In Limbo: Family Finding Starts

It's been a couple of weeks now since our panel approval and a bit of a strange limbo feeling since. I am well aware that we have progressed through each stage of the process pretty quickly until now, much quicker than we had anticipated in fact (given that we expected to go to panel in October!) so with everything having happened fairly rapidly for us so far, 'Family Finding' is a bit of an unknown stage without any set milestones to work towards, hence the limbo feeling.

Two weeks prior to our panel date, we received an email from our social worker asking if we would consider a brother and sister sibling group, we said yes and that we would be keen to learn more about them and see their profile (which of course we would not be able to do until we were approved) - I didn't mention this update in my last post as I wanted to wait and see what happened after panel with regards to this. It was pretty hard actually, hearing just a few short lines about 'real children' who could possibly be a mach for us and then nothing else... nothing else for almost two weeks after panel when we have since heard that they are now not a viable match for us due to changes in their current CPR (Child Permanency Report).  

In some ways we probably would have preferred not to hear anything until their situation was clear and their was a profile to swap with ours, but it seems that's not the way it's going to work and we probably need to get a bit more thick skinned during this time as there will no doubt be lots of emails, glimpses and near misses flying around during this stage. Actually, there have since been another two emails mentioning other possible matches and asking if we would like to know more, and again no profile has followed. I should point out this is in no way the fault of our social worker, she continues to be really great and proactive. I guess when she is hearing about these possible matches she is contacting us straight away as one would expect, but then not hearing anything more from the other end.

In other news... our adopters 'profile page' is now complete and has been sent to the National Adoption Register and we have also joined the Be My Parent website from BAAF where we can search profiles of children waiting to be placed. There is also a profile swap event happening in London this week where agencies and authorities from across the country will meet to swap  adopter and child profiles for possible matches. We are unable to attend in person but our profile will still be present.  I have also sent our profile off to my home town in the North East, where I know there is a high percentage of Asian children so I was keen for their family finding team to keep us in mind. I'm not sure if I have mentioned already but we are a mixed race couple and keen to explore all single or mixed heritage avenues to widen our search criteria!

That's another great thing worth a mention about Ealing Council for any perspective adopters... Unlike many/most agencies and local authorities who keep approved adopters exclusive to their own placement/family finding teams for a period of 3-6 months, Ealing actively encourage adopters to send out their profile to other agencies and to be proactive in their search. We are in the process of putting together a list of all agencies/LA's in the UK whom we will send our profile to personally over the next couple of weeks. I will make this list available via New Family Social as it will be a valuable resource.

And finally... Whilst on holiday in Italy this week we received an email from our Social Worker who finally had an actual profile for us to view and consider. We confirmed our interest to find out more and were then sent the CPR for further reading. This report is slightly out of date with an updated version expected in around 2-3 weeks time when we will read it again and decide if we think we should take further steps... Exciting times! I'll keep you updated future posts :-)