Posting this a few days after the event - been a busy week is my only excuse – oh and the iPad needed charging so didn't post from that in bed as I have been doing
Today was about the remainder of the process on the whole. We started looking at our ecomaps (support networks) – it was interesting to see how other people had done theirs. We had the only fully computerised one – unsurprisingly for us as we are both very much happy on a computer than handwriting stuff.
So we all talked about our support networks and who would give us practical and who would give us emotional support. We didn't think to put the other prep group members on ours but I am sure they would be there. Also there are the as needed services like the After Adoption Support team at the council. But for us I suspect our biggest support will be N & M as they have been down his path. Both sets of parents will give us what support they can – but my dad is moving jobs back south although at moment Mum intends to stay up here for a significant part of the time and keep the main home up here. It was interesting hearing everyone else talk about it – and also talk about who they had told about going through this process. T and I have both been pretty open – but then again in our jobs it is only fair to be so.
After this discussion we then had the adoptive parents come and speak to us – they were on their prep course the one after N & M, and this was their first time coming to speak to a group. It was fascinating to hear them talk about the process after the group and the matching and I think for us it was good to hear pretty much what we had been told already by N & M. Over lunch while talking with another couple of the course discovered we did have a link – the wife’s cousin is the lady from N & M’s course that she is probably closest to. This is the couple who live a stones throw from us which made it even more bizzare. Lunch was a shared meal as we had all brought something - I had my flapjacks and Brownies that I had made on the Monday night as I had given orchestra a miss due to be drained after concert on Sunday.
After lunch K went through what came next in terms of the home study, adoption panel, matching etc. It was interesting to here from a SW's point of view and she did say that we should hear shortly after Christmas how long it will be before we will get our SW appointed. So going to be on tenterhooks to then. One thing she did say was that we should get a provisional adoption panel date at start of study which may be moved ins something comes up but at least will give us an idea. And at least I now know it will not be the same day as my Board in June - as they occur on a Monday. At the end she gave us copies of the Prospective Adopter’s report – which is what our SW will fill in for us for panel and also the Self Evaluation Form that we will be spending the next few weeks before we get a SW appointed filling in. T and I spent Wednesday night looking through the SEF and talking about some of what it raised.
Finally S did a bit on lifework and lifebooks and explained a little about how we can use it to help answer the child’s questions about where they come from etc. It is something I do want to know more about along with attachment so suspect I shall spend some time reading about it.
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