Suddenly Mummy’s smashing blogpost last week set me away thinking about the nature, practicalities and systems of Post Adoption Support.
The Adoption Support Fund has scratched one itch. We now have a route to therapeutic services for our children and within the context of reduced budgets and cuts that's nothing to be sniffed at.
We are about to see additional support for children within schools through the duty's put on Virtual School Heads, how that's going to play out I don't know but I'm hopeful.
Adoption is on the agenda, for now, and significant changes are afoot, by 2017 we will have several regional adoption agencies and what that will mean for adoption support is yet to be seen but things are moving. There's talk and hopes that they may provide 'hubs' of excellence in therapeutic and mental health services. That the good bits will be kept and the rubbish laid aside.
All of this is good and part of a support 'jigsaw' that many of us need.
However, I worry that in the drive for high profile solutions that we step over some of the cornerstones of good support. Sometimes what we need is pretty easy, a wise word and a listening ear over coffee and cake. Good old fashioned social work, pretty cheap, pretty easy.* But the reality is that it doesn't always seem that easy and as a Social Work Student Practice Educator I see it's a skill that doesn't necessarily come easily to all students. Contemporary Social Work Practice appears to be pushed more and more into a bureaucratic role where keyboard skills are as highly valued as people skills. Maybe that's right.
However, if the high profile solutions are to be effective I believe that the most basic skills need to underpin them. I genuinely believe that one major part of the success of the Adoption Support Fund is the fact that families have had Social Workers sat in their living rooms listening.
I do hope that in this environment change and opportunities for adopters to voice their views on the systems and processes that make up adoption and adoption support that we don't forget the coffee and cake.
The Adoption Support Fund has scratched one itch. We now have a route to therapeutic services for our children and within the context of reduced budgets and cuts that's nothing to be sniffed at.
We are about to see additional support for children within schools through the duty's put on Virtual School Heads, how that's going to play out I don't know but I'm hopeful.
Adoption is on the agenda, for now, and significant changes are afoot, by 2017 we will have several regional adoption agencies and what that will mean for adoption support is yet to be seen but things are moving. There's talk and hopes that they may provide 'hubs' of excellence in therapeutic and mental health services. That the good bits will be kept and the rubbish laid aside.
All of this is good and part of a support 'jigsaw' that many of us need.
However, I worry that in the drive for high profile solutions that we step over some of the cornerstones of good support. Sometimes what we need is pretty easy, a wise word and a listening ear over coffee and cake. Good old fashioned social work, pretty cheap, pretty easy.* But the reality is that it doesn't always seem that easy and as a Social Work Student Practice Educator I see it's a skill that doesn't necessarily come easily to all students. Contemporary Social Work Practice appears to be pushed more and more into a bureaucratic role where keyboard skills are as highly valued as people skills. Maybe that's right.
I do hope that in this environment change and opportunities for adopters to voice their views on the systems and processes that make up adoption and adoption support that we don't forget the coffee and cake.
*I'm conveniently putting aside some of the unhelpful things that can be and have been said by Social Workers through the ages. Please don't share them in the comments, the internet only has so much capacity.
