Cracks?

This week has seen some good and bad from the adoption agency. I think there may be some cracks in their seemingly well organised processes. We received an email from the ‘Training Team’ about the preparation group we are booked on next week, which detailed where it is and what time to get there, along with a brief outline of what we will be doing. It also told us we needed to have read the corresponding sections of the Adoption Workbook we’ve been given in Stage 1 to gain the full benefit. Wait. What? Adoption Workbook? What’s that then? I

Progression!

We received word yesterday that we have passed Stage 1 of the approval process. This means that our adoption agency processed the replacement reference in under 2 weeks, which, from what I’ve seen from other people’s delays and frustrations, is astonishingly fast. Let me summarise our process so far. Early March – Attended LGBT Adoption Week event after seeing it advertised on New Family Social‘s facebook page. Here we expressed our interest with our local authority about adopting through them. Within 2 days we had received and information pack and an invitation to an Information Event. We had been under

Glacial Feedback

Just as I was starting to think about looking into some form of cryogenic suspension so that I could be woken up when the adoption agency had done something with our Stage 1 workbook my partner got a phone call from one of the social workers. (Let’s just say “Patient” wasn’t one of the 5 words I used to describe myself in the workbook) She was writing up a report which would then go to her manager for a final decision and she wanted some further details about our ‘support network’, namely how far away they were from us and

DBS Certificate

Just a quick update on my previous post. The adoption agency have confirmed that they had already been told that we have received our DBS Certificates, and they have said that because they contain “No Information” (i.e. they prove we don’t have a criminal record of any kind) they do not “need sight of them”. That means that the agency definitely have got all the information they need to progress us to Stage 2. The 2 months that Stage 1 is meant to take finishes on the 25th of August, so we will know by then if we can proceed.

Not a criminal!

It’s official, I have no criminal record according to the Disclosure and Barring Service certificate I have received in the post today. Of course I knew that already, but at least that’s another hoop that we’ve successfully jumped through. I’m just waiting to see if I need to send the certificate anywhere to prove I’m above board or if the adoption agency has received something already. I imagine that seeing as they requested the checks they’ll already know the results, and no one has told us we need to send the certificate anywhere (we didn’t even know we were going

The Waiting Game

As of 5.30pm last night we have completed everything we can for Stage 1 of the Adoption Approval Process. The “Health & Safety Check” turned out to be more of a look around the house making suggestions on what we might want to do to make things totally safe for a toddler. There wasn’t much we needed to do, some of our windows open out so far that an adult could fall out of them! So it will be a good idea to limit their opening capability. The only other main point we were told about was the pond, although

Moving Forward

Well, that was a productive weekend. On Friday we went to a training day entitled “Introduction to Adoption Day”, it was like being at school again. They had us and all the other prospective adopters sitting at tables in a horseshoe arrangement with three social workers and an outreach worker at the front talking to us. It was quite informative and certainly a useful insight into what is to come next. We were put into groups a couple of times, with couples being split into different groups so we worked with people we didn’t know. The activities we were assigned

Information Overload

Good news everyone! We’ve been accepted into the adoption process. What’s more, the adoption agency actually managed to reply to us within the maximum time-frame they had allotted themselves. Now the process begins in earnest. Welcome to Stage 1 of the Adoption Approval Process. We had been expecting a phone call to confirm whether or not we had been accepted by the adoption agency, the form implied it and so did the social worker we spoke to, I even chased them up via email to make sure they had received our form (still no reply to that), but in the