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

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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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

8. 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
s) 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.

9. 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.

10. 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

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. 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

14. 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.

15. 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

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

17. Thank you
Questions?