Welcome to the Family Features podcast.
This episode is for any listeners thinking about
adoption. I'm joined by our I Adopt team
leader, Phil Kane, who answers your most frequently asked
questions. We discuss our unique assessment
service, what you can gain from volunteering, the different
types of agency, considerations around contact with birth
family, and what children who have a plan for adoption need
most. All the discussion topics are
outlined and time stamped in the show notes.
If you'd like to find out more, get in touch via our website to
arrange a call with a member of our team.
Phil, would you like to just explain kind of who you are,
what your job role is at Family Futures?
Yeah, hi everybody. I'm Phil Kane and I'm the I
adopt team leader, so I more or less manage the team alongside
social workers, ensure that. And you've been a social worker
for how many years? Maybe too long I think.
Maybe too long. I think 951995.
I started practice in 97 so I've had 20 odd years in children's
social care and that's I've covered pretty much.
Mostly it's just adoption but fostering, working in courts,
being self-employed. Worked for local authorities so
I've done this a whole range of different social work and
managerial roles. So you should know the answer to
all of these questions then not to put you on.
Most certainly, of course. Let's see.
Let's see if you could trip me up.
OK. So our first question or I think
it's just helpful for people to know is what is the first steps.
You can contact us via our website via e-mail or you can
give us a call and you will have a call back.
So that call back will be either with myself and it's 30 minute
Q&A call. I can answer any questions that
you might have and I can talk a bit about your situation
specifically. And then we kind of periodically
have information evenings throughout the year.
Following that, we will then arrange an initial consultation
and that would then be with yourself, Phil or another social
work member of the team. Do you want to give a bit of an
overview of what an initial consultation is?
Yeah, usually I would do the initial consultations and it is,
it's just about really the, the tension is for us to find out a
little bit more about the adopter, you and for you to get
some more information about family futures, what we do and
who we are. And as a consultation, we're
trying to have it in a way that is kind of conversational.
You know, I mean, it's not question answered, but it's
conversational and finding out your understanding of adoption
and what's your motivation. Why have you become to become,
why do you want to become an adopter and why now?
Because it's usually a specific reason why people think of
adoption at this present moment, the time for them, it's always
just getting a sketch plan of who you are, what what you come
from, family, family background. They're just getting a sort of a
pink picture of who you are. You might be single applicant,
You might be part of your relationship, how you make your
relationships, any previous relationships.
It's just to give us a sort of an overall feel for who you are
and as our understanding of why you why we have this
conversation right now with regards to adoption.
So we do talk about past relationships, the current
relationships. We talk about your mental
health. We talk about your home, the
fact that you need a spare bedroom, the community you live
in, how long you've lived there have established you feel what's
your intentions regards to adoption with regarding your
home community, You're thinking of moving away.
We talk about the support networks that you have
roundabout you have established how reliable and how secure do
you feel with the people that you have roundabout you.
So picking up that picture of who you are and what you've got
to offer. As I say in this conversation, I
will also ask you about your childcare experience and any
voluntary work you've done because that's really essential
to becoming a parent, that's having the experience of
children and a variety of children.
And So what you've got that could be personally, it could be
professional, you could be working with children in a
professional experience. You could have been helping with
nieces and nephews and things like that, but also voluntary
work. And I think that with voluntary
work, it widens the variety of children that you will come
across, children with different needs, different challenges.
And I think what's really good is a fight to see you get to
know children that they had known anything about them.
So from a standing start. And that's what's going to
happen when you be an adopted child, is it?
You will find the information about them, you'll know all the
personality, the background. But when that child comes to to
live with you, you have your bump into meetings and I think
you don't really know them. You've got to get that
relationship going from a standing start.
So having done that involuntary work is really, really helpful.
And it's something that you can tap into as an adopter.
What you give is what that you get and and if you put you put
your heart and soul in this, you're going to get more outer
and then start falling to work as a you will, you will learn
more about yourself. You'll be making an actual
impact on a child's life that you're working with and you're
going to have the experience to take with you.
And if you can get those three things out of that, you know,
it's it's one win for you, for the child, and it's also one win
for us as an agency because we get evidence exactly the work
that you've done and your motivation, your commitment,
your empathy, your understand to the children and how you will
meet challenges as an adoptive parent.
Another question that we get a lot is we're a voluntary agency,
AVAA and there are regional agencies, so the RAA, So what is
the difference comes up all the time.
It's simple terms of the original adoption agencies.
RAAS is unknown is a collection of local authorities of of
certain clubs. So just to keep things simple
for us in London is the adoption London N constitutes a
collection of different local authorities and they come
together as a regional adoption agency and they take over the
statutory, the statutory duties of the local authority regards
to adoption. So the statutory duties are
included recruitment, family finding and matching for
children and post order support for that area.
I cover when a but with a child with a part of adoption, the
local authorities attached to the RAA will make a referral to
the RAA for them to family find for that child to find a family
because a child has a plan of adoption, right?
And that would that would have been agreed in court by
something we call a placement order.
The local authority for that child, when they get the plan of
adoption they would prefer and then the RAA would then start
family finding for that specific child.
So they would have a profile of that child's needs.
And then we start the match family finding process.
And what they would do is that they would quite rightly go into
their own Bank of approved adopters and see if they can
find a match there for that child.
And if they could find a match for that child, it is, it's
positive because it makes things easier for the professional
network. Everybody knows each other.
It's it's more seamless and it's actually more cost effective.
So that would be the first man of action for the RAA is to try
and find the match for that child internally BA is differ in
the respect is that they will recruit adopters like we do
right, but they do not family find for children.
The family find for the adopters that we've approved.
So that's the big difference is that no children are referred to
as we finally find for our adopters.
It might sound like the region look to their own pool of
adopters and just match the child with one of their intern
with one of their existing adopters who've been assessed by
them. And so why would you go to VAA?
But everyone's kind of shared goal is to find adopters or an
adopter who meets the needs of that child.
So if they don't have someone within their existing pool who
meets the needs of that specific child and the needs all very
varied, they're not going to go to one of their existing
adopters who've been approved. So then they they kind of widen
the search. Yeah.
And part of the way the research is through the nationwide
platform and that's where Vas like family futures would see
the profiles of children that that have not been matched
within the, the, the the RAA, right.
So we would then look at children as with our our
approved adopters would look at children and then say as look at
children that they feel that they can meet their that child's
needs and then make an inquiry. So that's the difference between
the VAA is the fact that we don't have the children and not
refer to us. We go, we profile our adopters
to children that have been profiled by the RAA on online
maker and then that's how we made the connection.
Because of this, because we are only family finding for adopters
and not children, Baas just by nature a lot smaller, it does
mean that you get a more bespoke service.
I think that's one of the things about us specifically as an
agency and something we always get really positive feedback on
is the relationships, the working relationships that are
built between our perspective and approved adopters and the
team that works with them to assess and approve them.
They get to know a small team and when they're moving through
the process there's not lots of changes.
The, the mere factor that we generally agencies, I say
they're all they're as big because it's covered in aging
and different areas. And from my experiences that
they're the Ras will have separate teams, IE recruitment,
family finding and then post order support, right.
So in a lot of ways you could go from one service from one team
the next into the next. As is a smaller agency.
We carry, we take it all the way through.
So it's a more seamless service. So I'm currently assessing
people and then when everywhere they're approved is that I will
then be taken through the whole family, family finding process
and then hopefully go through like maker and finding a match
for that child. And then when that child is
matched is that we will provide the post order support to that
child to to that adoptive family.
And I will still be a key person within that support that's
provided. So that whole continuity of
service provision that we can, we could provide because we are
smaller and and that's a reflection of of size rather
than anything else. And you know, I mean an RA is do
provide a, a good service. It's just a different service
because we're bigger and we're smaller.
What about how you would, you know if your initial
consultation and you were kind of talking to someone about
talking to a perspective doctor about why they would choose
family futures? I really do think it's important
is that when our initial consultation is that the people
do get a sense of who we are, you know what I mean?
So we have the a personal approach and from the first
contact with yourself is that you'd be asking questions.
We, we don't get you fill in a form, we have a conversation
with you and we respect and value use an individual and, or
other households and we want to promote adoption to the to, to
people that can adopt. And there's a whole diverse
range across the community. And so we're non judgmental,
sorry, and, and we're inclusive. So I think that the, the, the,
the foundations that we actually welcome people who made them
feel respected. We're non judgmental and we're
open to have that conversation to see how adoption after after
adoption interest is something that we can work with.
And I think that most people maybe have company family
futures and maybe looked at a website and things that
understand the therapeutic ethos of family futures.
And I think that part of the conversation of our initial
consultation is that we do discuss a bit.
It's our whole therapeutic ethos and how that underpins all the
work that we do. And I think people feel aligned
with that. I think that when they find out
that it's not just a social worker something myself, but
there's a therapist and that therapist is there with the
social worker all the way through the assessment.
And potentially that therapist could be working with your with
the family as the therapeutic, therapeutic needs the probably
future provides when the child is placed with you.
So is that such a seamlessness? And I think that people feel
more held and more confident. It's quite, it's a very creative
process and that's what I often kind of talk to people about
when I do initial inquiry calls because I think the typical
assessment process like we've, you know, you've kind of
mentioned is an, is an interview series of questions and it's
conversational certainly in the beginning.
But it's also, we use those therapy tools that we use in
other areas of our services to information gather.
And I think that's something that we're so used to doing
things that way, but people are often quite kind of intrigued
by. Yeah, I mean, I've done the
conventional way and the conventional way.
There's nothing wrong with the conventional way.
There's not here. They say it's just because I've
done it just as many times as I've done the family future
assessment. It's that it would be good at
working stage 1. And then so people would be
adopters would be in a group for maybe four or five different
households who have spent I think 3 days in just discussing
adoption, all the different things.
And that would be their stage 1. And then in stage 2
inventionally, it's a social worker who has effective their
question and answer, tell me this, tell me that because back
was involved and that's how stage 2 is usually conducted.
And I had to adopt the three years ago when I came here, too.
And a completely different way of doing things.
Yeah. So in stage one, we don't have
any group work. We have a tested day.
And the tested day is a day in the office with the therapist
and the social worker. And we have some structured
interviewing questions. But we also have we use some
therapeutic tools that are used with children to elicit
information about the support network, how they got on.
It's called the sand tree. There's one called the MEM.
And actually, I says, is the the couples or the person the
couple, the correct person's ability to to make relationships
and challenge and have nurture. And we also hope we use it
adult. I'm sorry, I'd actually stay on
that attaching style. And if you're yes, you know,
which is another tool which gives us a sort of evidence base
to what we are understanding of a person's ability to confine in
people and have, you know, and have a different understand
their attachment style as an adult.
So we use those those type of things.
And I think that what's good is the fact is that there are tools
that we use when an adopter is with a child.
So sometimes they confine, they go, they consider child, oh,
we've done that or we've done that or we've done that.
So that's stage 1, which is completely different.
And stage 2 again is it's completely different again.
It's 6 full days in the office and the first couple of days
we've been up a life mark, which is very pictorial.
We get people down in our knees drawing things and talking about
their life, things like that. We use the the therapist to get
people to sort of look back at their life and maybe think about
things I've not thought about for a long, long time.
You know, some emotions or feelings that that might brought
up and forget them to actually really explore.
And in some more graphic way, you know, by using arts to look
at their life, the relationship that they might have had, if
they've got a partner, and how they see the future.
I think it's the basis of allowing our adopters to express
themselves in different ways because everybody's learning
style is different. And I think they, it really
helps people really company understand why we're asking some
of the questions. And then the other four days is
a mixture of understanding the impacts of trauma that children
who are adopted have suffered and how that impacts on the
brain, how that impacts and we call ends up in developmental
trauma and how we can understand and work with with children who
have developmental trauma. And then also to start to think
about therapeutic tools with therapeutic repairing and how we
can actually see behaviour is communication and actually
having true empathy with that child's adverse childhood
experiences and see that some of the behaviour, a lot of the
behaviours as a result of insecure attachments and not
having same stability, security and care, a lot of the shape for
granted. So there's that.
And I think there's also the self-care is a bit making sure
that you can look after yourself.
And I think some ways you just start to use what we've been
doing for a long time is the support network meeting, which
we, we have, we get the support network together online and we
actually just talk about adoption today, very
understanding developmental trauma and actually what
behaviours the child might cope with and how they as a, as a
support network can help the adopters.
But being practical, emotional, being non judgmental, don't,
don't do this. I wouldn't have done that, that
kind of stuff and helping being empathetic and non judgmental.
And that enrolls and it helps the support network to
understand and feel part of the, the adoption journey that their
friend or family is going through.
So I think that it's really quite comprehensive.
It's difficult and we. We do change things around
because everybody's getting different.
Well, indeed, take a better understanding.
So it's not fixed in that respect.
It's that we do calibrate it for everybody.
But we have this, we have this essentially the same modules.
People often also, I mean, thank you, that was really a really
helpful overview of the assessment.
Often we have people asking about the different needs of the
children, so whether they have social, educational needs,
disabilities, mental health challenges.
I guess just a little bit of clarity on what perspective
adopters could be or should be prepared for when thinking about
the needs of the child. We've spoken a lot about meeting
a child's needs, I. Think the assessment process
will take you through and I think it might be sometimes
difficult for people that have had a secure family that secure
attachments and really the challenges that they've had in
life haven't been too adverse. You know, I mean, to actually to
hear and understand what children do go through to.
I mean, a child to have a plan of adoption, 90 percent, 95%
will be through the court proceedings and and the children
will have been at risk of what we call significant harm.
And these children will have suffered some form of trauma.
And this could start very in the utero.
The children's background will obviously impact on the type of
harm that they've suffered. So often a child will be in a
household where there has been substance misuse, just domestic
violence. This could be happening in the
utero as well as physical and sexual abuse and neglect and
these things impact on a child in different in many different
ways to people looking and the developmental prognosis of
children may not become clear when you're in March.
And so often we've got a child who might be 3 or 4 years of
age. Do you know what I mean?
And we know that maybe mum has taken as alcohol during
pregnancy, but obviously that would be self reported.
We don't really know how much it is.
We've got to make a judgement and it'd be too early to see if
that child was going to suffer fetal alcohol syndrome or the
impact of domestic violence or drug taking and unpredictability
that's impacted on that child's court is on and and utero and
how this will come out as a child's presentation trauma as
an autism. So all those different many
unknowns. And I think that what are the
doctors I think I've got here look at is it's come with an
open mind. I can't be an understanding that
you may actually before you commence to take an adoption,
may at least think generically or specialized super needs.
What does that mean? Or autism or can't do that or
ADHD or can do that. But actually, when we break it
down, actually see the pieces why and how children can be
supported and making global developmentally put that in the
context of everyday life, I think it becomes more
manageable, more understandable for adopters.
So I think it's, it's really difficult to say what a child
might come with because every child is individual and all and
have their own needs. And children like adults where
we've got resilience, we've got different ways in which we have
coped and and dealt with things. So I would say is that you come
with an open mind to the type of children or the, the needs that
you think that you can meet. And I think that's through the
assessment process, you start to understand, can I, can I do
this? Or what would, what is our
capacity? What's my occurring capacity and
how can we meet a child's needs? And I think if you come with
that attitude, you'll be halfway there as if it wouldn't because
we don't want you to be overextending yourself and then
it doesn't work. So I think it's about you
learning through the assessment process to find out exactly how
far your capacity goes. You're going to think about, I
guess single person, you're going to think about your going
back to work, a career, what's your support network?
Who do you have around you? All these different things are
all part of the assessment and the other things that will also
help you understand the type of needs think you can be of an
adopted child. Another question that we often
get is family links and contact with birth family.
We talk a lot about contact. It's it's kind of mentioned a
lot around adoption. What does that look like for
adoptive parents? What can that look like?
And I think that the both parents are often, not often,
but it's not unusual is that they've actually been they've
inflicted pain and they've suffering and trauma on, on the
child that they that an adopter is potentially going to adopt.
And I think at times on paper, some people can appear scary and
frightening and what they've done, you know, is something
that some adopters might feel some level of anger towards.
And I think all these things are are understandable, you know,
but I think they will. We've got to look at it this
from a child's point of view here.
Is that the whole intention of having contacts it's potential
to keep in touch with above family because a both family is
part of their identity and don't who where they came from and who
they are. It's good for their self was and
their self esteem. And if they've got siblings,
these could potentially lifelong relationships that they could
they can they can have and if adoption shouldn't be the cost
of of relationships within the family.
So we've got to look at the reasons is that how can we
maintain contact for that child with his birth family, whoever
they may be. He could be granny, he could be
a granddad, whatever. If it's meaningful, if it helps
your sense of identity, who they are, I'm understanding of why
they have removed all the different things.
It's to their benefit. And that's why we should be
always thinking about can we do this?
And if we can't understand the reasons why we can't, because if
a child has some form of contact and think what's the bus farmer
and knowledge, I think it stops a sort of idealisation of the
family because you don't know anything about them and whether
or this about that or I wonder what they're doing and things
like that. So, and I think the, and then
what all the social media is that kids these days could go on
the Internet behind your back and they start looking up for
the birth family inexpensive. We've got, we've got risky
situations where the birth family is involved in the
child's life and you're the doctor don't have any control
over it. So I think that we've got to see
it in this wider context of it's good for a child's identity, but
it's got to be safe, it's got to be meaningful and it's got to be
in their best interests. I know that we had one of our
adopters come and speak in information evening and he
shared his experience and he'd had his children face for I
think about six months at the time.
And it was someone asked him this question.
What are would you say are sort of like the top three things
that children typically want from their adoptive parents?
And his answers were predictability and routine, to
feel loved and to be heard and their views to be acted upon.
Is there anything that you would kind of add from that from your
your professional experience? I think that.
I think, however, I said that it's got in a nutshell, I think
that it's to feel loved if you wanted, and that's scary for a
lot of your adopted children. They keep waiting for the the
bubble to bust and they're going to be taken back to where they
were and things like that. So I think to, they want and I
think the predictability in that routine and know where they
stand and know what's going to happen to have a routine and
that helps them be able to feel loved.
And if they feel loved and they feel respected, I think that
then they can have a voice, they can have a voice, they can have
their views, they can see how they feel, they can feel equal.
They can feel the part of a family.
They've got to be respected and valued and their views are going
to be acted upon. So I think that there's always
the steps there. Is that how we help a child be
actually in a position where they actually feel part of a
family, they feel loved, they know where they stand, to know
where they're going to be. Their parents have got their
back, the ambitious and fields are being inspected and acted
upon. And this is lifelong.
I think lifelong is another part of it.
And then just finally, what advice would you give to someone
thinking about adoption or starting their adoption journey?
My advice, I would I could open up the conversation, but people
you trust, because a lot of people the adoption is very it's
something the better thought about it for a long time, a bit
unsure who they could talk to about in sense of that.
But I think that if you start talking to people, you know, and
family friends, how people you network, you might be quite
surprised that the natural factor adoption is more
prevalent and more and within families, they may not be talked
about because Oh yeah, and I know somebody who used to adopt
it or do you know they're adopted to things that I starts
a conversation that you might that might actually surprise
you. Do your research, whatever way
it suits you. Do you mean it could be listen
to this, hopefully it could be videos.
There's YouTube you can learn, there's reading all the
different ways, but get as much information as possible so that
you're prepared. You can understand of what
adoption is like in 2025 and the fact that it's no a Disney
movie. It's very difficult, it's
challenging, but it has its rewards.
Find out what you're walking this what what you're
potentially going into the work that you've done with children,
jot it down. Because a lot of times when we
find any assessment is that people say, oh, I forgot about
that or I never realized that and that's your fact.
Really, really good pieces of evidence or things that we can
reflect, reflect and help them with understanding adoption or
taking that and being an adopter.
So I think that what you've done have a list of it.
So I've done some voluntary work.
I think it's handy. And we mentioned earlier, I
think that what you give us, what you get.
It's good learning, it's good evidence, and I think that most
people actually enjoy Phoebe kids and actually gives them
assistance. And this is really what I want
to do. And I think that have a log.
Have a log. What you wrote, what you've
seen, what you've heard, just jot it down.
You've got a log. There's something that you can
share with your assessor. You're a social worker and
things like that. It's also a reference point for
yourself. When you're a doctor, you go,
all right, this reminds me of that, but also, well, you're a
doctor. Might be that you're the you're
the expert, you're giving, you're giving tips to somebody
else who is a prospective adopter.
If you've got a log of what you've done, you've found that
was actually beneficial to you, might be beneficial to them.
Do that is join adoption groups, adoption UK at different groups
that that might give you a wider perspective of people's
experiences so that you can hear what adopters are going through.
What's the challenges, what's the rewards, what's the support,
what's the difference level support might actually help you
decide whether you want to go with an RAA or AVAA.
And and it also says, but that is go and see more than one
agency. You know, we we know we do
family futures and but we might not be for you.
You might not be for us, but go and see different agencies and
find the where you feel most comfortable who you're going to
be sharing 4 or less your life, your life story.
You're going to be have have to confide in people that you don't
know. Are you need to be able to feel.
Yeah, I trust these people. I think I I think I could work
with them. Thanks for listening to this
episode of the Family Futures Podcast.
If you'd like to find out more about adopting with I Adopt, get
in touch via our website to arrange a call with a member of
our team.