Visit preparation

We’ve been preparing questions for Boy H’s social worker and foster carer visit tomorrow. Originally we had a list of questions that ran for pages and pages, adapted from questions people have posted on Adoption UK and from questions that other prospective adopters have shared with us. In the end we’ve decided to leave most of those questions for introductions (should we get to that stage), when there should be plenty of time to chat and find some of the answers for ourselves.

So these are the questions we’re planning to ask tomorrow.

- What’s his weekday routine?
- What’s his weekend rountine?
- What does he like to do? Play games? Watch TV? Read books? Cooking? Crafts?
- Sleeping habits: wake up time? Naps? Bedtime?
- Food: allergies, favourite food, disliked foods, portions, times
- Likes and dislikes: e.g. music and noise, animals, clothing, outdoors vs. indoors play
- Favourite toys
- Speech and understanding
- Relationships with other children (other children in placement/school)
- School
- Any photos/mementos/memory box or book FC might have made so far
- Has he been taken on any special trips by birth family or foster carers?
- Any particular triggers of memories of siblings, parents, “old life”?
- General health eg. colds, digestion. Any operations? Any hereditary conditions in the birth parents?
- What has he been told about us? Has someone talked about the possibility of having two dads? Has he had books such as “And Tango Makes Three”?

I expect we’ll come up with new ones as we go along and we’ll skip some others. We’re mostly looking forward to hearing lots about him directly from the foster carer, who’s known him for quite a while now, although of course we realise we’re going to be asked questions as well and we need to make sure they will still want to proceed with us! Only a few hours to go...