In defence of a pause before the Intros Storm

Is it just me, or are adoptions speeding up? I know there's always been the rhetoric about children languishing in foster care, waiting for a loving family (thanks for that!), and some very laggy aspects seem to have been tightened up, probably to everyone's benefit, but recently I've noticed that a lot of prospective adopters are beginning intros within a few days of matching panel.

It seems precipitous to me.

I'm an adopter too, so, although I fostered my children and had them living with me, I do know how incredibly slow and drawn out the process can be. I can only imagine that it must seem a million times worse when your future child is still a face in a photograph and an impersonal wad of paperwork.

Once the family finder and the panel and the agency decision maker have all agreed that this adoptive placement is a good match, all that's left is to devise a plan for intros and then get on with it. Why not get on with it then?

Well, I feel I have to put forward a defence for a pause before the storm. When NB was adopted, all those years ago, we had weeks to wait between the match being approved and NB actually meeting his new mummy. Later, when BG moved on, the matching decision was signed off on Friday and intros began on Monday.

I know which I prefer as the foster carer. Long before NB's mummy got her decision from matching panel, we had met. We had talked about NB, shared pictures and stories and email addresses. Our correspondence grew and warmed over several weeks as we waited for the process to exhaust itself. Yet all this time, I was not allowed to mention anything about her to NB. Why? In case, for some unimaginable reason, the match wasn't approved and it all came to nothing.

I kept a bag of introduction materials that NB's mummy had prepared in a high cupboard. There was a DVD, a recording of her reading his favourite story, a photo album, and a picture of mummy. I waited and waited until I heard that it was a "Yes". And then I got the bag down and, little by little, over several weeks, I introduced the treasures inside to a wondering NB.

He had only said his final goodbye to his first mummy a few weeks earlier. Now he learned that he was to get a new mummy. It took time for this developmentally delayed three year old to process the information. Slowly, slowly, we sampled the photo album, spotting the cute bunny soft toy peeping out in each picture. I made photocopies of the photo of his new mummy and let him look at them or leave them, or eat them, depending on his mood.

Eventually he took a photo of his new mummy up to bed with him. I laminated one and stuck it to his bedroom wall. We watched the DVD together. And then we watched it countless more times. He started pointing at it and saying 'Mummy'.

When the first day of intros arrived, and she walked into our house, he looked at her and said, "Mummy!" straight away. It was a spine tingling moment.

With BG, I received the carefully-prepared bag of intros materials in the same way. I put it in the high cupboard. I waited for the nod from matching panel, and then I had two days to show it all to her before her new parents walked through the door. A week later and she was gone. It's not enough time. It's just not enough.

The adults in the adoption process have months, maybe even years, to get used to what will be happening. The children are not afforded that luxury. We can argue back and forth about the possible detrimental effects of 'delay' in the process on the children, but I will always maintain that the process of helping a child to understand who their new parents will be is one that cannot be rushed. Not for the sake of the foster carers, the social workers or the adoptive parents.

At that crucial moment, a child needs time. The adults may be impatient, or have schedules or whatever, but a child understands none of that. A process that truly has the child at the centre will allow a child time and space to process what is about to happen to them, as far as they can.

So let's dampen down our adult impatience, our need to tie off the ends, our desperation to reach the climax of the process. Once these children are adopted, it is for life. Let's give them some time to let that sink in.

Comments

  1. Family Futures are v interesting on speed/nature of intros and keeping the child in mind. https://www.familyfutures.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Transitions-Practice-Paper.pdf … Take longer and understand whilst it may be a time of joy/anticipation for the adults, it is a time of fear for the child, and we risk retraumatising even in the prep period, which means we may need to rethink prep.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I want to thank Dr Emu a very powerful spell caster who help me to bring my husband back to me, few month ago i have a serious problem with my husband, to the extend that he left the house, and he started dating another woman and he stayed with the woman, i tried all i can to bring him back, but all my effort was useless until the day my friend came to my house and i told her every thing that had happened between me and my husband, then she told me of a powerful spell caster who help her when she was in the same problem I then contact Dr Emu and told him every thing and he told me not to worry my self again that my husband will come back to me after he has cast a spell on him, i thought it was a joke, after he had finish casting the spell, he told me that he had just finish casting the spell, to my greatest surprise within 48 hours, my husband really came back begging me to forgive him, if you need his help you can contact him with via email: Emutemple@gmail.com or add him up on his whatsapp +2347012841542 is willing to help any body that need his help. 

      Delete
    2. Isiyku Abdulahi
      My ex-boyfriend dumped me one week ago after I accused him of seeing someone else and insulting him. I want him back in my life but he refuse to have any contact with me. I was so confuse and don’t know what to do, so I reach to the Internet for help and I saw a testimony of how a spell caster help them to get their ex back so I contact the spell caster and explain my problem to him and he cast a spell for me and assure me of 2 days that my ex will return to me and to my greatest surprise the third day my ex came knocking on my door and beg for forgiveness. I am so happy that my love is back again and not only that, we are about to get married. Once again thank you Dr Believe. You are truly talented and gifted.He is the only answer. He can be of great help and I will not stop talking about him because he is a wonderful man. Contact this great love spell caster for your relationship or marriage problem to be solved today via email: believelovespelltemple@gmail.com or WhatsApp: +19713839183















      Isiyku Abdulahi
      My ex-boyfriend dumped me one week ago after I accused him of seeing someone else and insulting him. I want him back in my life but he refuse to have any contact with me. I was so confuse and don’t know what to do, so I reach to the Internet for help and I saw a testimony of how a spell caster help them to get their ex back so I contact the spell caster and explain my problem to him and he cast a spell for me and assure me of 2 days that my ex will return to me and to my greatest surprise the third day my ex came knocking on my door and beg for forgiveness. I am so happy that my love is back again and not only that, we are about to get married. Once again thank you Dr Believe. You are truly talented and gifted.He is the only answer. He can be of great help and I will not stop talking about him because he is a wonderful man. Contact this great love spell caster for your relationship or marriage problem to be solved today via email: believelovespelltemple@gmail.com or WhatsApp: +19713839183




      Delete
    3. Isiyku Abdulahi
      My ex-boyfriend dumped me one week ago after I accused him of seeing someone else and insulting him. I want him back in my life but he refuse to have any contact with me. I was so confuse and don’t know what to do, so I reach to the Internet for help and I saw a testimony of how a spell caster help them to get their ex back so I contact the spell caster and explain my problem to him and he cast a spell for me and assure me of 2 days that my ex will return to me and to my greatest surprise the third day my ex came knocking on my door and beg for forgiveness. I am so happy that my love is back again and not only that, we are about to get married. Once again thank you Dr Believe. You are truly talented and gifted.He is the only answer. He can be of great help and I will not stop talking about him because he is a wonderful man. Contact this great love spell caster for your relationship or marriage problem to be solved today via email: believelovespelltemple@gmail.com or WhatsApp: +19713839183















      Isiyku Abdulahi
      My ex-boyfriend dumped me one week ago after I accused him of seeing someone else and insulting him. I want him back in my life but he refuse to have any contact with me. I was so confuse and don’t know what to do, so I reach to the Internet for help and I saw a testimony of how a spell caster help them to get their ex back so I contact the spell caster and explain my problem to him and he cast a spell for me and assure me of 2 days that my ex will return to me and to my greatest surprise the third day my ex came knocking on my door and beg for forgiveness. I am so happy that my love is back again and not only that, we are about to get married. Once again thank you Dr Believe. You are truly talented and gifted.He is the only answer. He can be of great help and I will not stop talking about him because he is a wonderful man. Contact this great love spell caster for your relationship or marriage problem to be solved today via email: believelovespelltemple@gmail.com or WhatsApp: +19713839183




      Delete
  2. I reunite separated families for free and I do respect that you provide foster care. I know people think the foster care system is broken but it is far more respectful of the rights of a person whose parents are unable to raise them then adoption is. Think about the fact that their parents rights are terminated for whatever reason, but the minors rights remain intact. By this I mean the minor's birth certificate is not falsified into making it look as if they are someone else's offspring and they still have their own name. Their parents have rights terminated but not support obligations; they may for instance still provide healthcare for their son or daughter through their employment. A person who is in foster care is still entitled to military and social security death benefits as a minor and can inherit the parent's property should they pass away whether a minor or an adult. A person in foster care as a minor and after adulthood has the legal right to access their relatives birth marriage and death certificates and their family in turn has a right to access theirs. A person in foster care is receiving care at no personal expense to their identity or legal rights. Your post reminded me of something an adopted person once told me about being forced to answer to another name and worse call someone else Mom just in order for someone to be willing to feed him. Foster care does not expect anything of the person receiving care which is equal to how all other minors receive care, without having to give up their names or call anyone else Mom or Dad.

    Its a beautiful thing that you and others are willing to help take care of someone else's child without needing them to call you mommy or change their name or whole birth certificate and identity. Aging out of the foster system is seen as such a bad thing by the State because the state paid the bill to raise the minor to adulthood. It's certainly not bad for the minor to have a guardian / foster family rather than an adoptive family because they get the very same love and care without the State sacrificing their identity in exchange for someone else taking on the financial burden of raising them. Adopted people truly are a second class of citizen with fewer rights. Adopted parents don't see it that way often I don't think they realize that the person being adopted should not have to give up legal rights and identity in order to join the adoptive family.

    Your post with the training period to teach them to call a new woman mommy and how spine tingling it was drives that home.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am karen from USA, after 4 years in marriage with my husband ,he left me for another woman. I did all i could to get him back but all effort proved abortive, until an old friend of mine told me about a spell caster Dr.EZIZA on the internet who helped her in a similar issue, at first i doubted it but I decided to give it a try. when I contacted the doctor (ezizaspellhome@gmail.com) he helped me cast a re-uniting spell and within 48 hours me and my husband came together again. I cant stop thanking Doctor EZIZA, Contact this great spell caster on your relationship or marriage problems and consider it solved just as mine and be happy again and forever.His email is; ezizaspellhome@gmail.com or contact him on WhatsApp on +2348163086732

    ReplyDelete

  4. Isiyku Abdulahi
    My ex-boyfriend dumped me one week ago after I accused him of seeing someone else and insulting him. I want him back in my life but he refuse to have any contact with me. I was so confuse and don’t know what to do, so I reach to the Internet for help and I saw a testimony of how a spell caster help them to get their ex back so I contact the spell caster and explain my problem to him and he cast a spell for me and assure me of 2 days that my ex will return to me and to my greatest surprise the third day my ex came knocking on my door and beg for forgiveness. I am so happy that my love is back again and not only that, we are about to get married. Once again thank you Dr Believe. You are truly talented and gifted.He is the only answer. He can be of great help and I will not stop talking about him because he is a wonderful man. Contact this great love spell caster for your relationship or marriage problem to be solved today via email: believelovespelltemple@gmail.com or WhatsApp: +19713839183




    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts