Assistant Team Manager St. Francis’ Children’s Society Achieving Matches By Gisele Farmer Assistant Team Manager St. Francis’ Children’s Society

This presentation will show how we support our adopters through the approved and waiting stage and onto the matching process.

Work we have undertaken Since April 2014 we have approved 45 families 33 families have been matched with children Of those, 29 were matched in less than a year 17 were matched in less than 6 months 2 were Foster to Adopt placements

Since Re B and the ReB-s Judgments… we realised that we were entering a strong, competitive market for the first time As a response to this we decided to extend and improve our support services for families from enquiry to a potential match

Buddying Scheme We have approximately 20 families who are now in placement prepared to offer telephone support to individuals This can be from enquiry right through to placement We have ensured that we have single buddies, same sex couples and adopters who have taken on sibling groups as well as families who have birth children We ask for up to 2 telephone calls but if the families connect and wish for more contact they arrange this between themselves.

Profiling We pay a professional photographer to come in 4 - 5 times a year to take photos of prospective adopters We have standardised all our profiles to look the same and use the professional photo in both PARs and profiles Full details of our adoption support services appear on the back of each profile. They are sent out to LA’s that we regularly work with.

Profiling continued… As a result of this an increasing number of LA’s are sending us their profiles before they use the Family Finding routes such as Adoption Link, Be my Parent, Children who Wait etc. Historically, our Consortium has held profiling afternoons where SFCS social workers attend and meet Family Finders direct. Profiles are exchanged and links encouraged. Certain Local Authorities invite our adopters and their workers to their internal profiling events

Exchange Days A senior SW takes the lead for these Exchange Days. She will: Ensure two workers attend with up to 50 packs of profiles to hand deliver to Local Authorities Encourage (by regular emails) all waiting adopters to attend the Exchange Days Depending on venue, we set up a stand with all our boards and information; this gives our adopters a base to return to and some moral support.

Follow-on Groups After panel, prospective adopters are encouraged to attend our coffee mornings. These are run by the adoption support team to make links and hear the real issues from adopters in placement. Adopters waiting more than 3 months are invited to an evening where we explain the current climate, how best to market themselves on Adoption Link and in their profiles. We encourage them to stay in touch with each other.

Follow-on Groups continued… We run 6 follow-on groups for prospective adopters nearing panel or recently approved: Matching and Introductions Importance of Contact Adopters with birth children Theraplay Techniques Using your support networks Telling and sharing

Surgery Our Adoption Support worker and a certified Play Therapist offer surgery appointments for approved and waiting adopters who are considering a match, or adopters with children in placement who would like to explore specific issues. This enables prospective adopters to consider and reflect upon potential matching issues and the long term considerations of parenting a specific child or sibling group.

Volunteering As well as encouraging prospective adopters to continue with volunteering to gain further childcare experience, we ask them to volunteer at our adoption support events such as the Christmas Disco, Nature Walk and Family Picnic. Tasks include manning the bouncy castle, face painting, making teas and coffees or setting up a specific game such as football.

Matching We use our assistant social worker to support social workers in their Family Finding task New social workers are buddied up with experienced social workers to assist workers with a full caseload to keep Family Finding a priority The ASW or supporting worker checks Adoption Link at least daily, sometimes twice a day They will step in during leave or sickness, again so FF is a priority

Theraplay Most of our Social Workers are theraplay trained to Level 1 as a minimum. As a result of this, we offer a follow-on group to share techniques before placement and up to 6 “settling in sessions” to help adopters use techniques in their every day lives. Assessing social workers use their techniques when preparing adopters to become parents within the homestudy process. We are able to offer more in depth “pure” theraplay which involves MIMs (Marshack Interaction Method) for both parents and children placed and up to 26 sessions funded by the placing Local Authority.

Inter-Agency Fee Our duty team are realistic with potential applicants about the type of child who needs an adoptive placement. We positively encourage adopters to consider ‘hard to place’ children (older children, sibling groups, BME or additional needs) As a result of this, we are optimistic that the Government’s backing to refund Local Authorities with their Interagency fee will increase our number of matches

Our support of our waiting adopters using all these ideas continues to help us to match our adopters within 6 months

Thank you Questions?