December 2009

FAMILY FUTURES WINTER NEWSLETTER

Autumn has been a busy time for us at Family Futures but we are apprehensive about the future and how the credit crunch will impact Local Authority spending over the next couple of years. It would seem tragic if adoption and adoption support services were to pay the price for the banking crisis.

We have two long standing members of our team who are leaving Liz Ronan and Louis Sydney. Liz is returning to her heartland of Newcastle and Louis is leaving after nine years to set up his own private practice and to spend more time with his family. Family Futures would like to thank them both for the contribution they have made to our service and wish them well in their new endeavours.

ANNUAL STATISTICS

Below is the latest statistical update of the work we are currently doing:

In the past 18 months we have been contracted to carry out 46 phase one child focused assessments and 10 court assessments.  Please see the table below:

Assessments

In the past 18 months Family Futures have 56 families who are currently in our treatment programme. Please see the below table:

Treatments

It is significant that over half of the families seen for treatment are sibling groups. This supports our view that sibling placements are more complex, the parenting more arduous and establishing secure attachments to new parents more difficult. None of the treatment families disrupted which is a tribute to those families and to our treatment programme as families only get funding by a large if there is a fear that the placements will disrupt.

We are constantly reviewing our treatment model. We have found that the paediatric OT treatment programme to be very helpful and effective. We are still learning about the role of nutrition and its affect upon behaviour. One thing we can say is that we are clear that there is often a connection even if we are not always clear what the mechanisms at work are.  Anecdotally we are aware of a number of children who have had undiagnosed wheat and lactose intolerance. These conditions add to the distress the child might be experiencing. These newer developments mark a shift in our thinking and practice away from purely psychological attachment based approaches towards a more integrated neuro-physiological understanding of the impact of stress on child development. 

i-ADOPT- The Following Is Extract from Our Annual Agency Report

There has been a strong and positive response to i-Adopt from couples and individuals considering adoption. To date we have had 114 inquiries. We have been pleasantly surprised that we haven’t had to aggressively market i-Adopt. A combination of our own website, BAAF and Adoption UK’s website have drawn people to us. Our impression is that many of these inquirers have approached Local Authorities but have not been actively taken up by them because of the following;

• Local Authorities have been prioritising black and ethnic minority candidates
• Local Authorities appear to have long lead in times which leave inquirers frustrated
• Local Authorities seem weary of candidates with complex histories
• Local Authorities appear to respond to local priorities for recruitment and are not recruiting with an interagency or national perspective

Family Futures we have endeavoured to be inclusive, to see potential strengths in applicants from complex backgrounds and to look at the national picture.

Our first cohort of applicants consisted of 10 couples or individuals. So far one single woman and two couples have gone to our panel and have been approved. We are about to embark on the next phase which is matching and placement with these applicants. As a staff group we have found the i-Adopt service exciting and inspiring but also complex and challenging at times. We feel that we are still on a steep learning curve.

SOME POINTS ON THE  LAST 18 MONTHS OF i-ADOPT

Comment from Agency Advisor’s perspective

What we wanted to achieve
By establishing i-Adopt, we hoped to achieve an adoption agency and Panel in tune with contemporary adoptive families’ needs and to be ‘fit for purpose’ in meeting the challenges of 21st century adoption with more traumatised older children requiring nurturing permanence.

We hoped to significantly reduce the delay, too often occurring in traditional assessment of adoptive applicants, by tailoring it to their, and the children to be placed, particular needs. We hoped to reverse the normal 80/20 % preparation and assessment/support split. In future adopters should receive enough preparation and support with a greater focus on sufficient long term support to enable effective therapeutic re-parenting. In order to learn, adopters can only really be prepared so far as they need the real experience of parenting. Preparation, assessment and support of and with adopters should be carried out by a multi-disciplinary team in a rigorous, scientific and empathetic way, not by a lone social worker making home visits over a long period resulting in an over-descriptive report without a sufficient range of evidence to support a recommendation.

We wished to dispense with the traditional assessment report format, not for the sake of change for its own sake, but to ensure the voice of the potential adopter was to the fore, that the educated and prepared support network was central, and that the team assessment’s recommendation was backed by a multi-disciplinary array of evidence with analysis predominating over description. And that the Panel receiving the reports and applicants, whilst maintaining appropriate ‘distance’ from the agency and questioning rigour, would be wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary, adopter and traumatised child-orientated and be seen as part of the empathic and effective support from i-Adopt.

What have we achieved?
At time of writing, it’s still early days with so far only 3 ‘sets’ of adopters being approved. Of course assessments coming to Panel have taken longer than anticipated because of CRB and other delay glitches but well within National Adoption Standard timescales. Possibly, more importantly, a process is being established that will in time significantly halve the ‘normal’ lengthy adoption agency process by eliminating the information evening and preparation course stages and replacing them with downloadable website information and individualised preparation and assessment phased programmes carried out by a multi-disciplinary team mainly at Family Futures. Having an initial screening phase before a formal application is lodged and assessment started, though still fraught with possible delays by external factors such as CRB, has prevented non-starters and more importantly clarified issues early on which have allowed assessments to progress on a firmer basis.

We are in the process of reversing the traditional 80/20 split and have slimmed down the preparation and assessment process which should allow a greater and coherent emphasis on long term support post-placement. But, until our adopters have children in placement, its effectiveness cannot be properly evaluated.

We have dramatically and effectively moved away from the lone social worker assessment model to a multi-disciplinary team approach. Future family, friend and professional networks have become central with a network support meeting at the applicant’s home being a significant part of the process and report to the Panel. Prospective adopters have responded enthusiastically to this approach. All have said that, though the approach has been challenging and painful at times, they have grown and developed and found the experience very rewarding, and feel as prepared as they can be for caring for traumatised children. Applicants have appreciated the streamlined yet thorough team approach.

A preparation and assessment report format has been developed which does ensure the adopter’s own voice is heard at the beginning (and throughout), the team approach with the active participation of the applicant is clearly stated, a report of the network meeting is integral, analysis and the recommendation are supported by appendices with detailed reports of the range of measures used to assess the applicant’s suitability to adopt including ASI, parent/child scripting assessment, adult executive functioning questionnaire, couple MIM and experiential exercises such as sand tray.

A positive Panel is being created. In its short life, steered by an effective independent Chair Bridget Betts, it has demonstrated thoroughness and rigour and has not been afraid to ask difficult and necessary questions. At the same time, Panel has successfully conveyed to prospective adopters the Family Futures’ approach of being ‘on the side’ of adopters and seeing them as the solution not the problem for traumatised children. A range of disciplines is represented on Panel including paediatrics, child psychiatry, educational psychology and social work with three experienced adopters and an adopted person helping to ensure the personal experience of adoption is given prominence. There is an appropriate gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation balance and Panel receives good medical, legal and professional advice and sound administrative support.

All this augers well for the future development of i-Adopt with its twin aims of Family Futures providing the full continuum of adoption services and being a demonstration project to change for the better the way prospective adoptive families are prepared, assessed and supported.
Adrian Briggs 26 October 2009

Comment from applicant’s that have been to panel

There is no getting away from the fact that adopting children is daunting and when we met Alan we both felt we had found the right team to support us. We quickly built a rapport with key members of our team and others in the office; they are a friendly and kind bunch at i-Adopt. As we progressed into the various focus events we found that our experience was tailor made around our individual and collective needs.  Some days were more challenging than others; however, we always felt that our best interests were at heart and that we needed to go through these times to truly be prepared for adoption. The build up to the adoption panel was excellent, we both felt well prepared for the event and we are now working with the team to find our family. 

Alan, Liz, Charlotte, Dee and Kathy have been a great team to work with and we both look at them as more than simply employees of i-Adopt, they are more like friends. We have really enjoyed working with them as we developed our knowledge around adoption and having children with trauma in our lives. Knowing that there is a host of services that the team can provide gives us more confidence for our future with children and we would like to have the team involved post adoption.

We are proud to be one of the first adoptive parents to have partnered with i-Adopt and we would have no hesitation in advising others to do so, they are great people who care.
J & J 2009

Comment from chair member on adoption panel

A view from the Chair …
It has been an exciting and at times a daunting and challenging experience as chair of the new i-adopt panel. I believe we have a robust panel on which a range of disciplines and professional and personal experience of adoption are represented. We have good legal and medical advice and excellent administration and support through Kathy McLoughlin. We also have an experienced and very competent panel advisor, Adrian Briggs, who has been key in setting up and advising the panel.

Panel first met as a group at training on 17th December 2007, a day facilitated by Sarah Borthwick, an independent trainer and consultant. The focus of the day was to get us all up to speed on the legal implications of the Adoption and Children Act and related legislation and to give the opportunity to discuss issues for the new i-adopt agency and panel. It highlighted the increasing complexities of adoption in the 21st century and the demands of parenting a child from the looked after system. I was also reminded whilst reflecting on the somewhat tricky quiz that Sarah provided that adoption is the most regulated area of child care!

A ‘shadow panel’ was held on 22 January 2008. There was opportunity for us to get to know each other a little better and decisions were made as to how we would like to operate as a panel. We also participated in the making of a DVD explaining the role of panel for applicants and each panel member had the opportunity to explain their role on panel and experience of adoption.

Panel met again on 30 September 2008 for an update on developments in i-adopt and had an opportunity to discuss and explore the i-adopt assessment format and process some depth. We also had opportunity to review and comment on the DVD filmed back in January.

A number of panel dates had been cancelled in the interim as inevitably it had taken longer than the agency originally anticipated to become registered and then fully operational and to take an applicant through the assessment process. Panel met gain on 30th June 2009 to consider its first application from a single carer who was subsequently approved. Panel members were robust in their analysis of the applicant’s strengths and vulnerabilities and in their questions. Panel had the opportunity to feedback on the assessment format and some of those suggestions have subsequently been incorporated by the agency in the assessment format.

Panel met on 22 September 2009 to consider two applications both from couples. They presented different challenges and panel demonstrated its ability to have a rigorous discussion of the issues and was not afraid to ask difficult questions. Both couples were approved.

It is early days for us as a panel, we still are finding our feet, but I believe we have established a strong foundation on which to work effectively together utilising the considerable strengths and experiences of panel members. We have managed I believe thus far to manage the tension between think traumatised child and supporting and empowering adopters as potential parents to these children and to ensure that their voice is clearly heard in the process. It is exciting but at the same time somewhat scary and quite challenging to step out of the traditional approach to adopter assessment to the multi disciplinary team approach of i-adopt. The adopters we have seen thus far at panel have been enthusiastic about this approach whilst acknowledging that it has been a painful and challenging process at times. Clearly all have found the experience rewarding. I also believe that panel is beginning to build a good working relationship with the agency whilst maintaining its independence, in my view this can only bode well for potential adopters coming to panel in the future.
Bridget Betts November 2009

TRAINING

Over the last 18 months we have carried out 27 days of training externally commissioned by Local Authorities. These have largely focused on key issues in adoption such as child and adult assessments, placing siblings contact and matching. We have carried out 73 days training at Family Futures. We now have a regular cycle of training days carried out by Dan Hughes, Theraplay and Babette Rothschild. These are always popular and well subscribed. This year we also put on a one day conference following on the success of our 10 year conference following on the year before at which Dan Hughes talked about parenting traumatised children. We also had 18 days of staff training in addition to individual staff member’s being seconded onto external courses, for example the ASI training.

Next year we are planning to launch several new training days which will reflect our growing integration of somatic and physiological responses to stress in adult and children.