We are in the middle of house hunting at the moment in preparation for our new larger family. We currently own a two bedroom garden flat which would be ample for a young family, even if we were to be matched with a sibling group. However we really would like a larger family home with a big garden for the dogs (as well as the children) and spare rooms for family to visit and stay with us. We have seen a few places a bit further out of town than our current place (we are looking to get more house for our money) and last weekend we made an offer which was accepted - so we are now waiting for the vendors to negotiate on the place they are hoping to buy.
On the Family Finding front, our spreadsheet now lists 26 children! It's felt like a really slow summer with our Social Worker (SW) and many of the SW's looking after the children on our table being on holiday, however we managed to pull in full CPR reports for four of the children we were interested in and spent a full evening reading thought them all.
There was one profile that really stood out for us. I'm reluctant to say this child immediately felt like 'the one' because I'm fully aware how the process works and have to prepare mentally for the very realistic chance that he may not be, but we had a very good feeling and were both really keen to let all parties know we wanted to be considered and progress. As our SW was on holiday we decided to call the child’s SW directly and let her know how keen we were to be considered as a suitable match for this child and offer a few key benefits and criteria that we felt made us a perfect match based on our profile and what we had read in the child’s.
This phone call and direct approach really helped and we came away with a very good feeling about it as the lady enthused about us as potential candidates. I should say this match actually came though via the National Adoption Register based on our mixed heritage/culture matching the child’s as well as our search criteria. We received a phone call from the child's local authority a week ago saying that we have been short-listed! Amazing news... this is the furthest we have been so far in the process. This means that that the local authority (LA) have selected three families out of the profiles they have received and there will be a meeting next week to choose just 1 or 2 of us to make a home visit to. We are so excited but also very very anxious at the moment. It's fabulous to have been short-listed but being so near and yet so far makes it all the more terrifying. I'll keep you posted.
It's worth mentioning to any potential adopters reading my blog that the telephone conversation we made to this LA was not the first. A couple of weeks ago I received a call completely out of the blue from another child’s SW who was unable to reach our SW due to her being on holiday and wanted to run a few things by me and get a better picture of us as a couple. I was totally not expecting the call and as I was at work at the time it really threw me. I had to leave the office to speak to her and wasn't at all prepared to answer the kind of questions she asked - I said to my partner and our SW that it felt like being back at panel all over again.
On the plus side thought it felt really good to be able to 'sell ourselves' directly and get a bit of personality across in persona rather than through a printed document. There was also another LA who we hadn't heard anything back from after making an initial enquiry via Be My Parent who I decided to call and am really glad I did – they had misplaced our profile during an office move and again she was able to give me loads of info on the child in question and I was able to tell her more about us, our lifestyle, situation and search. So I guess my point is that there is a lot we can do to focus the 'Family Finding' search ourselves and be proactive to find answers to questions, get more information and present ourselves direct to SW's and LA's – don't be afraid to pick up the phone and speak to people in person. The process is inherently slow anyway, so if there is something you can do to speed it up just do it!
We were also lucky enough to come across a list of over 450 email addresses this month for LA's and SW's across the country so if the match we have been short-listed for doesn't bare fruit (or child!) we are on standby to spam the UK with our profile once more whilst we wait for the stork.
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