Tuesday 9 November 2010

an update on what has or hasn't been happening!

minutes got taken back to panel and signed off at the end of october, so little man is now officially over and done with :-(

on a high note, we may finally have found our mutual exchange, so if all goes through ok we will be moved by christmas!!!

we are still in limbo with family finding, until our sw takes our form f back to panel, which is still looking like new year, as she will need to come out once we have moved to do a new safety check, it's just annoying as we want to get on with finding our son/daughter now, especially as we find a lot of children who could be suitable for us in CWW and BMP!

oh well as they say, 'patience is a virtue' 'good things come to those who wait' and 'everything happens for a reason'

Thursday 14 October 2010

14th oct 2010-where we are now

where we are up to now.

well we have had one visit from our sw, been given some homework that she wants updating, this has been done and emailed back to her, she needs to come back probably in dec to show us our updated PAR, and then it is to go back before panel, which will be sometime in january, and then she will start looking for a new link for us.

the minutes are due before panel this month so get signed off.

hopefully we won't be waiting long for a new link to come to light.

disruption meeting aug 2010

had to go to assessing la, for disruption meeting, to establish what went wrong and what could have been done to help.......well not much really, seen as it wasn't anyone's fault.

had meeting, then everyone left and it was just us and our sw and adoption manager, to discuss what happens next. we had concerns they wouldn't want to keep us on, as we were out of their catchment area, but as it happens they were willing to do so, just had to update our PAR etc and wait for the minutes to be typed up.

guess it's just a case of waiting and waiting now.

little man is no more :(

bad news, bd has won the case and had everything revoked, had to give up on little man, so not fair.

intros to start may 2010

It's the start of the intro's now at long last we get to meet our little man!

day 1, went for planning meeting etc and then met little man for the first time after school, it was fab and even got a hug when we went to leave!

days 2-4, spending time with little man, getting on great, but could be a spanner in the works, bd is opposing siblings adoption order, and wants all kids back.

INTROS HAVE BEEN STOPPED, SO SAD

bd has won the first bit of his case, now left in limbo waiting to see what is going to happen

Panel Day, 26.04.10

Hooray, today is panel day!

Well, we were a late morning panel time, so it was a case of get up, try and relax for a bit, and set of in plenty of time for our journey of approx 80 miles, well as it happens we got there in plenty of time, met another couple waiting, who as it happened had been assessed by the same sw as us, and surprise surprise they were running late!

When we finally got called through (only 1hr 15mins late), we were put into a small room until we were asked to go through, when in the room there were about 10 people sat around the table, but only 6 were actually 'panel' people and would be making the decision.

We sat around the table just chatting at first, did all the intros and got asked 5 questions, which we had seen before hand, so had prepared some answers.

We were only in there for about 15/20 mins, when we were asked to leave so that they could go onto the matching part......not that we had been told whether we were approved or not!

Finally, after what seemed like hours, our sw, little man's sw came out, and just before the chairman came in to tell us officially they gave us the nod!

So, the chairman of panel came in the room and said that it was an unaminous yes on all counts.

YIPPEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

the start of our adoption journey

After suffering from m/c and then subsequent IF, we decided to try for adoption. After many approaches to many different agencies and LA's and a house move to get a bigger place, we finally started to get somewhere.

We started this stage of our journey back in May 2009, when we first enquired about little man and his brothers in Be My Parent, we were not yet approved or even with an agency at this time. However the family finder and children's social worker came to visit us in the June/July time, they decided to proceed with regards to getting us assessed and approved regarding little man only as he was the eldest and needing a forever family, which was so far eluding his social worker.

We were invited onto the preparation course the first 2 weekends of September 2009 (fri&sat), we duly attended this, after which we were asked what we thought and if we wanted to proceed further. We of course did, and we formally applied to become adoptive parents later that same month.

Our application was accepted, and we were assigned an independant social worker to commence our home study, as we were living out of their catchment area.

Our home study was started in October 2009, and as it was being based specifically around little man, it was done intensely, to start it was over 3 full days, 2 and 1/2 with us and the other half spent seeing our referees. Then there was one more visit to come at the beginning of December.  During this time we had to have our medicals, the first ones weren't great and we had to have another one done each as they had picked up on some things and wanted proof they had been addressed. Luckily these were ok.

In amongst all this we had been fitting in meetings with little man's FC, paediatrician, school etc, all of which went well and put our minds at ease about some of his problems.

We were initially going for a panel date in Feb 2010, however things weren't ready on time, then our SW was on leave, so we were told to get everything in place for a panel date of 15th March, with intros starting a week later, with moving in date being easter hols.

Big news the week before panel date, panel had been put back due to lack of communication between people.......so so angry about this as DH had booked leave etc from work which he couldn't get back, and i had to mess my work about regarding time off.

Having calmed dh down as he was ready to jack it all in after being messed around many times, we picked ourselves back up and waited for a new panel date.

Finally received a new and confirmed panel date, for approval followed by matching.