OPAN

Hi Ian

We have completed the ways to care programme as part of the Home for Life Programme. We then had a home assessment by an assigned social worker who came to the house and we never heard from him again. His supervisor then had to redo the whole assessment again. Its been over 5 months after we completed the ways to care and safe caring, and I have provided a profile to them, but our assessment is not complete and is outside the 90 day SLA. There were a few bumps but on the whole our experience has been one a lack of proactivity, ie there is little follow up, little care taken with us as potential care givers ie care giver care there is no sense that we are being recruited, and no sense of urgency at all. Overall the entire process to date has taken about a year and we are not yet in the pool. is there anyone there experiencing the same issues?   

We found CYFS to be very anti-adoption. All the couples in our group last year were furious at all of the training classes … even though it's proven that the best thing for a baby to be with a stable mother and father (regardless of bio or adoptive). It was so interesting to see the stunned looks at the CYFS workers when they were challenged by statistics that flew in the face of what they were trying to do. We were NOT impressed.

There are so many incredible couples willing to adopt a baby and have an open relationship with the birth mother/family. Girls really should see that adoption is such a beautiful thing when they are not in a good place to raise a baby. It's a fantastic option!