In this episode, I'm joined by Family Futures cofounder, CEO,
and therapist Jay Thorne, alongside social worker and I
Adopt team leader Phil Kane. We talk about the importance of
support from assessment to early placement and our unique offer
to provide I Adopt parents with the first year of therapeutic
support for free. The funding for this has been
provided by a major donor and at a time where accessing support
can be so challenging for families, we discuss what that
support looks like in practice. If you'd like to know more about
becoming a parent through our IDLOP service or you have any
questions about adoption, you can contact us via e-mail, phone
or our website familyfutures.co.uk to arrange a
one to one call with a member of our team.
I think a really helpful place to start would be to talk about
the assessment that we offer. Because I think support really
starts from the moment we start assessing you and what that
looks like. And how that support continues
on through the assessment into family finding into when your
child is placed with you. And then how we think about and
consider what type of support options there are and what is
best suited to you and your family.
I don't know what the Phil you want to start as by introducing
yourself and explaining here. Well, that's probably a good
place to start. It's good.
I'm Phil Keane and I'm the the leader of the I Adopt team,
which is part of Family Futures. What we do is we recruit and
assess and approve perspective adopters to become become
adopters and do much with children and to be then have the
opportunity to have the the therapeutic support that's
provided by the other teams within family futures.
And I think that support, as you said, Charlotte starts at the
beginning because we are a collaborative of in respect is
that maybe I adopt, but the the multidisciplinary therapists
within the team, one of them was allocated to carry out the
assessment with the social worker and and I adopt and that
the assessment lasts 6 months. But the whole part of that
support is to help people to feel confident, to feel as if
they provide the skills that they have, that sometimes they
don't even realise they have childcare experience and things
like that, voluntary work and to equip them as best as possible.
The research practical issues, all as if it is for the
assessment, assessment strength based.
And we're trying to help people with that support to, to realise
the challenges and the rewards of adoption, but also is to to
understand the therapeutic needs and what we call the
developmental trauma that children have suffered that have
come for adoption. So I sometimes see their
assessment as a sort of AU bend as a big prepare.
And then on AU bed, we start to talk about the therapeutic needs
of children and how our adopters can become therapeutic parents.
And that is really, really facilitated by our therapist
being alongside the social worker and gathering
information. So therefore, we feel that our
adopters are going to be approved with a lot more skills,
more understanding of the brain, understanding of trauma,
understanding of themselves and their own unique experiences and
where they need support and whether and how they can feel
that support is not something that you say, oh, I don't want
to support. It's as if there's something
wrong, right? To actually see support as a
strength. And I think that's really
important is if you see asking for support using your network,
the professional network, seeing that as a strength to be able to
ask for support because everybody needs support, no
persons on island. So I think it's really important
that that when we get to panel is that people can adapt weak
within themselves, they under they understand their strengths,
but also potential blind spots and where they need support.
So I think that really starts there.
Yeah. And you mentioned the therapist
being alongside in the assessment.
Can you just explain a bit more about how that works and what
that looks like? So what it means is that we, we
have our own unique way of doing our assessment, you know, but
what it really means is the the social worker and the therapist
are with you and all those sessions that we do.
And I think that also helps is that we do use some therapeutic
tools that adopters want to use their own children, you know,
and therefore that they're doing that and they're getting to
being enrolled and integrated and it's a therapeutic
techniques. But I think that I think a lot
of times the therapist for me goes a bit deeper and actually
helps people to actually think about things.
And maybe they all thought about and look at their own attachment
styles in different ways that they were parenting and things
like that. Whereas sometimes, and I'm a
social worker, I'm saying this is that sometimes that we have
just said, can you tell me that? Can you tell me that?
And sometimes we don't go as deep as maybe we should have.
And I think that that's where the therapist actually
facilitates people being able to actually explore themselves, to
strengthen their weaknesses. And that gives us more depth to
our assessment and our understanding all the people and
how we can support them. Ultimately, that's what we're
talking about. And Jay, you're a therapist and
you've, I know that you've been part of quite a few assessments
in your time having founded Family Futures, thinking about
the assessment and how the therapist is involved through
the assessment process and that support.
But then also how they're involved at the family finding
stage. And at that early stage in
placement where there's a lot of social work support, but also
the therapist is still kind of there providing that
consultation to talk a bit more about that.
Yeah, I think it's been, I remember when IODOP was set up
and it was a really new model to have social worker and therapist
working together and bringing the therapy tools that we use
with children and families into the IODOP process.
So I think it's, it's a really inspiring thing to be a part of
and you're on this journey together.
Now it's led by the social worker, but that you're working
collaboratively with the social worker in in the Ideopt team and
with the parents to really get to know them and to really think
about what their strengths are, what they're going to need more
support with what it's going to be like when a child's place.
Because of course, we all bring our experience of knowing what
it's like when a child's place and things that are more
challenging. So we can really guide people in
making sense of what that might feel like for them when a child
is placed and how, how, what sort of help they might need.
Yeah. And I think that that does help.
It helps as the social worker and the fact is that you could
someday you're laying on it's not all you need to know when
you can actually say let's chew the fart here.
And if we treat the fart a professional level help, it
helps us. Do we treat the fart with their
doctor and say this is what you might and might see or might do
or such and such and sometimes maybe take the fear out of
certain terms. Do you know what I mean?
Like what is global developmental delay?
Do you know what I mean? And things like what does that
mean? And every day, yeah, everyday
life, a child or understand the spectrum of autism or whatever,
but it's FASD and things like that, it just helps people.
And to me that's support because we're supporting you to make
informed choices. So I think that what happens
with finally very Charlotte is that we have that breadth of
experience and knowledge that we can share with the adopters when
they're thinking of making one of the most life changing
decisions. I've been my child.
I was thinking, Phil, being a parent is hard and when you when
you give birth to a child, that's still a shock and is a is
a process of adjusting to being a parent and for a lot of people
it takes a long time. It's.
That's normal, but if you're taking in a child who's had
difficult experiences when they're little, who's had moves
of families, they're going to come with a little bit more
challenge, more needs, but you're still going to be
adjusting. So having a social worker and a
therapist alongside to support you and to know well what's in
the normal range and what you need more understanding about
and more specialist help with is really crucial.
And I think that all about an assessment is theoretical,
right? What we're getting formified is
practical so that the support that we provide about maybe
meeting the birth parent, you know, and preparing for
questions. And I think the therapist can
always give that angle as well, you know, as a social worker,
And I do think it's important that by that time is that the
adopters adopter is that they actually know the social worker
therapist. Do you know what I mean?
So it's people that know that continuity of they're allocated
workers, but to actually talk about how you're going to meet a
birth parent whose social work will be there to support them,
but also what kind of questions we're going to ask because we're
going to ask preparing the welcoming book for a child, you
know, doing the videos, things like that.
These are really such all practical issues that are really
important because what they do is they set the tone.
They set the tone for confidence building and for the adopters to
feel confident in what they're doing is so there's all those
little tasks that we break down and that support, I think has
been really invaluable. You know, and, or, and also
sometimes it's just giving them that experience and examples of
how to do things. I think it goes a long way.
I think it'd be quite helpful kind of offer some explanations
of what support looks like in reality.
So from a social work perspective, I think it'll be
really helpful, Phil, if you could give an example, like a
case example of some support that you provided and what that
looked like. And then from a therapeutic or
therapy perspective, Jay, if you could provide an example of when
you've stepped in and supported in a therapist's role, just so
people have an idea of what that looks like, what that would be.
Was so we as the social work roles, as the statutory tasks,
there's a meeting, the social workers meet to discuss the
matching of a child and all the different things like that.
So there's there's reports I've got to go to panel, things like
that. And I think that what's
essentially there is a support plan, it's called the adoption
support plan. This is a plan that's going to
be provided by the by the child's authority to support the
placement. So I think at that point and
even before we're, we're thinking about what is the
therapeutic needs, what's it, I've never made holistic needs
of this child, right. So we're thinking about what is
that? And that's when we'd be talking
to our colleagues again within the the treatment service about
what is the needs of this child. We would actually have an
analysis of group from the reports on the children of who
we anticipate it needs to be before we because we can't meet
the child until the adoption has been agreed by Dutch House
authority. So we're thinking ahead.
I think that's what we're doing, but for a social war angle is
that we're there with the adopters to help them prepare
the paperwork. We've been we'll be in the
matching panel, but there will be we're called, isn't it a
transition plan? We're part of that how that
child is going to transition over to the care of the the
adopter. So those little things I've
talked about meeting with us parents.
So the welcomed books are bumping to meetings.
We're there, we're helping. I've opened in this strategy as
being that person that's there for the adopters when the
wobble. God doesn't actually go, you go
with them. You went recently.
I think you did quite a long drive with some of our adopters
to go and meet. Was it for you drove somewhere
with them in their car to go and do like an early transitions
meeting, didn't you? So you're what I'm getting at is
that you you're practically when you're saying alongside it's
not, it's not. You know we're here with you in
spirit, like you're practically there with them, right?
I think that you we went I had AI tried this session meeting
and then we went on to meet the birth parents, right.
Yeah. So we've done it all, you know,
and yeah, and I suppose that's our experience that serves us
the support. I guess it's it.
But picking about and letting them, you don't have to worry
about how they're going to get there and going to do this and
that they can concentrate on what they're going to do and
then we could do something, right.
OK. And you that's what you feel
quite humble, is it how how people are relying on you?
Do you know what I mean? Because you're the person you've
been you've done it before and you know what you're doing.
They don't like it's time go guys, that's a lot.
You do feel quite humble, you know, and you can see what it
means. Do you know what I mean?
How these are special moments and and that's before the back
the child. Do you know what I mean?
So you're there with them all the way and you're talking about
case, but they talk a bit quite a lot.
And then I bump into them, you know, you know, about how you
decide to just lift the pressure off.
That's what you're done. You know, I let them go on
there. So we're there and I think that
everybody's different. Some people want that to a more
in depth help and some people, you know, I'll just meet you
there or whatever it is. But we're there, right, because
we're a team. We're A-Team from the futures I
adopt, we're A-Team and we want to adopt as a part of that team.
And we're presenting as a team to the child's authority, our,
our adoption agency, you know, and I think that that shows
strength and the assessment process and how we work, you
know, back to how our adopters are able to promote and advocate
our advocacy support that they need.
And I think that's what Jay and the therapeutic team can win is
that we are then saying that we need an assessment of this
child's therapeutic needs, right?
And that's not a job for me. And we go to Jay and the rest
there. And then they would not take
over, but they would take, they would move into that, that sort
of sphere of that child's support.
And then we would have that in the plan.
And it sounds, I mean I know from working at family features,
it's very, it's very hands on practical.
Support but I. Also know I've just picked up
that Jay mentioned assessing couples earlier, but we've had
quite a few single adopters who've we've supported and I
think that level of practical support and really, really and
truly being alongside is really helpful.
Adopting. If you're adopting us as a
single person to know that you're, you know, I know that
you've done family finding visits as well with some of our
single adopters for where you've gone with them to meet foster
carers and maybe do bump into meetings and, and how helpful
that would feel for someone who was doing this journey on their
own. But Jay, if you would like to
maybe just share a bit about some practical support or what
that looked like for you from a therapy perspective?
So I was thinking what would be a good example, and I suppose a
more straightforward example from a therapy perspective is a
family that I've worked with, I've known for over 10 years
now. The child was placed age 3.
She'd had profound neglect. She had really not been
parented, spent long periods of time on her own in the cot or in
a buggy, and when she was placed she settled in without a
backward glance. She she didn't even notice that
she'd moved place. But what became very apparent
when we carried out an assessment and everybody had
realized she would have needs because of her profound neglect,
was that she was very bright, had lots of skills, but she
didn't understand what the other person was for.
She didn't know what the point of her mum was and so we
undertook a a an extended process of offering Theraplay.
Now Theraplay is a particular intervention which focuses on
working with a parent and child together to build an attachment
relationship. It's early really.
Parent child games, developmental gains, silly
little things like peekaboo like head, shoulders, knees and toes
games, or this is the way the lady rides or counting fingers.
So they're the gains aren't the important bit.
The important bit is how you help that child build a bond to
their adoptive parent. Now this was a single adopter.
It's a great honour to still know them.
Now I don't see them very often at all and they're doing really
well. But what this three-year old
needed was to learn what the point of a mum was and that that
needed to be done practically in a room with the mother and child
together to help them. Because this child in many ways,
she had language. She just liked to use the
language when she was on her own in the room.
I'm sure this parent who will know exactly what I'm talking
about will mind this. So that is theraplay and that is
a practical intervention that we can offer for a range of
families through I adopt. That is a really good early
intervention model. And I really believe that if you
can get it right from early on. And that's why we're making our
offer of saying through our donation funding, through our
our kind donor, we are going to guarantee a first year of
therapy because if you set up families in the beginning to
feel they've got that connection, the outcomes are
much better. I wanted to pick up, you've sort
of said it, but I wanted to pick up on something.
You said it, but you said, oh, I don't hear from them very much
anymore. So I think it's quite
interesting because you said, well, you know, I've known them
for 10 years and a lot of our families, because we have been
going for so long, over 27 years, is, you know, we talk a
lot historically about, oh, this family and they feel so present,
but it's, it's not, they've been having intensive therapy for the
last 10 years, you know them. But because they had that work
early on, you get to, you know, hear from them at points, right?
It's not consistent. You know, they're in the office
every week, which is it's nice to have that, but that
relationship is still there. Exactly.
And that relationship means that we can slot back in where we
left off. Mum doesn't need to explain her
history. I know the child's history, I
know how they're managing. So it means that it's very easy.
And for me the great joy is. I know what's happened.
I know that they're managing while they're in good shape and
that helps me and informs me about what works.
So no, they've not been coming every week for you.
I don't see them very often at all in recent years.
And but what's lovely is I know the progress they've made and I
know, and mum would say as well, the Theraplay work early on
cemented that relationship. Help this child learn what a
parent is for to turn to her mum and her mum is now her mum.
There is no doubt her first port of call if there's any problems
in any area of her life for this particular child is to go to her
mum. Now she didn't have that before
and I do think Thoroughplay was instrumental in helping that
security. Now that's a much more
straightforward there are more complicated ones, but it it
gives a taster of why therapy. Can be such an important part
early in placement. And I think that the it's not
the end, but it all goes back to the beginning for me all the
time. Is this when do you come?
We're here to help you to become an adopter through the
assessment process, right? And as an assessment, there's no
two ways about it, you know. But as I said, but then what's
the proof? Once you're approved, we start
looking at the practicals because you're starting to look
at family findings, things like that.
And you start to this theory of, yes, therapeutic parent and
developmental trauma. They're actually seen in real
terms because this real life children you're looking at, you
know, and then I think that then it goes into the actual, the
implementation of the the therapeutic story.
If you get a point, is that you're actually doing those
therapeutic exercises with your child in real life, you know,
because it should become real life.
And I think that from the social work perspective, what it does,
and I think this is what does make it unique, is that it
provides that underpinning of the placement.
Other agencies that don't have the wide range of therapies that
multidisciplinary therapists that we have, the social workers
but don't have that. So that helps us underpin.
And that underpinning actually provides placement stability,
but also provides confidence. Confidence comes from the
support. And that support then, as you
said, is that people could come back, even if it's just a bit of
signpost and a bit of direction and we've got help.
Or do you know, I just want to talk something through it.
We're here because I feel that we're alike.
We're part of that family network one way or the other
because we have been part of it right from the beginning, you
know, so you don't feel bad falling in his up and saying,
oh, have you got 10 minutes of your time?
That's going to be right. Exactly.
Can I just add in a little bit, I was just thinking in 2019, we
reviewed our iadopt families and what we could see very clearly
is that for iadopt families who had been offered and the
majority had taken up early intervention in that first year
or so a placement there. They were on a much better
trajectory than families that come in, in crisis through our
treatment service. So in a way that really confirms
if we can get this right from the beginning, if we can make
sure the support is available at the beginning, then actually we
are confident that we can help you not go into crisis like
sadly other adoptive families are later on.
And we are going to be redoing our research on that.
That's we've got an what are the paper being published this year,
but that will be one of our next research projects is to really
look back at I adopt again and look at the outcomes for those
children, because the outcomes is what tells us what we're
getting right and what we're not getting right.
So we've all really need to be looking at, well, what happens
to these kids. And I think that as you said
earlier, pen is not easy and pen by adoption is even harder.
You know, since I've been here for the half years is that every
placement's had its bumps in the road, right?
They've had times where it's been has been tested and it's
been difficult, you know, but with support and was are helping
people just realise to be confident they do have the
skills and the abilities and have the network and all those
kind of things. Is that.
But you had a placement breakdown, you know, and I think
that that's that actually sort of echoes that early
intervention and the early invasion, I think starts that's
an assessment, right? You know, I mean, because
because we're more aware, but you get the meat and drink is
the the therapeutic support actually, as I say, a better
underpinning. It really cements the
foundations of that placement of that child within an adoptive
family. When the Ofsted inspectors came
right in December 2025 is that they've met two families, right.
One was of over 10 years standing of working with with
family futures and one was over five years, right.
So which evidenced the fact is that that continuity of service
that we provide. I think the proof is in the
pudding, really. We've been offset outstanding
now for over a decade. That's 12.
We're on our 13th year now. They look at all of our services
and they're always interested in all of our services and our
services really do inform each other.
They are very intersectional. And you know, we've spoke a lot
about the their therapy team and how they work with the social
work team provide that consultation and how helpful
that is. But the I Adopt service has been
running for over 10 years, since 2000 and eight, 2009 was first
placement, 2008 was when it started, I think.
And you spoke to Jay about the, you know, doing another round of
research based on the IODOP data and those families.
But we also know just through qualitative feedback, through
working in the service, we haven't had a, you know, a tired
wave of families who are 10 years in, who are suddenly in
complete crisis and needing loads of support.
And I think that's partly to do with the early intervention, but
it's partly to do with the education and training that
happens in the assessment. And people always feel feedback,
how equipped they feel and that they understand the language and
what needs would look like and how behaviour plays out.
I think that's really powerful. And I think it can also be
quite, you know, I'm part of marketing team and we think a
lot about language. And I think it can be quite
intimidating for people because we don't, you know, put a spin
on this early doors. We don't sell the the Disney
lovely shiny version and wait for people to suddenly be
shocked with very open and clear about the realities and the
challenges, also the benefits. But I think that is what is so
helpful for people is they come into the process feeling that
they're made aware what this, what it, what this journey is
going to be, what it's going to look like.
And they're really informed. And it's great to have that
feedback, but also to know that it works because of the input
that we provide, but also because of how many families
come back to us, which is none to say, Oh no, we're really
struggling. We had no idea what it was going
to be like. We have to be honest about this.
They have to say adoption. I've I've been doing this a long
time as her spill. I believe in adoption.
I believe there are really good things about it and I'm lucky
enough to see 2030 and 40 year olds coming back to me.
As you know, 40 grand adults say I'm OK, I've had, you know,
things are good. I've got married, I've had a
baby. That makes it me know that it
works. It can be really positive, but
it's it's hard as well. And they give, once prepared
properly in that assessment process, really understanding
what the challenges are, really understanding what the possible
triggers are going to be in one's own history, then one's a
quick better to manage it. And if you feel you've got
people alongside that you trust that you know, you can come back
to who can provide direct support and therapy for the
child and therapy for you if you need it, and that's the level of
support, then you're in a better position.
And then we're not selling some dream that it's all a fairy tale
and everything's going to be lovely.
We're talking truthfully and we can sleep at nights because
we've not mis sold and we can feel confident that we can
provide the support and we will provide the support.
That's what we're guaranteeing to make sure you can come out
the other side. Have a good life.
That support is not a failure. No, you have people haven't been
sold a dream. And then if it doesn't work,
it's because some you know it's it's on them.
And I think a nice full circle is that one of our panel members
is actually was a service user and was supported by family
features and has now sat on our adoption panel.
And I know from when I've worked previously in, in I adopt admin,
but you know, he asks some really great questions.
He's very realistic and he provides a really vital lived
experience sat on that panel. But everybody out there the
point is that support is not a weakness, it's a strength,
right. I really think it's that
important, right. And if you come and yes,
adoption seen it or that not seen it as a truck wire don't
see how they're trying to catch you out.
They're trying to help you right And I think that that's so
support is there everybody needs it.
No person in an island, you know, and I think the the valley
futures and I adopt you clearly get a a breadth of support that
will go beat you and your child's needs.
We hope you enjoyed this episode.
If you'd like to know more about becoming a parent through our I
Adopt service, or you have any questions about adoption, you
can contact us via e-mail, phone or our website
familyfutures.co.uk to arrange a phone call with a member of our
team.