Did you know Barnardo’s Fostering & Adoption NI is just one of a small group of voluntary adoption agencies here in Northern Ireland?
In this very special panel discussion, to mark Adoption Week, Adoption Routes, Family Care Adoption Services and Barnardo’s Fostering & Adoption NI, got together to discuss what it is like to adopt via a voluntary agency, their assessment and matching processes and the kinds of support and post-adoption care you can expect.
The session was followed by a Q&A session.
Meet the Panel:
Lesley Delaney from Adoption Routes
Brian Downey from Family Care
Hilary Armstrong from Barnardo’s Fostering & Adoption
Barnardo's Fostering & Adoption NI
Join us as we demystify the process and help you select the right voluntary adoption agency that serves your needs best.
To learn more about fostering and adoption with us, visit our Linktr.ee https://linktr.ee/barnardosfosteringni
Did you know Barnardo’s Fostering & Adoption NI is just one of a small group of voluntary adoption agencies here in Northern Ireland?
In this very special panel discussion, to mark Adoption Week, Adoption Routes, Family Care Adoption Services and Barnardo’s Fostering & Adoption NI, got together to discuss what it is like to adopt via a voluntary agency, their assessment and matching processes and the kinds of support and post-adoption care you can expect.
The session was followed by a Q&A session.
Meet the Panel:
Lesley Delaney from Adoption Routes
Brian Downey from Family Care
Hilary Armstrong from Barnardo’s Fostering & Adoption
Barnardo's Fostering & Adoption NI
Join us as we demystify the process and help you select the right voluntary adoption agency that serves your needs best.
To learn more about fostering and adoption with us, visit our Linktr.ee https://linktr.ee/barnardosfosteringni
This is Ness from Barnardo's Fostering and Adoption, Northern Ireland. Today's episode Meet the Voluntary Adoption Agencies is a very special episode indeed. It was recorded live to mark National Adoption Week in October 2023. Now, if you are interested in adoption, particularly Northern Ireland, do not miss this episode, as our guests are Brian Downey from Family Care Adoption, Lesley Delaney from Family Roots and our very own Hilary Armstrong from Barnardo's Fostering and Adoption NI. We hope you enjoy this show and if you decide to contact one of the agencies mentioned here, let them know you heard it here first. Alright, then. So here we are, our adoption agencies Meet the Agencies panel event, and we're very excited to have Family Care, Adoption, Roots and Barnardo's on this call to talk about voluntary adoption agencies, adoption in Northern Ireland, and I'm going to start off with what is a voluntary adoption agency. Who would like to start? Shall I go to Brian first?
Brian:Brian, what is a?
Ness:voluntary adoption agency.
Brian:Well Meet Family Care Adoption Services. We've been around for over 50 years or so now, so we're registered charity. So as a voluntary adoption agency we would be or not for a profit organisation, who would be separate from the health and social care trusts, so we wouldn't have statutory responsibility for children, but we do work with the various trusts when it comes to the placement of children. So our role is really to recruit and assess adoptive parents and then to work with the Trusts to match children to your approved doctors.
Ness:Okay, that's great. So a voluntary adoption agency sits outside of the Trusts? Would that be right, Lesley?
Lesley:Just as Brian said, Adoption Routes is similar to Family Care in that we're independent, we're a charity. We work regionally across all of Northern Ireland and we work, I suppose, in partnership with the Trusts all of the Trusts across Northern Ireland to find families for children who are unable to live with their birth families.
Ness:That's great, Hillary. I see you nodding there. Have you got anything to add?
Hilary:No, I think what everybody has said is sort of similar.
Hilary:It's the same as ourselves here, charitable sector and trying to find homes for children in this service.
Hilary:We are really hoping that we can find homes for children who wait the longest, and we might talk later, wondering this, about what that means to wait the longest. You might not want to get into that now, but we have found over the years, we always have families that are moving through as foster carers in an adoption process with children, and I think when we started to really think here about becoming an adoption agency in our own right, we had around maybe 7% to 10% of our families at that time, and one of the reasons we did this was really because families would have said to us, when they got approved through Trusts and then I suppose our workers here were finishing off with them, they would have said it was the time they felt they would have liked to have still have had their worker from Barnardo's. So we do see ourselves as having had a foot in the adoption world for a long time here, but I suppose we're trying to do that in a more organised and structured way now.
Ness:Okay, what I'm understanding is the voluntary adoption agency is separate to the individual Trust. The Trusts have responsibility for the children who end up in care in every jurisdiction. So, I'm a potential adopter, why would I come to a voluntary adoption agency over a Trust? And maybe I can throw that to Leslie first.
Lesley:Okay, well, I suppose, first of all, it's that geographic and regional spread that we have, and that will be the first thing. Secondly, we're independent, so you don't have to go to the Trust that you live within. We don't have waiting lists, which is a huge factor. Many people who are interested in adopting have to wait a long time to maybe get assessed, so we have a quick response time. People contact us, they'll get a phone call back within the week and they can have a confidential chat with one of our very experienced social workers who've worked for many years in the world of adoption and know what inside out. And then also, I suppose it's that lifelong service that we provide, in that we have the post adoption support service until the child is an adult and beyond, to support the adopted parents and the family.
Ness:So it sounds like a more boutique approach. Hilary, would you agree?
Hilary:Yes, I suppose we see it as it's just another offer really. You know we're doing the same thing as our colleagues in the Trust, but I suppose doing it maybe, I suppose I would say that I think our teams, and I could speak for all three of us here really represented, I think our teams of staff are usually steeped in this kind of work.
Hilary:They have maybe been working in the area of family placement for some time, maybe a number of years, and have gained a real experience and expertise through doing that. And I think we hope that the support we give to families is well received and is tailored to what they need. So I think we've put a lot of emphasis on that and you know, in Barnardo's certainly, I suppose what we would say is that the support is 24-7. You know it doesn't end at 5pm and you know we have a helpline here that is staffed by local social workers, usually in the team, and those are people that can give guidance and support to adopters as well as our foster carers out of hours. For, you know, sort of emergencies that might arise in your family, things that might happen where you just maybe need to check something out, you know, that's probably what I would just add.
Ness:Brian, have you got anything you'd like to add about the advantages of coming to a voluntary adoption agency?
Brian:Yeah, as you say, you know it's more sort of bespoke and personalised. The Trusts I think you know, from what I would hear from people who you would go to Trusts initially is that you know they find it hard then to get any real communication. You know there's nobody in particular who they can speak with and so they kind of get lost and that whole sort of bulk a big, large organisation, whereas with the likes of voluntaries, like ourselves, you know, once you've made contact, you know you would have, for instance, my email address, so you know you can contact me, email, ring up, so hopefully in that way people feel that you know they're, they're able to, you know, have that direct contact. With Trusts t here's always, always a large turnover of staff. You know that you find generally in voluntaries that staff you know is more stable.
Brian:I mean I've been family care over 20 years with other people in the agency, been there for quite a while, so hopefully that helps as well because you know, if I, for instance, did the assessment, you know I like to be in a position where take people through the assessment and be involved in the actual match of the child to the couple and take it through them to the adoption being granted, which wouldn't happen necessarily with Trust. You can be passed around different people. So I think you know that is a big advantage and people do want to be dealing with somebody who they're familiar with right from when they first make their inquiry through to actually adopting the child. And yeah, generally we're quicker. You know, I think that the trusts there's a lot of bureaucracy, there's a lot of waiting times, similar to you know the other key agencies.
Brian:You know we don't have a waiting list where it's already now. You have to have in place children the past year to bring on new people. So you know we'd be ready to get started on people's applications if they do apply yeah, that's great.
Ness:So what I'm hearing from all of you is one of the advantages is working right across Northern Ireland. Its having a consistency of relationship, smaller teams, therefore you've smaller caseloads. So you're going to have a better connection. And you know we'll talk later about the after adoption support care, because obviously that's very important as well, and we're going to get to assessment process in a moment. But just for clarity's sake, can we talk a little bit about the referrals? These children who are being referred to our services, you know, are they the same children that the Trusts are trying to place? Who wants to jump in? Don't be
Hilary:We do what we'd answer that, Vanessa? Yeah, that would be great. Um, yes, I suppose. Uh, and again, you know if I, if you feel I miss something, certainly come in at the end, but you know the children, they're the same children they're, they're no different. It's maybe just that they're at a different point in their journey. But I think all the agencies here would be involved in um trying to find homes for children, could be really of any age, but we can be pretty certain that we'll get involved
Hilary:if children have been waiting for some time to be adopted and I think perhaps it's a bit of a shock sometimes to people to hear that children can be considered 'older' when they are at the age of four and upwards, if they're part of a sibling group, if they have some kind of additional, or maybe complexity, about their needs, maybe some kind of you know uncertainty about their development but those things can lead to children waiting because historically I suppose, if you think about it going back many years, people thought about adopting babies, adopting very young infants.
Hilary:But really, in terms of where things are at nowadays, when social services perhaps get involved with families, very often children are coming into care at that slightly older age and that might just be that they're coming into care when they're one, two or three, so that then translates that by the by the time sometimes processes have worked themselves out for their care plan they're that wee bit older when Trusts are able to start looking at adoptive homes for them. Um, so they're the same children that are in the fostering system, and that is one of the reasons that we in Barnardo's felt we wanted to move into this area of adoption, because we've been doing fostering for a long time and being able to match children very successfully who've had those complex backgrounds in permanent fostering arrangements in the past.
Ness:Yes, um, Lesley, I want to come to you in a moment about what we mean when we say 'additional needs', because I think you'll be very good to answer that as a trained counsellor. But, Brian, I just wanted to ask you, you know, one of the things that must be quite confusing is that the care plans for children can take a very long time to be agreed.
Brian:Yeah, I mean that that whole process can gets confusing for people who are coming to adoption, which is a lot of sort of legal jargon that surrounds it. Um, I mean, I suppose maybe just to take an example that maybe might help even last year we placed a baby from hospital, so the the baby would have been about a month or so old. So that baby was born, had some medical complications, but stayed in hospital until the doctors were happy with the child's health, and so then the child would have moved to the prospective adopters.
Brian:So at that stage, you know, adoption isn't yet the plan hasn't been legally agreed, so that the carers would be essentially foster carers at that point. But, um, now that was just the further maybe confused people that would have been regarded as concurrent care placement which, um, I don't know people who've been looking at adoption, you know, understand concurrent care and and dual approval, but with the concurrent care, essentially what it means is that the Trust would have been looking to see if the parents was able to show that they, you know, were capable of looking after the child's needs and if the child could return to them. Now
Brian:in that, in our particular case Trust did brief assessment on the parents. It was clear, you know, because of the lifestyle, of difficulties off the parents that they wouldn't be able to look after the child long term. So the child then remained with the family and then the Trust's would put in place the plan then to have the child's adopted. So the the Trust would, would then make that sort of formal decision that the care plan for the child will now be adoption, so the child would then remain living with this family. They would go on then to apply to adopt the child once the freeing order was granted.
Brian:Now I know these sort of legal terms sometimes can confuse, confuse people. So they once, once the child is in care, that Trusts, have to apply for a freeing order, which basically means that the birth parents then lose parental responsibility for the child and then the Trust would have sole parental responsibility and can then make decision on behalf of the child. So you can end up with the child's moving to live with a family and then the application can be made for the freeing order. So that can take up to maybe six months or so, because usually the parents will oppose that. So that's where the sort of legal delays and things can, you know, make things difficult because that can take a bit of time. Now, the vast majority of cases, the freeing order is granted.
Brian:So once that order is granted, the couple or adopters can then apply to legally adopt the child so it's, you know it can take from when a child first moves to a family to the actual adoption order being granted can take, you know, around 12 months. So so it's not an easy process and legal situation can get, you know, quite stressful and complicated. But that's maybe a long-winded explanation of what's, what's the actual sort of process that's, that can be involved from point of placements through to the adoption order being granted.
Ness:That's really great. I mean, I think the big message there is that the child's care plan can be up in the air and
Ness:I think for anyone who has a child placed with them, they have to there has to be a level of emotional resilience, managing their expectations, because the whole legal system is really thinking about what is best for this child and they have to check absolutely every possible avenue before they can free a child, because that's a very serious decision. Lesley, I threatened to come back to you to talk about something Hilary mentioned, which is children with additional needs. What do we mean when we say children in the care system can have additional needs?
Lesley:Well, I guess we have to think about that
Lesley:any child that you know comes into the care system and is going to be considered for adoption has had a very difficult start in their life and they've probably experienced loss, abuse, trauma and neglect, perhaps pre-birth, so in the womb, or post-birth or both. So you know, our current sort of trauma research would indicate that, you know, experiencing that loss or abuse and neglect in early life can overwhelm a child's brain and nervous system. So you know what does that look like for the little infant or child that you know we see it may result in perhaps some difficulties, some maybe developmental delay or behavioral difficulties, or they may have some challenges attaching and bonding to their new caregivers. So when we say additional needs, that's typically what we're talking about, and part of the process is educating and supporting adopters, and that's what we do at Adoption Routes, and obviously the other agencies will do the same, to support individuals and couples who would like to parent these children. So yes, they're normal, ordinary children, but they do have additional needs based on the adverse early experiences.
Ness:Yeah, so that's great, Hilary. I'm just wondering if you'd jump in here about therapeutic parenting and how that does look slightly different perhaps to parenting birth children.
Hilary:I suppose it is something here that we, when we're starting to maybe provide a bit of training for people when they're coming through, that we begin to have a conversation with people about, and it probably is an extension of what Lesley has said. I think essentially, therapeutic parenting is about trying to come alongside a child, meeting them where they're at and parenting them, not necessarily in line with their chronological age, but thinking more about their emotional capacity, their mental resilience and, ultimately, I suppose I always think about it as trying to form connections with children. That can take time and require real patience from the grown-ups and people being prepared to come back time and time again to just help a child maybe learn something new, learn a new way of coping with. You know adversities that children face in their, in their childhoods, as they, I suppose, go to school and have friendships and things like that.
Hilary:But I always think of therapeutic parenting as being really about slowing things down and taking it step by step and when I think about, over the years, families that I've worked with as a social worker here who were looking after children, who, just like we've described, who'd maybe been in foster care for a period of time, maybe moved a few times since they'd come into care.
Hilary:I suppose one of the things we would always have said to those families was look for the small things, don't look for the big things. Think about something every day that you saw that child being able to do well and try to celebrate that, because I think that's sometimes what gets you through whenever you have those more challenging days and I suppose I always make the point as well that you know anybody parent and children is facing some of these issues, because that, I think, is part and parcel of bringing up we ones. But there is added complexity when you're taking on the care of children that are not born to you. But that is the job, I think, of all of us here professionals, the network that is wraps around people that we can go on that journey with you and help you, maybe see who you have in your own network that can step up and help you, and then that professional network works alongside you as well.
Ness:Yes, we have a foster carer turned adopter in our team who does a lot of the training, and I was sitting in one of her training sessions recently and she was talking about how, from a therapeutic parent in perspective, when a child is acting out, you might bring the child closer to you to try and understand and engage, whereas, you know, in the 90s it might have been the 'naughty step'. And I want to come to Brian and ask what he thinks about the importance of having support networks around you, who understand that the child that you have adopted might be playing out because of the experiences that they've had. It's not what the behavior is, it's what is representing, Brian?
Brian:Yeah, well, that can be the difficulty sometimes brought for, you know, your families who are looking at this child and maybe seeing them in the same way as you know the other children within the extended family. I suppose it's trying to get them to realize that these children have been through you know early life adversities and difficulties and trauma, and so how that does leave a mark on them and how that then means that they need a different approach.
Brian:For instance, whenever a child is being placed with perspective adopters we would always say to the family just to ask friends and family just to maybe not to visit for the first couple of weeks, just to give the child a bit of time to settle and get familiar with everything. Because you know that can be difficult for a child to have so many new faces suddenly coming in and that can be difficult for families you can imagine, because they are excited and happy that there's a child there. But you know it's just an example of how you can try to maybe educate and explain to family members. You know how this is going to be different. I mean, these are children who really need routine and boundaries and so, for instance, sometimes families might throw surprise birthday parties and things.
Ness:but these kind of children
Brian:they need like a sort of long run up to things like that. You know they need to know that it's going to be a birthday party next Saturday. You know you couldn't just spring it on them on the morning because they do get nervous and flustered and you know. So for family members it's kind of practical things to try to get them to see how that child is different, and even just in terms of behavior. You know these children can take time to settle and you know maybe the behavior can be quite difficult and challenging. So it's getting you know your extended family to realize you know maybe why that's the case, particularly in the early stages of placements.
Brian:Because you know these children can, as you can imagine, moving from, say, a foster home where everything is familiar with people who they know well, suddenly to be moving to a new home, new area, new everything. Really that can take quite a while for them to adapt. So hopefully you know they're actually Adoption UK Support group that would run like education or support sessions for extended family members, which can be useful because that then can hopefully help to explain to people's families you know how this is going to be different, how this child's maybe different compared to. You know their nephew or niece or grandchild, so that they are a little bit more prepared and you know more patient whenever the child does come.
Ness:Absolutely. And, Lesley, I just want to get your thoughts as well about children coming into a placement may have very complex, conflicted feelings that they don't really understand.
Lesley:Yeah, absolutely, and I maybe think about you know my own experience. When we adopted our daughter she was three and a half and you know she'd been in foster care prior to that and the day that we brought her home was obviously the happiest and most exciting day of our lives. It was sort of the culmination of quite a long journey. But for our daughter, I think it was a very confusing day and a very scary day because she was leaving everything that she'd ever known and moving somewhere new. And although we had prepared her and social workers had worked with her and the foster family had worked, it was still very, very scary. So there was contrast there between sadness and happiness.
Lesley:And I think you know what we sort of know is that it's really important to try and replicate the routines that they have maybe in their previous families or family homes or foster homes. You know, replicate smells, foods, those sort of things so they can be comfortable. And I think what got our daughter through in the early days was our two dogs. They were a great support for her. She loved the dogs. But you know it is, as Brian said, very important that we keep to really good routines and not overwhelm the child with lots of new faces, because the priority is for a child or children to know that this is their new, forever permanent family and that you know this will be their new mum or dad or dads or mums, you know, who are going to look after them and care for them forever, and they need that one on one attention. It's really, really important.
Ness:How long did it take for your daughter to settle in Lesley?
Lesley:I think in the very early days the smiles were really. You know, she was a really. She was a really smiley, happy and she is a very smiley, happy child. But there were, you know, there was a time, maybe a number of weeks, when there weren't very many smiles. So I would say that it did take a number of months and you know we would help her by folding up the foster care and letting her talk to the foster care to support the fact that her foster care was telling her you know, we love you and we were giving you permission to move to your new forever family. That was really important. I think.
Lesley:You know, when I look back on it, it was quite an intense time. There was a lot of sleepless nights for all of us in the beginning, but I'd say six months sort of really turned a corner by the time she came to us just before June and by the time we got to Christmas, I think we were all in, you know, a much better place in terms of. You know, the early things are very quick. Calling us mum and dad was the most exciting thing, you know, when we heard that that was early on, but it was the processing. It took her maybe six months to process that, and a lot of conversations at bedtime, a lot of reassurance really.
Ness:Yeah. So that's interesting and I think it's so important that you mention that how important that permission was from her foster family, because we also see that with children who come into foster care from birth family that sometimes they actually really like where they are and they feel not only the loss of birth family but they also feel guilt about feeling safe and loving the people that they're with. And then that's those complicated emotions or something that we all have to sort of work around. We'll get to training shortly, but I want to come to Hillary. We're interested in adoption. What does the assessment process look like? So, from the very first action, what happens?
Hilary:Well, from the very first action. I suppose most people I think nowadays and some of you on this call might have already started. You know, you might have been on websites, you might have been on Google putting in 'Adoption Northern Ireland', something like that and I think we do find a lot of people have already done some homework by the time they pick up the phone and have a conversation with one of our agencies and I think what people tell us is that's a big step that can take some time and it can be quite nerve-racking, and I think we'd all want to say that you know staff who are taking those calls are very mindful of that in all our agencies and really just try to take some information from you. And at that point it really is just about making sure that I mean very basic things, that you have a spare bedroom, that you understand a wee bit about what adoption might mean in one of our agencies and taking some basic information from you quite quickly.
Hilary:We usually nowadays I suppose the world has changed and we do sometimes still run information events in person but the much more common that we would do that with people online and then we go out and we would visit people.
Hilary:So we kind of say to you look, if you're still interested, if you'd like to hear more, let us know and we'll happily send someone out to visit you at your home and have, I suppose, a longer conversation with you about what your own circumstances are. I mean, we try to do all of that quite quickly, to be honest, definitely within a few weeks, and that's quite an important visit because we're trying to take enough information from people at that point where we can really come back and discuss with the manager and the service whether we feel this person, this couple, whoever it is, have what we feel is needed to be able to provide homes for the children who are being referred to us in our own schemes. So we would get back to people quite quickly when we make those decisions and the next stage really is coming on to a training course, a preparation.
Ness:Sorry, Hilary, the preparation training is that a standard course?
Hilary:Well, preparation to foster or adopt is what we call it in Barnardo's. So we have brought our training packages together so that we can train both foster carers and adopters together, and it is really about trying to give people a good grounding in what they're trying to embark on. And I mean I can get into telling you what the topics are, Vanessa, if you want me to, or can go on a little bit, because I think it's helpful to people get a sense of what that means preparation training.
Ness:what topics would you cover?
Hilary:Yeah, so we'd think. I think initially we'd spend a bit of time thinking with people about what is adoption, what would it mean for you to actually go down this road? Take it a step further, think more about the backgrounds of children that are coming into the system, that need to be adopted, and a bit more about what the process would be. We touch as well on children's development and some of their attachment needs and how they can be affected by experiences they've had, maybe through neglect or some experiences that have been abusive in the past, and we start to introduce that concept of parenting in a therapeutic way. We talk about PACE, so we cover a lot.
Ness:Hang on a second, hang on a second. You skipped over that. What was PACE?
Hilary:Well, PACE is, I suppose, what we're all trying to achieve actually as workers in the service here. We're practicing from that place as well and it is grounded in, I suppose, child psychology theory from Dan Hughes. Most people have heard of Dan Hughes and he talks about parenting from a playful place with children, being very accepting of the child in front of you, parenting from that place of acceptance and always having a curiosity so that's the say about what might be going on behind what you say a child's present and behaviour, but being curious about what might be behind some of that, and I think that's really important. And then the A stands for empathy, so that's really important. One of the things we're trying to do in assessment is make sure that we take people through who we feel can be very empathetic towards the situations that children are coming from, and that they are coming from a place of warmth themselves and compassion for the children and can hopefully go on that journey of understanding it all a bit better.
Ness:Okay, so that's great. Thank you so much. So what I'm really getting here is that the preparation training which all the agencies would be doing, some kind of preparation training, I'm guessing. Am I right, Brian and Lesley? For our agency
Brian:you know we wouldn't run preparation courses such as we wouldn't have big enough numbers to run. So usually what we would do is that the Trusts all run their own preparation courses, maybe two, three times a year, and so we would ask the Trust in the area where there are a couple is if they could give them a place on the course.
Brian:So usually, you know, Trust can be accommodating. So in that way it, you know, gives people the opportunity to go on the preparation course. Now in Trusts usually they would insist that you've completed that preparation course before you would begin the assessment. For ourselves, because we would have met you a couple of times we can kind of make some kind of assessment as to your readiness and suitability. So we feel you know that you are ready to start. Then we wouldn't necessarily wait until you've completed the preparation course because you know say because you only come around maybe every six months that you know that we don't want to lose too much time. I mean at some point, hopefully during the assessment process, even towards the end, that we still would like people to have gone on the preparation because it can help to reinforce all that would be discussed throughout.
Brian:the assessment Plus just gives you the chance to meet with other people in a similar situation, but it wouldn't be, you know, a stipulation that you have to have completed that first before an assessment can begin.
Brian:I think that sometimes is the problem with people who go to the Trust. There's that kind of blockage there. There's a lot of people on the waiting list waiting for a place on these courses because it's only a limited number of places so you can have. I mean, I spoke with people who even wait for 12 months or more because trusts have only so many places to allocate to people. So you know that was going back to why choose boundaries. Whatever, you know that can be an advantage and that's why, you know, maybe it wouldn't insist. The attendance at the course is a prerequisite before you may begin the assessment. I think Trusts use it as a way to maybe filter out people who haven't or maybe are not ready or haven't thought about it enough, whereas we would say do your own kind of mini assessment process at the beginning to you know, try and establish that people are committed and motivated and ready to begin.
Ness:Great, Lesley, have you got anything you want to add to that? Because I have to ask you you must have gone through this process. Was it helpful to be around other potential adopters?
Lesley:Yes. So just to answer that, first of all, Adoption Routes will be running their own preparation to adopt training courses because our numbers are growing in terms of prospective adopters. But I've actually been in that unique role where I've attended good number of years ago now because our daughter is 18, but I've attended that preparation to adopt course and nor it's two and a half days normally now, but when I was doing it it was six evenings over six weeks and, yes, I found it incredibly helpful. And now I have, over the last nine years, co-facilitated the preparation to adopt training for one of the trusts and it's been a fabulous experience for me because I am completely passionate about adoption. So I really want to help and support people who are thinking it might be right for them, and it's really.
Lesley:It's a fabulous start for people to meet other individuals and couples who maybe are thinking and they're not really sure is adoption right for them? Can they do it? What's it all about? What's the differences? And to spend time with other people in the same circumstances is great and lifelong friendships and relationships have grown from that and the knowledge and information most Trusts and trainers will bring in adopters who are living and breathing and doing the parenting, who will be able to talk about their day to day experience and, I suppose, talk about the challenges and the rewards of adoption, and I think so it's. You know it's time out of everybody's working schedule, but so worthwhile, no, that's fantastic.
Ness:And Lesley, could you talk us through after you've been on this introductory training, if you like? You might think, actually this is not for me, or you might think it's not for me right now, but hopefully in most cases people are saying, actually this is what I want to do. So what happens in the formal assessment process when you say, yes, I definitely want to do this?
Lesley:Okay, well, I suppose if you decide yes, you want to go to the next stage. This is for us. I want to know more. And you normally allocate to social worker and at Adoption Routes you will be allocated an experienced social worker who would call out to your house and to carry on home study or home assessment. Normally takes a number of months and maybe six to eight visits, some if it's a couple situation, quite a lot of meetings together, but some separately, and it's really an opportunity to find out more about adoption, find out more about the children, the types of children and their needs, but also for the social worker to start to build a relationship with you, because this social worker will likely be in, certainly with adoption routes, will be your support and your person throughout this journey, pre and post placement.
Lesley:So really important, and what's happening is it's a series of conversations. So I'm a bit of a talker, as you can probably hear! So some of our conversations and meetings would have gone on for, you know, two or three hours, the poor social workers spending that length of time with us. But we, you know, they found out a lot about us, they found out our motivation for adoption and we found out about the children and I suppose it's about trying to understand is adoption right in terms of what your limitations are, what you can accept, what you can't accept, understanding the types of needs and maybe doing some sort of role plays around that although it wasn't really role plays, but sort of scenarios where you would see maybe challenging behaviours and how you would react to it. So, just exploring those lifelong implications of adopting a child and creating a family, the impact it will be for you, for the child and for maybe your wider family. And along the way, there's things like checks on your medical health just to make sure that you're going to be well enough and fit enough to parent a child until their adulthood. There might be financial sort of checks to make sure that you're stable financially. You don't need to be rich, but you just need to be able to cover your bills and not have that stress. Make sure that your relationship is stable so you can support a family, be able to emotionally support each other and a family if you're in a couple situation and really then to explore maybe why you want to be an adopter.
Lesley:Some people, perhaps like ourselves, came through infertility reasons. So, unable to have our own biological child, we started to explore adoption. Sometimes it's same sex couples who are exploring adoption for that reason, or perhaps a single adopter, so everybody's motivation and reason can be different. And then it's about maybe seeing what sort of transferable skills you have. So what I mean by that is maybe the types of challenges and situations that have happened in your life perhaps loss, maybe broken relationships, how you recovered from those, what you learn from them and what you can bring to the parenting experience. So sometimes the questions can seem maybe a little bit intrusive, but it's all for the right reason, because really what we're thinking about here is providing a forever home for a child who hasn't had that opportunity, so it has to be the safest and best fit.
Ness:Yeah, I think that's great. Lesley, do you also want to mention how we also take in the family situation at home? There could be birth children. Do we want to say something
Lesley:about that? Yes, I mean I suppose sometimes there's kind of myths around. You know you have to. You know you have to be childless if you can to consider adoption and that's not the case at all. You know all of the agencies, and adoption routes as well, will be interested in anyone who thinks that they can become an adoptive parent. We want to hear from them and you know they may already have birth children, so there may be children in your family and that's certainly not a deterrent.
Lesley:What we would obviously do is take on board what your child's age and status is. What's going on for them, maybe interview them, talk to them. They're part of the process. They're part of the decision making process when we're thinking about placing a child. The child who would be considered for adoption and considered to be a good fit for your home would never be older than existing birth children. So your existing birth children would be you would have their place as the eldest in the family. But certainly it's something that we have seen work very well and advantages that you're an existing parent, so you have some experience of children and childcare and, as Hilary has mentioned, it is a different type of parenting. It is, you know, we need to look at therapeutic parenting, but along the way, you will bring many of the skills that we need as parents as well. So, yeah, no deterrent at all.
Ness:Fantastic. Brian, I'm wondering if you might come in here and talk about so we've gone through the assessment process. There's been all the sort of usual checks and, as Lesley beautifully pointed out, it is about keeping children safe when we place them with families. And we get to the point where all the everything's been ticked, every T been crossed, every I has been dotted and we come to panel. Can you explain what panel is?
Hilary:and the report!
Brian:And the report. Yeah, I suppose just maybe just briefly explain our own process. I mean the first stage once you've made the application, we'll be doing initial checks. So please check, medical reports completed and contacts made with referees who you would have nominated to complete written references. So that first stage usually can take maybe 46 weeks and then all being well, everything is fine.
Brian:Then second stage, reading and meeting with the social worker over three or four months period, so maybe be seven or eight meetings between a social worker and the, you know, applicants. So usually joint meetings and with one individual one each. So those meetings can happen either at home or increasingly, you know, online is something through the whole COVID period We've learned to, you know, do more assessments pretty much online, so that can be helpful for people as well. So that could be three, four months period. So then you know, once you've completed all the meetings with the social worker I know that assessment can be you know it's mentioned quite intense and stressful, but it was part of the purpose is also maybe to prepare you to, you know, look at scenarios and to answer questions as well.
Brian:So I think sometimes people see it almost like an exam that you have to kind of pass and get a certain mark. You know it's not quite like that. The idea is that hopefully you'll be more ready and prepared, as it offers, by the end of the assessment. So all those meetings, once they happen, the social worker has a difficult job and try to pull it all together and put it into a report and essentially then the reports would be making a recommendation as to whether you should be approved or not approved and the you would get to see the report and comments on the record as well. So next day's then is that it goes to an adoption panel. So adoption panel would be a group of people within the agency who are there to actually make a decision on the application based on the assessment reports and all the supporting information.
Brian:So an adoption panel is like a legal requirement that every agency adoption agency has to have a panel and that would be no more than 10 members, and there has to be a minimum of three people at a panel in order to make a recommendation. So the adoption panel can be made up of maybe the chairperson, so that's somebody who may be independent of the agency or could be somebody who's manager within the agency.
Brian:So social worker from the agency and medical advisor, maybe a legal advisor, but also be an independent person. So, for instance, on our own panel we have an adoptive parent, we also have birth parents, and so we try to try to get as much variety in terms of the membership so that people are coming at it from different areas of experience, and the adoption panel would be held in the agency office. So over the past couple of years we were doing it through Zoom and video because of COVID, but we've now gone back pretty much to face to face and I think that the panel as well can be stressful for people because this is really kind of decision time and that the panel will then be making a recommendation. Now you, as applicants, you would be invited to attend the panel.
Brian:And because it is important that you play a role in such an important decision.
Brian:So on the day you would the panel itself, so the social worker usually would go in to the panel, answer lots of questions, usually from panel members, about the application Hopefully all is all as well and that there's nothing significant and then applicants would be invited to join, to join the panel, and you'd be in for 10, 15 minutes and the idea is not to kind of reassess you, you know, maybe just as much, just to get a sense of you as individuals. It's one thing reading about people on paper, but I think it's nice for panel to actually see people and speak to them. So really the questions would be kept quite general. It's more about how you found the assessment process, maybe what you've learned or you know what challenges maybe you can tell, maybe you anticipate as an adopted parent. So you'd be there for maybe 10, 15 minutes and then panel. Would you go to the room, panel then with a quick discussion, then make a recommendation as to whether to prove your application or not, or they could decide whether they want more information on a particular matter.
Brian:The first panel really have three options when it comes to recommendations they approve it, not approve it, or else defer making the decision because they want more information. Now it's very rare that the return on application time at panel stays because really it's a social worker's job to anticipate that there are difficulties that it's not worth bringing it to the panel because you know you have an idea that the panel wouldn't approve it. So sometimes assessment might be put on hold. For instance, say, it's felt that somebody might be struggling in terms of fertility issues or you know even just accepting, or you know being in a position to, you know recognize that that is a difficulty for them. So maybe it could be recommended. That's take a little bit of time out for that.
Brian:So it can be different reasons why perhaps assessment might be put on hold. But generally you know we'd go through to the panel. They then would make the recommendation and you would be told that what the recommendation is. So you'd be recommended to be approved for to be one child, two children, whatever it is that you can make your application for, as dual-approved carer or concurrence carers and for particular age range of child as well. So once the recommendation is made by the panel, then all your information plus the minutes that the panel is sent on to the agency decision-maker so that person would be the manager within the agency.
Brian:They then look at all the information and gives the formal, makes the formal decision on behalf of the agency and generally the agency decision-maker would endorse the recommendation made and you know you would then be notified in writing of what the decision-maker's decision was, or else the decision-maker sometimes may be might request some information from the social worker on some particular issue before they will make the final decision, but generally they will make that decision based on all the information that's presented to them. So usually within four weeks of the panel having met, the decision-maker would have made their decision and then say you're notified of that and then at that stage you would be on the agency's approved list of the documents to be considered for children and for ourselves as well, probably for Barnardo's and Adoption Routes. We would also do would be to contact the adoption regional information system, so the people who come across that, the ARIS, A-R-I-S, and that would have a register of all approved adoption parents in Northern Ireland. So whether you've gone through your voluntary agency or through your Trust, your basic details would be passed on to the ARIS register. So you would then be in a position where ARIS would be looking to match you with any children that they're looking for families for, Because Trusts would also use ARIS to send through details of children that they're looking for families for.
Brian:So certainly for ourselves. That's how a lot of the matches with children would happen is that once ARIS receives the details on one of our approved couples, we'll have a look at the list of children here or there and see if there's potential match. So we may look at what the age range of a couple or applicants may be, what's their background, may be interested in, and so suggest to your trust that a particular applicant, a approved couple, may be suitable. And so that was us moving on to the next sort of the matching process. But that's how that process then would get underway.
Ness:That's great. I'm going to just point out we are five past 12. If everyone's happy, we'll go on to half past, because I do want to talk about matching. I also want to talk about post adoption support, but before I get to those things, is there such thing as the ideal adopter? Are the panel looking for a certain type of adopter or is that just a myth? Who would jump in?
Lesley:Maybe I'll say something about that, because I come across a lot of adopters and I wouldn't say that there's any ideal adopter. I think there are maybe traits that many adopters share that help them and support them to parent these often traumatized children. So probably the first thing is that motivation to want to be a parent and to maybe be child centered. Also, that ability to maybe be open so open about perhaps things like the reasons why you want to be an adopter, maybe losses that you've experienced. Openness to work with agencies, so to work therapeutically to ask for help if you find the going difficult. Those parents, regardless of whether it's a birth child or an adopted child, will have challenges in parenting so it's. But we know that children who've experienced adverse early childhood experiences will have most likely more challenges.
Lesley:So openness to ask for help and maybe the ability to think a little bit psychologically about the child's needs, so that when I'm saying that, I'm talking about maybe being interested to attend some therapeutic parenting training, maybe to watch some YouTube videos on the likes of Dan Hughes, who's the guru on therapeutic parenting and pace that we talked about, but really having that I suppose resilience as well, that you know when the going gets tough, that you can sort of dig in there and roll your sleeves up and work with the child, get down to their level and, you know, have that ability to see the child with all of their maybe you know complex history. So, yeah, you don't. There's, there's. There's. No one type fits all. I think that's definitely the case, and it can be single or couples.
Ness:Yes, I like that, see the child entirely, which brings me quite neatly on to matching. And,H ilary, I'm wondering if you might be able to say something about this, because I've always believed that if we took our average child in our own families and wrote a report on them, they'd all come across as looking challenging. So when we see a child on who is up for adoption and who isn't being picked, what information are we getting? What happens in the matching process? And and I suppose, well, I'll ask you what is a matching process? I'll come back to my second question after that what happens?
Hilary:I think you make a good point, Vanessa. You know in your question just about anybody's child, if somebody came along and started to analyse what, how they behave and how they, you know, get along on a good day or a bad day, they would write different things about that child and none of us are just one thing you know where, or none of us are just one way of being, and I think children are no different. So I think probably what I would say is that matching is a really important part of the process and I think as agencies and as social workers involved in this type of work, we try really hard to come from that come, come towards that, I suppose, with a very balanced mindset. It really is about thinking about what the child's needs are and I probably a point I would make is just the child's needs and anticipated needs as they go through the rest of their childhood and depending on what age the child is now. And it is about setting that against what we know about you, so what we see your skill sets as having been, and those important conversations that will have gone on with people in the assessment, where we think very specifically about matching considerations, and I suppose that starts to form the basis of what matching is, and it can be things like people are approved and we'd like to look after one child, they may be prepared to think about a sibling group, and that can be a number of children and, again, age ranges. So just what age are people prepared to really think about and how wide can that be? You know so.
Hilary:And then it's things like religion sometimes, and sometimes birth parents will ask that social services try very hard that children are placed within the faith that they were born into, perhaps baptized, things like that. Sometimes that really isn't a consideration and we would have that information usually at the point where we hear about children, so we can tell you that. And it's thinking about, maybe what a child's needs will be as they go through school as well and education, and we've talked a wee bit about what their health needs are, and some children can have quite a lot of appointments maybe in terms of medical conditions that they live with. So that I suppose all comes into the mix when we think about matching. But it takes some time, is what I would say, and there's not one, there's usually a number of people's heads go into this, so the child's social worker has a really important part to play.
Hilary:Your own social worker from the agency and if it's through the ARIS scheme, I suppose the staff there they're playing a bit of a role as well in thinking about matching because they sometimes have had some contact with the children when they're developing profiles on them for sharing with prospective families. So in some respects it's a complicated process but we try to take our time with it and try to get it right. And this very recently I was involved in a family coming through an approval panel and I think just sat with me. One of the things that the assessor felt she really wanted to say to the panel was that the starting point needed to be the match being right, so that being really key to making some of this work. So I don't know if that answers your question.
Ness:Yeah, no, I think that's great and I'm going to ask Brian, like the second part of that question. One of the things that's really surprised me not being a social worker is the mismatch between the children who are free to adopt and perhaps what some approved adopters are looking for, and I'm wondering if you could say something about that.
Brian:Yeah, as you say. You know, Vanessa, that's you know.
Brian:I think that we would always say to people if they're looking to apply to us, in terms of age, we would want people to, you know, to consider children, say, between babies and five years old, because you know, for us, I think, in the Trust sometimes people can, you know, just want to be considered for babies or children older than two, and that's something where the difficulty can be is that they then sit on waiting lists with Trust because typically the children you know are three, four, maybe a bit older and they might be some younger children. But I think you need that. We would want that flexibility with people to consider an age range that would make it realistic that we could find a child for them. And also in terms of one or two, I mean the assessments you know so, where people decide if they want to be approved or assessed for one child or two siblings as well. So that's, you know, if you're approved for one, then you can't really then be considered for siblings once you are approved, because you know that goes back to the panel that they're recommending that they're suitable, say, for two children for a certain age range.
Brian:But yeah, I mean that mismatch you're talking about. There are children who are waiting, who are older, and I mean the past year, that's in Northern Ireland, there were 108 children adopted in the average age of 10. That it often was four or one half. So you know that's going to show you that there are younger children, but that there are children that that's slightly older age, because they're maybe coming into care of two or three years old and because of that legal process that can take a while before it's decided that adoption is the plan.
Brian:That's why they can be that slightly older age you know, with ourselves in terms of that process.
Brian:I've mentioned ARIS that say if ARIS suggests to a Trust that one of our approved couples is suitable. The Trust with will say myself. Give me basic information on a child or the siblings and then I would share that with the, with the approved couple or adopters, and it's for people to decide at that point if they're interested. Sometimes people take a look at the information and it will be quite general and basic. But you know from that they may decide in terms of maybe health problems or you know what the family history may be or things like that, and they may decide that child is not suitable for us and that that's fine. You know there's no obligation to accept the first offer of child. This may be because you know, it's only you who can decide.
Brian:I've offered three, four children sometimes to people and then they turn them down and just say just doesn't feel right. And then on the fifth time, just sometimes something clicks or they see something. So the matching process, it's not. It's not a science. You know it's comes down to. You know that that sort of spark or that sort of X factor or whatever. You know something. People just see a child, sometimes they know that one's not right for us and then, conversely, see a child and decide that one is for us. We may not get a photograph or a video of the first is.
Brian:I think it's important sometimes that people read the information and then from that you know if you are interested and want to take it further.
Brian:Then certainly you get a lot more information and you know you would meet with the Trust and they will give you photographs and a video and a lot more detailed information on the child's health history, family history. So by the time you have to make a decision on whether you want to be matched with the child then you will have had, every opportunity to get as much information as possible. You may be able to meet with the child's foster carer. You could meet with the Trust medical advisor. So as much as possible we're trying to give you as much detail on the child. So that's you know, you know what's basically, you know what's the child's background and history is and what the challenges maybe so so that you know that can take a little bit of time. I mean, the ARIS that we had mentioned say that register. They can suggest matches and so in that way you could be paired up with a child Or also, twice a year ARIS would have an exchange day as we had yesterday actually.
Brian:So where Trusts will profile children who they're looking for families for, so approved adopters can tell online so you can go along and look at the information being presented by the child's social worker, see photographs, see videos and, if you're interested, express an interest so that that can be another way where you've got a more kind of proactive involvement and actually looking to see if there's a particular child that might suit you, so that there's various ways in which matches can happen. But it's really very much down to the approved applicants to decide themselves Is that child right for us? Nobody will ever make you take on a child that you're not comfortable with, because ultimately, you know, this is a lifelong decision that you're making.
Ness:I'm very conscious of time and I've got a couple of important questions to ask you all. Just very quickly, if you are interested in a child you've been to one of these days, you've seen the videos. What happens next? Is there an opportunity for you to meet the child before a formal match is created? What there other meetings inbetween?
Brian:you I know that say, whenever you're interested in a child you'd meet with the Trust. You would get lots of written information, medical information, family history. The social worker, usually from the Trust, would come out to meet you at your home, answer whatever questions you might have. Once you've got all the information, say, you may be able to speak with the child's foster carer, but you wouldn't meet with the child at that stage. So you would only meet with the child once the decision has been taken that you've been matched with the child. So say, for instance, you've got all that information, you're happy and the Trust are happy that this is a suitable match. What has to happen then is that the trust adoption panel go back to panel again.
Brian:Trust adoption panel have to give the agreement that they believe that the proposed adopters are suitable couple or adopters for the child so that they will look at all the information go back to the assessment report, all the information on you plus the information on the child, and then from that they will make that decision if they feel that the match is suitable. And so if they do decide that the match is suitable, then at that point the plan is drawn up that you would go to meet with the child. So that could have maybe three, four weeks after the panel has agreed. So, as you can imagine something, particularly where one person is going to have to give up work, that you don't necessarily have a lot of time or notice to suddenly then take time off work because there's an expectation you would take maybe up to a year and you would be entitled to adoption leave. But you know that's from that panel making the decision, say, within maybe a month or so you would then meet with the child. So that process is all carefully drawn up as well. That's the Trust would basically draw up over the course of a week.
Brian:You know a plan is what's going to happen each day. So usually the first day you would go to meet with the child in the foster home. That'd be the first time you'd actually see and meet the child, and also just in order to prepare the child. Obviously this depends on the age, but to prepare the child for meeting the proposed adopters. Usually we would ask people to prepare a little video of themselves which always terrifies people and maybe a photograph album. So it's a way for the child to see who's this new family going to be here. Are these new parents?
Brian:I mean literally three minutes, maybe you at home, show them around your home, your pets, the garden, things like that. So by the time you would meet with the child they would know a little bit about you. You would obviously know a lot about them. And then over maybe a course of a week you would get to meet the child every day, build that relationship and then usually within the week that child would move with you to live with you. And that's that's sort of the beginning and that's that's the stage of the process.
Ness:Okay, that's great, so we've got about five more minutes. If you have any questions that you want to ask and you want to pop them in the chat, please do. I do want to get on to post adoption support. So, Hilary, what does post adoption support look like?
Hilary:Well, I suppose I think it's important to say that any adopter here has access to support through Adoption UK, which is charitable organization with a focus solely on adoption here, very active and very interested to really support families on this adoptive journey, providing elements of training, social events, and then, of course, ourselves and our own agencies. We would be doing support as well, and it might look a bit different in how that works for each of us, but certainly with ourselves. We've already mentioned I think Lesley talked about the social worker who might have done the assessment with your family will hopefully then become the person who starts to help you on the next stage of your journey and through that matching process that Brian has talked about, and then when a child actually comes, to live with you. So we would have social workers here who would visit people for a period of time after that and certainly until after the adoption order has been granted, for maybe around 12 months after that. But people would always be linked into their agencies through perhaps whatever training programs that they are offering, and I had a look through what training and support we have we have been offering to people this year. I mean, we offer those sorts of therapeutic parenting courses to people. It can be things like providing workshops to adopters, foster cares together In this organisation. Maybe topics could be things like supporting children who have been impacted by parental substance abuse which is something we have done recently, we've held workshops. Thinking about issues like foetal alcohol disorders and self care can be quite a big focus of support groups for our agencies. So the support can be into social worker but very much into your community as well, your peers, your people who are doing this as well, who are part of Adoption Routes, Family Care or Barnardo's and really trying to build up that network around families so that it is much bigger than just a professional support network.
Hilary:And certainly we find that when we get that part of it, that part of the jigsaw right, that can be sometimes what makes a real difference for people. If they think they can pick up the phone and speak to someone they've met through a group they've come to, maybe they've come to a social event that we've been running for families and they know that person's comfortable to have a chat with them about maybe experiences that they've had in the past and just take a wee bit of time with people if they've maybe ran into a bit of a difficulty. I mean. Other things that we've done here might be around helping people if they need to respond to disclosures that children make. Could be thinking about how you can support children if they are diagnosed with ADHD, things like that, and it's look, do you know what? The support
Hilary:it changes every year. We try to mix it up, try to make it look a bit different, but we try to make sure that it's relevant for the families that we're working with, because really what we're interested in is trying to build up that community around people and make it as strong as we possibly can. Post adoption support, you know, there can be other elements to it as well, Ness, but those are some of the basic things that I think we'd all be trying to provide. Certainly, in the first instance, there can be sometimes more specialist support, maybe levels or maybe counselling. Some children might have life story work completed with them, things like that. So it can I suppose it can be quite individualised to whatever your own situation is.
Ness:Yeah, we should definitely do a session on life story work, because that's a whole hour in itself. Lesley, what's been helpful to you as an adopter, post adoption?
Lesley:I suppose I would probably say the support, the ongoing support of my social worker, who has been available throughout the life of our adoption and who knows and understands us and our child's needs, and that's fantastic, a fantastic resource to have. And then also the opportunity to avail of training through play organisations like Tessa, which is part of Adoption Routes and Family Routes and it provides a therapeutic and educational support service and it provided that for us. So it's really working with families and working with the parents, because the parents ultimately provide the safe base for the child. So if parents are supported to parent therapeutically, then that can be hugely helpful for the child. Also, peer support, talking to other adopters, maybe training with other adopters, attending self care events like mindfulness those things have been great.
Lesley:Some of the other activities that Tessa has been around now for seven years and it's been funded by Big Lottery, so we've done things like parent and child therapies, parent and child days those type of events have been great. Our daughter has availed of art therapy and music therapy as a teenager, so she's had the opportunity to meet other children, other young people who are adopted and be part of that adoptive family community within Northern Ireland, because we all want to feel that we belong and that's been great to be with people who understand your circumstances, who just get. It is hugely supportive for adoptive parents and children young people.
Ness:That continuity. Oh, I can't speak. I'll give up. Right, that continuation of relationship is very important and I'm hearing that loud and clear from all the agencies here represented today. We had a couple of questions Once approved for adoption, what is the average time for matching?
Brian:Well, I suppose it wouldn't be an average time. It can be from a couple of weeks to months. So really it just depends on what children are there. So back, I suppose, again to the age range that you're approved for. So if you're approved for children up to five, then it gets greater likelihood of potential match happening. But there's no kind of set times. That can happen quickly or you may have to wait away.
Ness:Okay and any of the agencies supported single prospectives with physical mobility problems and had a successful outcome.
Hilary:I suppose what I would say is that we would look at anyone's inquiry or application and take that very seriously and, like we've said, we would take information from you, come out to meet you and think about how we could work with you with those, whatever your own personal issues are. So I don't think you should say that as a barrier would be what I would say and not something to rule yourself out from. Certainly make the inquiry and the agency can consider that with you.
Ness:Great, Brian. Lesley, have you got anything to add?
Brian:I suppose it just goes back to the initial checks. One of those checks would be the medical report that they completed. So at that stage any health considerations would be looked at and our agency would have a medical advisor who would look over the information. So we'd be guided by her in terms of whether to take an assessment forward at that stage. So that just depends on whatever the health circumstances might be.
Lesley:Yeah, yeah, and I think again what Hilary said don't rule yourself out. You know, pick the phone and talk to the social worker and explore it, because you knew that idea that maybe slightly older child might fit into your family because of maybe your circumstances, maybe a baby wouldn't fit quite so well. So there are children out there waiting for forever family. So I think just find out if it's possible.
Ness:Yeah, so I think that's great. And one last thing I wanted to just observe is we've had quite a few adoptions of children who are well over the age of five through fostering. So there is something about the sort of gap between expectation and the child you end up falling in love with. Advice on selecting the right voluntary agency for you. Oh, come on, we're all here. I could answer this one, because I think it would be impolite. I think you should talk to everybody and just see who you gel with, because you're going to be meeting the pet. I think we probably all are very good at what we do, but it's going to be about the personalities that you meet and who's going to take you through a process which is really intense to get to the point where you are able to adopt a child. So my feeling is research, research, research. Go meet people. That's what my feeling is. Well, I'm going to call it. Oh, did I hear something else?
Hilary:No, I just said I think you're right, Vanessa. Just do your research and make your enquiries and see what feels good in your stomach, what feels good in your, you know, inside.
Ness:Absolutely. It's the same pool of children. We all win by getting children placed, and that's all that really really matters at the end of the day. I'm going to call it a day and say thank you so much to our wonderful panel of guests Brian Downey from Family Care and Lesley Delaney from Adoption Roots, and Hilary Armstrong, my colleague at Barnardo's Fostering Adoption, and that was a lot and I also want to say thank you all for spending time with us this Saturday. We really, really appreciate it.