing Social Workers (yes, we had two at the same time) the same questions. What we discovered was that there was an interesting difference between the actual Regulations and Guidance and the policies and practices of our assessing authority. They weren’t massive differences but enough highlight the influences that Social Workers are subject to. What was more interesting was that practice and policy wasn't described as such more that it was the 'law'.
The Law that unquestionable entity that just 'is'.

The question I asked on Twitter this week was quite simple.

"Has anyone requested an Assessment of Need prior to the introduction of the Adoption Support Fund?"

I was surprised by the range of responses that I got when I asked the question:

Some told of Social Workers having never heard of it or having the assessment but never receiving the paperwork for a year after it or waiting up to 18 months for the assessment to start. Adopters being sent on courses as a substitute for the assessment and then being told they were anxious parents. Others of having the assessment but to no effect or others describing having to strong arm the LA into carrying it out. The conversations spiralled and danced around the topic touching on adopter's parenting capacity being questioned and  having asked for an assessment resulting in delayed Adoption Orders.

Though assessments of support needs have been a duty of local authorities since 2005** knowledge of them has not been passed wide and far. I ask you how many adopters sit of an evening and think "I know I'll brush up on some legislative frameworks". It seems that only now, due to the introduction of the ASF, is its existence being widely publicised and is entering into the general knowledge of the adoption community.

Culture, practice, policy, pressure from managers, budgets and the foibles and quirks of their employers have huge implications for the quality of the service that Social Workers can and do give. But also the information that they are given and then pass on to service users. Often they are the bearers of bad news, unhelpful policies or decisions born out of budget restraints rather than good practice. It's crap to be given bad news by a Social Worker I assure you it's crap giving bad news too.

Until now how much have we asked of Adoption Support Services? Many have just given up asking. But now at the very least the ASF has made us aware of their duty* to assess our needs and at this point we are seeing services that may be struggling or may be adapting to this requirement. Infuriating and heartbreaking for parents, equally so for the Social Worker that has to manage our requests and expectations against the directions and decisions of their managers and employers.

Reflecting on the implications of all of this my suspicion is that any weaknesses, mishaps and bureaucratic failings of the Adoption Support Fund are going to wash up at the door of Social Workers. Maybe some of that is deserved, maybe not. Perhaps our anger and difficult questions should be directed at those higher up the ladder, maybe right to the top.

One of Noam Chomsky's theories of manipulation, the problem-reaction-solution model, describes the idea of creating problems through neglect then offering solutions in the guise of privatisation of public services. Perhaps this will be the future of adoption support.
Perhaps not, it's just a thought.

The lesson I learnt from my BBC Social Worker was that we should not accept all that is told to us, to look closer and get good and impartial advice.

The lesson I learnt from questioning/interrogating my children is only ask them questions I know the answer to.

*The BBC followed us through the adoption process from 1998 to 2002 for a 6 part documentary on adopters and adoption.

**The Adoption Support Service Regulations 2005 -  Section 13 & 14 (click link)

Sarah

Sarah was brought into care aged four and moved into her adoptive home one week off her sixth birthday. Now twenty one she describes some of her thoughts and feelings.





Sarah discusses her experiences of re establishing contact with her birth family in adulthood.

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.

Halo

There appears to be a determined and almost immovable halo around adoption.

Believe me I've tried to knock it off and I've tried to present my own lived adoption experience as relatively normal but I see the same enthusiastic determination in the eyes of prospective adopters that I had in mine. Aaaaaah, adoption.

In social circles eyes well up and hearts swell with sympathy at the revelation of my children's status as adopted.
Aaaw, look they're fighting. Aaaaaah, Adoption.

It rubs off on at least two sides of the adoption triangle.

So, regardless of my insisting, and Mrs C's confirmation, people refuse to believe that I'm generally a grumpy old git. How could I be, aaaaaaaah adoptive dad. Bloody halo.


I don't get asked to volunteer on adoption preparation courses. Now it might be because I talk too much but it might be because I might put them off. Don't be stupid, they've all been touched by the adoption Halo. You can almost see them think:
"It's all gone wrong for him, he must be doing something wrong. I've seen Annie, it's a doddle. Adoption always works out ok in the end"

That's the halo.
Aaaaah, Adoption.

Sometimes it's a pain, when we ask for consideration or understanding then the halo blinds people. In their minds they're thinking 'Those children have been there for years, they should be fine now. I've read Oliver Twist and he did ok'. In their eyes I'm just over an over fussing type. Aaaaaah, adoption.

If I was a cynic I'd suggest that politicians have worked this halo out.

Politician 1: 'Nasty Social Workers are slowing down adoption approval.'

Newspaper: 'Aaaaaah Adoption. Those nasty Social Workers.'

Politician 2: 'Aaaaaah Adoption. Those nasty Social Workers.'

Man on the street: 'Aaaaaah Adoption. Those nasty Social Workers.'

Politician 1: (Halo)

But I'm not complaining we managed to get money off our last family holiday because the salesman 'found out' we had six adopted children.

Aaaaaaah, adoption.

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.

Come that day

I've never felt insecure about my status in my children's lives, I'm not their biological dad but I am their dad.

I'd earned my dues.
Wiped backsides, cleaned up the aftermath of projectile vomit, suffered hours of homework, crap TV & an eternity of parents evenings. Blue light hospital trips, nights on hospital wards, dentist traumas and hours in casualty.

I've had my nose broken, accidentally she claimed, by Sarah.

My leg bitten til it bled, she was a tiger she explained, by Gracie.

Two black eyes simultaneously, I was a duvet monster in his defence, by Ginger

All in the line of dad duties. I admit to not being a Waltons type dad, no sage words whilst sat on the porch, I'm not their 'bestie' and I don't want to be,  but I took the good from my childhood and we did ok.
Then this summer for a fleeting moment all seemed lost.

Birth family stepped out of the words in case notes and became flesh. Sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins and dad...........and DAD

What if they make their future exclusively with them?

I thought I was secure, I thought I was progressive, open and forward thinking. I thought all that history counted for something.

It was a like the sensation of being winded and for what seems like an eternity you can't breath. You forget how to, and something that you've done countless times suddenly is forgotten and outside of your control. Straining to draw air, panic rises.

I floundered, what if they were going to leave and put the last 15 years behind them. All my dues counted for nothing, faded away, those experiences did not make me a dad. The years of being there suddenly meaningless.

All that 'stuff' meant nothing because I love them. I couldn't consider them not being part of my life.
For a few hours the threat of loss enveloped me and permeated me,

Then you breathe. You catch air again.
They are not leaving just exploring, broadening, rediscovering.

They are my children and I am their dad.

Mr Postman

Without doubt some of the most important and significant people in my children’s lives are their biological mother and father. I’ve previously blogged on them describing them as ghosts that lurk in the shadows of our lives and consciousness.

Over the past few weeks other birth family members have begun to step into the light and it has been a very interesting experience for a multitude of reasons.

For whatever reasons we never got the chance to meet birth mum and dad, we said we were willing but it just didn’t come together. Having been filmed for the BBC we knew that we were known to them and had heard through an intermediary there was no animosity towards us. We heard no more for 15 years until this summer when ‘Matilda’ a sibling, younger than Sarah and older than Gracie and Ginger found us.

After the initial whirlwind of discovery slow and careful contact has been made. Culminating a few days ago when Mrs C sat with our children’s birth aunt, a very emotive and profound experience for them both. She was little more than a child at the time of her niece and nephew’s move into care. Hearing the impact that this move and the events and circumstances had on her and the wider family has been a not unexpected revelation. The stories of the lack of information, the differing version of events, the mess and the pain for the wider birth family and the long term damage the removal caused.

In the midst of it all we hear of our annual letters coming to the family, being passed from member to member bringing news and hope.

Mrs C dutifully wrote the annual letters to Birth Mum and Dad, there was a limited response in the early days but even this dried up after a few years.

However, at the forefront of our minds was the benefit that the letters were for our three. So Mrs C persisted even when there was no response.

Thinking now I can imagine what I would write in their circumstance, how to reply, what to say, what not to say, lives lived in stalled grief and continuing pain. What could they write?

Mrs C would agonise over what to write each year, I would watch TV, if I confess avoiding the task out of laziness and confidence in her wisdom and writing skills.

Mrs C saw it very clearly, we're building for the future, maintaining a positive link, offering hope and trying to ensure that a link could be maintained. We were demonstrating to our children our lack of enmity to their parents through our actions.

As the three grew we would show them the letters and they’d help pick photos we included. It was an opportunity to revisit events, reframe memories and bring context to growing understanding. We would promote empathy and respect , listen to thoughts and feelings.

When Sarah got to 18 and having not had a response in nearly 10 years we stopped.

But Mrs C and the Aunt’s meeting this week justified all the work she’d put in; the chore, the conflicting emotions, the disheartening lack of reply. We know now that the letters found their audience and forged a delicate and essential link. We now that they were eagerly awaited and passed from hand to hand bringing news of children lost.

We aware that we are at the beginning of a new chapter and there have been lots of tears. But we are confident that there is no rush our children have their lives to restore and establish relationships with their first family.

I am grateful as I know that for some children and families the hope of contact is incomprehensible, impractical and dangerous.

For us we always knew that this day would come. Thankfully we had already begun to build bridges.