Jumping in the deep end
We took the plunge into the big pool to register for a site called Adoption Link/ Link Maker.
There several books out there on adoption but none of them cover this new way of matching children to adoptive parents. All the books I have read cover a Social Worker ringing up about children and it seems to go to meeting them very quickly. The other scenario I have seen written about is the Children Who Wait magazine and letters, phone calls or emails being sent in to register interest and people often never hearing back. Nothing I have read covers this more modern way of searching for a family. The onus is now on the prospective adopters to find children rather than the Social Workers. This give the adoptive parents more control-at least I think it does. You can opt out of this if you find it too stressful and allow your Social Worker to search for you. I don't personally advise this unless you are not able to cope with rejection and emotional upheaval. Given the ride you will have already been on- one more long rollercoaster should be par for the course! We were told this is the best way to start a search and if we are still looking later in the year then we can go to adoption days where we can hand our profile over and perhaps attend Meet and greet style events (I have read these referred
to as Adoption Parties) often these will be for harder to place children.
It took all of a Sunday afternoon to write our profile. It was far more detailed than we expected it to be. We thought it would be a picture and a short overview of us- we weren't quite prepared for boxes and boxes of information to fill out- from rating out personality traits to boxes about where we live, how we live, facilities in the area, interests and hobbies and support we could offer. It is pretty full on.
We didn't realise as we filled this out how important this profile is or how it was used. The profile contents are your chance to sell yourself to other social workers this profile has to magically appeal to all sorts of different social workers and highlight those special qualities that will differ from own social workers view to the next- it really is a needle in a haystack and your profile needs to glint and shine.
At this point, the workings of this website were totally unknown. You cannot see the profiles of children until you have been verified and so by submitting our profile it would mean that the site would contact our Adoption Agency to make sure we were who we said we were. A site like this has to be highly secure as children's profiles cannot be seen by people without the correct interest as there are sensitive details about children and their background and needs.
We were approved by Monday morning and almost instantly we received two profiles from Social Workers. This was a bit of a shock as we hadn't expected this- though to be fair we didn't know what to expect really. There was a moment of feeling special- how did they find us in the thousands of profiles that must be on the site? It took a little while for it to sink in that we must have flagged up as new prospective adopters who have joined.
The children, however, were not right for us, both too disabled for us to consider. As said before, you have to be very, very honest with what you can cope with to both your Social Worker, panel and most importantly to yourselves. One child was considerably delayed needing full time care, potentially for life and the other was the most gorgeous little one who was disabled who came with a little video to melt your heart. We discussed this particular child seriously but decided it was too dangerous to have boisterous dogs around them. I think at this stage we felt honoured to be considered. We worked out how to decline and send a message and wished the social workers well with their search. A little heartbreaking and our first taste of guilt.
I guess we were still swimming in the shallow end at this point, not sure how to swim into the mid section of the pool...but we were going to have to teach ourselves to swim.
There several books out there on adoption but none of them cover this new way of matching children to adoptive parents. All the books I have read cover a Social Worker ringing up about children and it seems to go to meeting them very quickly. The other scenario I have seen written about is the Children Who Wait magazine and letters, phone calls or emails being sent in to register interest and people often never hearing back. Nothing I have read covers this more modern way of searching for a family. The onus is now on the prospective adopters to find children rather than the Social Workers. This give the adoptive parents more control-at least I think it does. You can opt out of this if you find it too stressful and allow your Social Worker to search for you. I don't personally advise this unless you are not able to cope with rejection and emotional upheaval. Given the ride you will have already been on- one more long rollercoaster should be par for the course! We were told this is the best way to start a search and if we are still looking later in the year then we can go to adoption days where we can hand our profile over and perhaps attend Meet and greet style events (I have read these referred
to as Adoption Parties) often these will be for harder to place children.
It took all of a Sunday afternoon to write our profile. It was far more detailed than we expected it to be. We thought it would be a picture and a short overview of us- we weren't quite prepared for boxes and boxes of information to fill out- from rating out personality traits to boxes about where we live, how we live, facilities in the area, interests and hobbies and support we could offer. It is pretty full on.
We didn't realise as we filled this out how important this profile is or how it was used. The profile contents are your chance to sell yourself to other social workers this profile has to magically appeal to all sorts of different social workers and highlight those special qualities that will differ from own social workers view to the next- it really is a needle in a haystack and your profile needs to glint and shine.
At this point, the workings of this website were totally unknown. You cannot see the profiles of children until you have been verified and so by submitting our profile it would mean that the site would contact our Adoption Agency to make sure we were who we said we were. A site like this has to be highly secure as children's profiles cannot be seen by people without the correct interest as there are sensitive details about children and their background and needs.
We were approved by Monday morning and almost instantly we received two profiles from Social Workers. This was a bit of a shock as we hadn't expected this- though to be fair we didn't know what to expect really. There was a moment of feeling special- how did they find us in the thousands of profiles that must be on the site? It took a little while for it to sink in that we must have flagged up as new prospective adopters who have joined.
The children, however, were not right for us, both too disabled for us to consider. As said before, you have to be very, very honest with what you can cope with to both your Social Worker, panel and most importantly to yourselves. One child was considerably delayed needing full time care, potentially for life and the other was the most gorgeous little one who was disabled who came with a little video to melt your heart. We discussed this particular child seriously but decided it was too dangerous to have boisterous dogs around them. I think at this stage we felt honoured to be considered. We worked out how to decline and send a message and wished the social workers well with their search. A little heartbreaking and our first taste of guilt.
I guess we were still swimming in the shallow end at this point, not sure how to swim into the mid section of the pool...but we were going to have to teach ourselves to swim.
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