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 :-)

Approval Panel / Live Finals

This morning was our panel meeting and we both woke up feeling a little anxious about what was to come. We set off for the town hall in good time and met up with our social worker half an hour before our time slot for breakfast. Well... we ate breakfast and she briefed us again on what to expect and went through any possible sticking points that the panel might bring up.

We crossed the street to the town hall and made our way to the waiting area, I had already been to the little boys room twice so I passed on the tea and coffee that awaited us. We seemed to be sat for ages, at least 20 minutes after the allocated time which did nothing to settle nerves. Eventually a member of the panel came to say hello and took our social worker through to the panel room to discuss our application and question any areas where they felt more information was needed. We waited.

After another twenty minutes of pacing up and down the corridor the same chap returned and showed us to the panel room (that's where they keep the biscuits I noted) to sit alongside our social worker where we faced a crescent of ten panel members, a few of whom we recognised from our preparation group including a birth mother who came to speak with us, the manager of the adoption team for our agency and a psychologist. After they all introduced themselves the head of the panel handed over to three members who had raised questions.

It was time for us to hear their concerns and respond. A lot was resting on this and we had already decided not to get defensive and if there was any question that we didn't agree with we would humour them and answer respectfully anyway. The questions were:

1. Why had we stated on our matching application that we were not willing to consider a child with any potential attachment issues or developmental needs? Errm... we didn't say that! We have heard that the panel don't always have time to read the reports in full. I was quick to respond to this question (whilst trying to remain calm)  and corrected the lady by saying what we had actually said (I'm guessing she was the first not to have read the report) is that we are open minded and would consider each child on a case by case basis. It would be impossible to give a general yes or no when there are so many variables and every child's needs are different - we want to be realistic in what we can take on and what we can offer our child.

2. Why we had decided that my fiancée would be the one to take adoption leave from work and not me when I was supposed to be the most maternal one? Again - I don't remember at any point in our assessment saying this so we assured them that we both feel maternal in equal measure and the decision for me not to take adoption leave was because I am a business owner and it would not make financial sense for us for me to take unpaid time off when my fiancée would get a good package from his employers.

 3. As we are a mixed-race couple, how do we feel our cultural heritage and different family backgrounds would affect our ability to raise a child? Well living in West London we told the panel that our child would certainly not be the only child in such a family given the diverse ethnic community we live in.

We were asked to return to the waiting room whilst the panel discussed our answers and made their recommendation. We certainly felt that a couple of members may have not been entirely comfortable with approving same sex adopters as the questions they had asked were not direct and clear, either way we were able to answer their questions confidently and genuinely. It was only about five minutes later that the chap returned to collect us again to take our seats in front of the panel to hear their verdict. That's was it...

The head of the panel said that the panel were in full support of our application and recommended that we were approved as adopters! We did it... we are approved! We were so happy. Each member of the panel said why they supported our application and wished us well. We said thanks you to each of them and my partner said a special thanks to our social worker and told the panel how supportive and flexible she had been with us during our assessment. 

So that's it! We are through the the 'live finals' and we look forward to the next stage of the journey waiting for the stork to deliver our children..

Waiting For Panel

So here we are... only seven days away from going to panel to be approved officially as adopters. This is a significant milestone in our journey and after reading other blogs from members of New Family Social and finding them really useful I decided that now is the time to start documenting our own journey.

Going to panel is only a milestone however, not the start of our journey. The posts below reflect on the 'story so far' and bring things up to date. You will see throughout this blog I'm likening the various stages to The X-Factor as it feels very similar... from first audition, to boot camp, to judges (at our) houses, to the live finals and finally (hopefully!) the record contract! This of this blog as my 'Xtra Factor' highlights show!

My next entry will be on Monday 6th June post-panel when we will find out if we have made it through to the next stage... the 'Live Shows' (Family Finding!)


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NB: All posts prior to this one were written retrospectively and posted today, thought I have time-stamped them with the actual dates for archiving.

The Assesment Begins / Judges Houses

Who would it be? Would we click immediately or would our relationship be awkward and official? We had met a number of the Adoption team now since the 'Pink Families' event in May last year and everyone seemed lovely so it wasn't a really big issue for us. At the preparation course there was one social worker in particular who we both really took a shine to and did hope we might get her as our social worker.

We have heard quite a few horror stories about bad social workers from various sources, even at the Ealing event last year they themselves openly said that it can happen sometimes a social worker just doesn't click with a prospective couple and it's ok to say so and ask for another. Some friends of ours who had been through the process a year before us had told us how the first social worker they had didn't bother to do any of the written assessment and they had to write their own for panel!

Anyway, we opened the door after another few days of cleaning, buying flowers, grooming the dogs, spraying airfreshener everywhere and stocking up on cake/coffee/snacks (anyone would think we were going on 'Come Dine With Me') to the lady who was to be our social worker. For some reason one feels the need to give a slightly false sense of perfection but I guess it's normal. There as so many factors in the process that you can't control that I think we take the parts we can control and want to make sure we have done everything we can to show the type of home we want to offer a child. God knows why, I'm sure as soon as a child come to live here the place will never look the same again!! 

She informed us at the very start of the meeting that she works in 'post adoption care' but because the department is short of social workers at the moment she would be taking our initial home visits and starting the assessment but may not be the one who takes us all the way to panel. We found this a little difficult to digest because the whole point of the assessment and panel presentation is that the social worker spends a long time with you and builds up a picture of you so that they can confidently present you to the panel armed with full knowledge and back-stories to answer any awkward 'off-topic' questions the panel decide to throw at her. understand because. Anyway, there was no need to worry too much as the following week she informed us that she has been given permission to stay with our case and be our social forker for panel and beyond! We have gotten on really well with her so it's great to know that she will be there to share the journey with us.

The next thing to do was schedule the rest of our home visits. The preparation course had managed our expectations to think that this stage, 'the assessment' was going to take about eight months, with bi-monthly visits for the duration. However in reality we were booking weekly meetings, sometimes even two a week. All three of us had our diaries out and pencilled the dates in. She then looks at the next panel dates and checked our availability for theses. We were both a little shock I think at the speed this stage was going to progress at. There was a date mentioned in April, which we would have finished our assessment in time for but may not have allowed enough time to get the CRB check form back for as apparently these can take up to ten weeks to return. We were not able to make the date suggested in May as my partner was going to be away for work so we settled on Monday 6th June... which seemed perfect. Enough time to digest the assessment but still sooner than the expected months where we thought we would be going to panel in October. So there we have it, a date set for panel, the whole things just keep feeling more and more real at each stage. The scary/exciting this is that in theory (and only in theory) we could be matched with a child in the summer?! And then again it could be next summer... or the summer after!

The five home (and work) visits were fine. At first they were really exciting, toward the end we started to feel we were going over the same ground but we are aware that our social worker needs to complete a very long report and has to be sure about all of the details. It did feel strange sometimes talking about yourself for three hours full and not asking the social worker any questions about her?! lol

Visits generally lasted three to four hours and after each one we were left with a bundle of paperwork to complete - which we generally did the same night whilst everything was fresh. The other thing to say is that we were really grateful to our social worker for agreeing to make our visits in the evening and early morning so not to interfere with work. We are well aware of the impact that children will have on our lives/work but whilst we can schedule things to not impact on work we were glad to. Some evenings we didn't finish till after 10pm and 11pm so we can't thanks her enough for giving that kind of time to us.

The visits themselves were very details, I won't go into them here but the BAAF book 'Pink Guide to Adoption' is a great resource for what to expect during assessment and covers all of the kind of questions you will be asked etc. Some visit were together and at the start we did meetings separately too where we covered our early lives, our own childhoods, previous relationships and education/careers etc. Then the bulk of the meetings together were more about our attitudes to parenting and how we would deal with certain situations.

So, five long sessions, loads of paperwork and a lot of coffee later we had finished our assesment and waitind for a couple of weeks whilst our social worker prepared her report. In the meantime she was also talking to the six references we had put forward (a couple of time, for those references with children she actually came to our home on a Sunday and observed us interacting with their children) and applied for our CRB checks, we also had to visit the doctor and complete a full medical which included getting a blood test from the hospital.

The report was finally sent to us to for our review... all 52 pages of it! Apart from a couple of typo's which we corrected we were pretty happy with everything she had written and felt confident that it was a great, comprehensive report to present to panel (assuming they don't fall asleep before page 52!).

Preparation Course / Boot Camp

Following our first home visit we must have waited about ten days before we heard back from Ealing. It was quit a nerve racking wait, given that someone you have never met is taking notes on you and during a three hour visit is making a decision about weather you are fit to parent a child so a lot was resting on this next stage.

When we did hear back we were delighted to be accepted by Ealing Council and put forward for the next stage of the 'competition'... we were off to Boot Camp (or preparation course to those in the business!) The next course was due to start at the end of January 2011 so we had nothing else to do over Christmas except wait. The course would be three full days long, ours was Thursday, Friday and Monday and would cover a wide range of areas in child development, the adoption process in general, dealing with children from difficult backgrounds, attachment theory, the adoption triangle, the effects of drug and alcohol abuse etc. etc. etc.

The course took place at a local cricket club (which could have benefited from some central heating!) and was a really lovely supportive environment to share with other perspective adopters. Everyone felt really relaxed and was able to comfortable ask questions, benefit from other peoples ideas and experience and learn more about the process together. We felt very reassured by the team at Ealing and they had obviously had a great response to their 'Pink Families' Campaign because we were not the only gay couple on the course, in fact the group was made up of three heterosexual couple, three gay couples and a single gay adopter... power to the gays!  

The idea of the course is that everyone can build up a circle of contact and friends who are all going through the process together and share thought and stay in touch beyond the preparation course and this has certainly been the case. We have in fact since the course met up with one couple for lunch since and are planning to meet again along with one of the other couples in a few weeks time.

Towards the end of the three days, still inspired and determined to continue and keen to find out what we had to do next to keep things moving at the surprising speed they had been so far. On the final day we were given another big information pack which contained amongst other notes and handouts the form the needed to fill in in order to continue to the next round. In addition the course leaders from the adoption team would compile their thoughts and decide if they were happy for us to continue. Keen as ever we completed the form the next day and submitted it by email that evening.

It was the following Friday that we found out that they had assigned a social worker to us and our 'home visits' were about to start! Bring on Judges Houses... or judges in our house/s?!

The Application / 1st Audition

November 2010 I would say was the first significant step in our journey. I sent the email to Ealing Council to say that after the two events we had been to we felt ready to start the process and would like to officially apply to become adopters. We waited, and waited and didn't hear anything for a week. Which in hindsight is not long at all when you are dealing with a busy department which is no doubt under staffed and under preassue but when you are sending such a life changing email it's hard to think about anything else. All sorts of things go through your mind (or my own paranoid mind) and you wonder "Is it me?", "Is it because we are gay?"... all sorts of things. So I decided to pick up the phone and check if they had even received my email. The lady I spoke to was very apologetic and assured me that we would get a call and a letter within the next few days to arrange a time for a social worker to make a home visit.

So they had our application and this was it, we were going to formally start the ball rolling with a home visit. This made the whole thing even more real and felt really nice to get getting started. Over the past few weeks, well since May I guess we had discussed parenting a handful of times every week, all the time reinforcing our want to have children now whilst we are both young. We have heard through all of the book that we have read, websites we have trawled and events we had been to just how long the whole process can take so even though we are both relatively young adopter we are of the opinion that if it does take three plus years we definitely want to get the ball rolling now.

We had a date and were so excited in the days before the visit just dying to get started. Not rushing things and expecting too much too soon is one of the biggest expectations that you have to manage with the adoption process, everyone's is always reminding you how long things can take even if you are prepared and have all of your paperwork completed on time you are always waiting for some council office, a social worker or a panel worker to do their bit - but that doesn't really go very far when you are embarking on such an exciting life-changing journey and it's hard not to get a little carried away and swept up in it. In fact it's hard to think about anything else in the run up to each milestone. Anyway, the day before she came we cleaned the house from top to bottom, bought flowers, fresh coffee and croissants which I left in the oven on a tray to heat in advance.

One of the first things the social worker did when she arrived was to go through and fill in a first application form with us. When she got to taking down our date of birth I mentioned about the information evening and feeling that we were the youngest couple there by a good stretch - I asked her if this could be a potential issue in presenting us to the adoption panel and she made a good point which put my mind at rest... the majority of heterosexual couples who adopt come to adoption as a 'Plan B', after trying for many years to get pregnant themselves, where as gay couples, especially gay men come to the conclusion a lot sooner that having a biological child isn't an option for them and so are ready to visit adoption a lot sooner.

The rest of the form consisted of lots of general questions - she wasn't there to probe too deeply, that would come with future home visits if we were accepted by the authority as 'potential adopters'. The purpose of this visit was just to take down the basics that she would then take back to the team before deciding to take our application further. We answered basic questions about our attitude towards parenting, our own childhoods and family structure, what we do for a living, how much we earn, how long we have been together and that kind of thing. I say basic questions, it was still quite a long visit - she arrived at 9am and didn't leave till after 12pm, which was something we have now come to expect with home visits!

We got on really well with this social worker as she was one of those speaking at the 'Pink Families' event we went along to so we were really pleased when she turned up at the door. We were actually hoping that she might be our social worker but that idea was quickly finished when she declared that she was actually leaving after Christmas to move to Thailand! Nevermind.

The other really good thing for us is that she got on really well with Jeffrey and Andrew our little dogs. It's really important for us that the social workers during this process liked the boys (our canine children!) and see how gentle and loving they are and on this visit the both (after the initial barking to welcome visitors) lay down and went to sleep on her! She reassured us again here agreeing that pets can really make a home and it's a nice thing to be able to say to children who you are matched with that there are two little doggies at their new home etc.

It wasn't until we closed the door that I remembered the croissants were still in the oven!!

Alternative Families

The summer came and went and we were both rally busy with work so didn't really have time to re-visit the children thing. My fiancée was enrolling on a part-time MBA course and my business was keeping me incredibly busy and also rather stressed having had to pursue legal action against two clients in the same month. One thing I do remember about last summer was watching a documentary on Channel 4, the latest of their 'shock docs' called My Weird & Wonderful Family. Ten years ago Tony and Barrie Drewitt-Barlow made history by fathering twins via surrogacy and over the years have added to their family in the same way. An option which seemed to work for them.

We heard about the Alternative Families Show which takes place each year in Covent Garden and decided to go along and suss things out. We registered in advance for a couple of the seminars. Being a mixed-race couple we were really interested in international adoption and keen to find out if adopting from India would be a possibility. We also booked for a seminar on surrogacy to find out more about that as a potential avenue.

The event was really great - there were a whole host of local authorities there promoting their adoption services, as well as charities such as Action for Children and Barnardos. Stonewall and BAAF also had a big presence. It was a great chance to ask loads of questions and speak to people already perusing the different options to find out what was best for us.

The seminar on International adoption reinforced a lot of what we had already been reading online in that the red tape many Asian countries has surrounding gay adoption meant that India wouldn't be a viable option for us. My partner as an Indian national would have to adopt as a single parent. Plus with running my business the time we would have to spend out of the country duration the adoption meant this just wasn't a viable option for us.

The other seminar we signed up for was about Surrogacy and guess who the speakers were? The Drewitt-Barlows! Whilst their story is inspiring and their children are adorable it just didn't feel right for us. Surragocy is a very costly road to go down given that its not legal in the UK so will almost certainly involve lots of travel, a fee for the surrogate mother and usually the agency fee, all in all you are looking at the best part of £100k and upwards. Their presentation was followed by a sales pitch from a US agency who just didn't seem right from the start. The CEO was their to speak and sell the benefits of their service which fair enough sounded very organised and well structured to protect the client, cover legal loop holes and audition potential surrogate mothers the whole thing just seems a little cold and business like and not right for us.

We left that in October feeling certain that adoption was the route we wanted to take. Aside from the fact the it wasn't going to cost us £100k we both really like to concept of giving a child who is without parents a home, a stable family life and all of our love and support.

Pink Families

Our adoption journey began in April 2010. My fiancée and and I had been together four and a half years and over the course of our relationship had always discussed that we both wanted to have children at some point in the future - I guess we both kind of assumed that this would be in the distant future, at least towards the end of our thirties and really thought no more about it.

I remember coming home from work one day and he told me that he had seen an advert in Attitude Magazine from Ealing Council promoting a 'Pink Families' campaign to encourage potential LGBT foster carers and adopters to come forward with the support of a new 'forward thinking' open minded local authority to help combat any red tape misconceptions that may have previously been associated with same-sex parenting and help sell the benefits that we have to offer as parents. Anyway, he had called the number on the ad and registered our interest - at this stage we both agreed we just wanted to go along and find out more.

It was the end of May when we went along to the town hall one evening after work. After signing in, recieveing our complementary pink bags, mugs and pens we made a b-line for the coffee and nibbles - we had come straight from work and were starving so we certainly got our council tax worth! The evening was fantastic. After a short introduction from some of the team at Ealing and then the obligatory slide-show they had lined up a great selection of speakers, all with really inspiring stories to tell. Some were foster carers, some were in the middle of the adoption process, some had recently had children placed with them and others had adopted a few years ago and now had older children.

I just remember sitting there and thinking "this can actually happen for us". Until that night the prospect of actually becoming parents was only a distant wish for the future and I don't think either of us had given much thought to how we would make it happen. I was struck by the fact that we seemed the youngest couple at the event by far, I was 25 at the time and my finacee 29, compared to the other couples who seemed late 30's. We are keen to parent children whilst we are young still, we want our time with them to be full of energy and we also want to keep up with them! Also, my own mother was just a couple of years younger than me when I was born and we are now able to share a real friendship and the age gap isn't as large as that between a lot of my firneds and their parents and indeed my partner and his parents who are now in their 70's. We left the town hall (with another Voulevant in hand) and made for the car. We were both so inspired by the evening we knew that having children was now definitely something we both really wanted. We just needed to decide when and how... we still hadn't ruled out surragacy. This was something we needed to investigate.