Social workers
Today we had a farewell visit with our social worker. It felt so odd, saying goodbye after her having been a consistent presence in our life for the past 21 months. Social workers often cop a lot of flak on the adoption message boards I use, and I don’t doubt that, as with any profession, there are good, bad and average ones out there. I can’t praise ours highly enough though. She’s been there for us through some pretty tough moments, has been a great advocate for us and our children, and has been exactly the right mix of professional yet human. I know some people look forward to the adoption order precisely because it means the end of social work visits, but I would happily let ours keep coming if she could!
I’ve been trying to do a mental tally of how many social workers have been involved with us over our adoption journey so far. I think I’m on seven:
There was the social worker who did our initial home visit, who helped us across the first hurdle. We didn’t warm to her instantly, but saw a fair bit more of her on our prep course and since, and came to really like her. Then there was another social worker who co-facilitated our prep course, who took no prisoners, but who will stick in my mind for taking us aside and giving us some kind and encouraging feedback, when she really didn’t need to. And then of course our allocated social worker who saw us all the way through from the beginning of stage two to our adoption order, and who probably knows more about us than some of our closest friends!
Our children brought another raft of social workers into the mix; initially their own social worker, who had been working with them for a pretty long time prior to them being placed for adoption, and their family finding social worker, whose role speaks for itself. At the end of the day, without their support, our children wouldn’t have been our children, so I think we can safely say they’ve had a pretty huge role in our future. The children have also had one change of social worker since being placed with us, which takes us up to six.
And then we come onto post adoption support. So far we’re on one social worker there, and hopefully that’s how it will stay. As luck had it, this ended up being someone we’d met earlier in our journey, but since this was only because they had changed roles in the meantime, I’m going to count them as number seven. You hear of adopters and children who experience several changes of allocated worker. I think we’ve been pretty lucky as far as consistency goes, but even so it’s taken seven social workers to get us to this point, at that’s not counting all the other professionals who have been involved from our approving and placing authorities, from health and education, acting on behalf of us, the children, or all of us as a family. Then there’s the teams and the managers that these people have around them, and who have supported with the various decisions that have needed to be made, or stepping in to cover when needed.
I know from my own career and training that there are a number of factors - interpersonal, power dynamics, ability to keep an open mind, communication styles, sense of humour - on both sides of the equation which govern how well these interactions work, and on the whole I feel like we’ve been pretty lucky. For the most part they’ve been a force for good and I’ve enjoyed having them around. That’s not to say that there hasn’t been room for improvement, but where there have been issues, these have largely been due to inflexible systems rather than the competence or attitude of particular individuals. But for the moment they’re all gone, so I shall just cross my fingers that the next time a social worker comes into our lives - and I’d be highly surprised if both our children made it to adulthood without that happening - our lucky streak will continue.
I’ve been trying to do a mental tally of how many social workers have been involved with us over our adoption journey so far. I think I’m on seven:
There was the social worker who did our initial home visit, who helped us across the first hurdle. We didn’t warm to her instantly, but saw a fair bit more of her on our prep course and since, and came to really like her. Then there was another social worker who co-facilitated our prep course, who took no prisoners, but who will stick in my mind for taking us aside and giving us some kind and encouraging feedback, when she really didn’t need to. And then of course our allocated social worker who saw us all the way through from the beginning of stage two to our adoption order, and who probably knows more about us than some of our closest friends!
Our children brought another raft of social workers into the mix; initially their own social worker, who had been working with them for a pretty long time prior to them being placed for adoption, and their family finding social worker, whose role speaks for itself. At the end of the day, without their support, our children wouldn’t have been our children, so I think we can safely say they’ve had a pretty huge role in our future. The children have also had one change of social worker since being placed with us, which takes us up to six.
And then we come onto post adoption support. So far we’re on one social worker there, and hopefully that’s how it will stay. As luck had it, this ended up being someone we’d met earlier in our journey, but since this was only because they had changed roles in the meantime, I’m going to count them as number seven. You hear of adopters and children who experience several changes of allocated worker. I think we’ve been pretty lucky as far as consistency goes, but even so it’s taken seven social workers to get us to this point, at that’s not counting all the other professionals who have been involved from our approving and placing authorities, from health and education, acting on behalf of us, the children, or all of us as a family. Then there’s the teams and the managers that these people have around them, and who have supported with the various decisions that have needed to be made, or stepping in to cover when needed.
I know from my own career and training that there are a number of factors - interpersonal, power dynamics, ability to keep an open mind, communication styles, sense of humour - on both sides of the equation which govern how well these interactions work, and on the whole I feel like we’ve been pretty lucky. For the most part they’ve been a force for good and I’ve enjoyed having them around. That’s not to say that there hasn’t been room for improvement, but where there have been issues, these have largely been due to inflexible systems rather than the competence or attitude of particular individuals. But for the moment they’re all gone, so I shall just cross my fingers that the next time a social worker comes into our lives - and I’d be highly surprised if both our children made it to adulthood without that happening - our lucky streak will continue.
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