Gearing up for the planning meeting

Miranda rang yesterday to ask us for dates to visit Boy H’s current school. We’re going to the local authority next week for the planning meeting and we had hoped to talk to his teachers on the same visit, but and it’s half term so we need to go back another time. We can’t do anything about looking for a school in our area until after the planning meeting when we’ll have a better idea of the timelines of both when he might come to live with us and how long they want him to stay off school settling with us before he goes to his new school.

Miranda told us that she went to the panel for another couple who are adopting from the same local authority last week and she said the panel were very nice and “very human”, so that’s reassuring.

Adoption UK are running a course on attachment next month and we asked Miranda if this was something that might be worth attending, but she doesn’t think there is much point in going for two reasons: she thinks we’ve done our homework (with all the reading we’ve done on attachment and adoption) and are very “in tune” with Boy H (apparently this is what his social workers and foster carer said) and also we’re getting special training from the local authority. This is called Attachment Training Counselling and will require six sessions, of which two will take place after panel but before placement. We’re really pleased about this as obviously we welcome any opportunity for training on attachment (one thing is to read about it and another thing going through it for real) and also because it shows that the local authority are willing to spend money being proactive in supporting their adopters.

We spoke to Miranda again today and she confirmed that she’s received the placement and adoption support plans from Boy H’s social worker. She now has to fill in her bit and then she will send it to us so we can digest it before the planning meeting. Boy H’s family finder also got in touch today to let us know that she’s sent us the psychological reports carried on the birth parents and their children during the care proceedings, which we’re fairly sure won’t make happy reading but it’s something we need to familiarise ourselves with. Obviously the reports will have been edited so that we can only see the parts that refer to Boy H and therefore preserve the privacy of his siblings. She also sent us some paperwork we need to complete. It asks for the prospective adopters’ views on the adoption plan, and we will have to work on it quite carefully as it’s our way of communicating to panel our views on the match, why we think we will make good parents for Boy H, and how we will support him.

It really feels like things are on a roll and we’re really pleased and excited. We’re actually enjoying this part of the process, which we never thought we would. We are now even referring to “when Boy H is here” in our conversations. Last Sunday our friends S&J came over for lunch with their adopted son and we had a lovely time. I could really picture us doing that but with two kids (theirs and ours) in the not too distant future. We really can’t wait. Less than a month until panel now!