How many children have you fostered and how many have you moved on to adoption? 

We’ve fostered 28 children and moved 10 on to adoption.

At what stage do you start to tell children that they’re going to move to their forever family?

We usually have an idea of the permanency plan a couple of months before it happens. But I have seen introductions start a couple of days after the judge has made the decision. As soon as we have a clear idea of which way the decision is going to go, we will start talking (in an age-appropriate way) about forever mummy and daddy. It’s so difficult talking to a child about moving on, but we always speak excitedly and positively about the new family.

We generally know a little bit about the new family and will plant seeds in the child’s head. So for example, if the new family have a dog or lives near a park, then we’ll talk about how exciting it would be to have a forever family that has a dog or who lives near a park. Then it can feel like it was their choice when they meet their family for the first time and discover they have a dog.

The adopters provide a book that they’ve made with photos of them and their home so we make a big fuss about everything in the book! We go through the book hundreds of times, reinforcing the fact that “they wanted a dog or to be near a park”. And how exciting it all is.

About a week before introductions start we receive a DVD that the adopters have made and sit all the family down together to watch it. Everyone would be really excited and make a big fuss of the child, pointing out things like, “Look at your bedroom! You wanted bunk beds!” The DVD would be watched hundreds of times!

What do you do to prepare a child for introductions?

We talk about what is going to happen in an age-appropriate way. With younger ones, it was more about going through the book and watching the DVD to keep them fresh in their head.

We once had two little girls from two different families being adopted separately around the same time. The first to be adopted noticed that her new home had a blue door when we watched her DVD.

The second little girl was telling everyone that she wanted a pink door. When I met her adoptive mum, I mentioned that she wanted a pink door. When we received her DVD she had painted her front door pink!!

What are the best things for adopters can create to help their children learn about them?

It’s age-relevant really. Little ones need visuals, so a book with photos of them, their house, their bedroom, any pets, the local park etc. Older children the same or a video. But hopefully, if the adopter has some feedback from the foster carer, then include photos of things the child likes. So, for example, a bike, Lego, plaiting hair etc. Don’t overthink it. The video doesn’t have to be long. Make it fun and engaging.

One family sang row, row, row the boat but it went on forever!! The child lost interest after a couple of minutes. Another mum filmed herself putting lots of strawberries in her mouth which the child absolutely cracked up and loved!

What advice would you give to adopters about introductions? What can they do to prepare?

The most important thing is not to rush in and try and take over. It upsets the child and the carer. Be patient and move at the child’s pace. Don’t feel upset if after the first and second day the child still isn’t coming to you for things. If a child has formed good attachments to their carer, they will go on to form good attachments with you. But it won’t happen overnight.

Feel confident that if the child absolutely adores the carer, then the carer has done a good job and the child will move their affections to you.

Listen to the carer. The introductions plan may say to do one thing, but the carer may suggest something else. They aren’t trying to be difficult, they want the best outcome for the child. I think patience is the key.

Please also be mindful of how the carer is feeling. We open our homes to adopters at a time when we’re emotionally exhausted because we’re about to move on a child that we’ve loved and cherished for a long period of time. That’s tough.

How long do introductions usually last? How do they work?

Introductions usually last between one and two weeks, depending on the age of the child. It’s very intense for all involved!

The first day the adopters arrive, we don’t make a big fuss. They come in and have a cup of tea and everyone is sussing everyone else out. They stay for a couple of hours and go. The next day they stay for a couple of hours longer. The next day we might go out to the park and I’ll start to take a back seat.

The next day they will take the child out for most of the day then come back and do dinner, bath and bedtime routine. We slowly build up until they have taken over our routine. Depending on the age of the child, a sleepover at their new home may happen. We drop the child and pick them up the next day. It’s an exhausting time for everyone. As the end approaches, everyone should be ready for the move.

How do you and your family prepare yourselves for a child leaving and moving in with their forever family?

It’s the hardest thing in the world to prepare for. It’s like a bereavement. Of course, you are always happy for all involved but inside a piece of you is dying. I lose weight and spend most nights crying leading up to the introductions. I used to keep the baby’s pyjamas under my pillow so when they left I could inhale their smell!

We really try to get to know the adopters and make them feel comfortable and at ease. We keep in touch with almost all adopters we’ve moved children on to.

Our boys were three and five when we started fostering and it has really played a massive part in their growing up. Moving children on really affected them as well. Also, my parents and my husband’s parents get upset. I always say it never gets any easier moving children on, but I’ve learned to cope with it better.

We’ve not had any support from social services either during or after introductions. But we’re lucky to have amazing friends to pick us up and look after us and a big glass of wine always helps!

If you’d like to read more adoption stories, click here

Preparing for adoption introductions: meeting baby sister

We’re starting introductions next week with baby sister. Preparing to meet her has sent me right back to when we were waiting to meet her big sister. How different things were then. We were very new to parenting. It felt like nothing was expected of us other than we needed to turn up and learn as we went.

This time things are very different. Apparently, we’re experienced parents. I had to stop myself from laughing out loud when we were referred to as that for the first time. Yes, we have experience of parenting. But it feels like we’re making it up as we go along most of the time. I’m experienced in my job and a lot of the time I can do it without thinking. Parenting is a whole different kettle of fish. Each day is a new challenge and just when you think you’ve got it sussed, the rug is pulled out from under you.

As your child grows, you adapt to their ever-changing needs. Our eldest daughter is four and a half. She hasn’t worn a nappy for a long time. And she hasn’t worn a “proper” nappy with side fastenings for what seems like forever. Next week I’ll have to remember how to change a nappy on a baby. Our eldest was nine months when we met her. Baby sister is just shy of six months old. I haven’t changed the nappy of a baby who’s that young since my youngest niece was that age. She’s nearly 11 now.

Remembering how to change a nappy

When we met little Miss, she had a virus and her nappies were hideous. I had to change the first one with her foster carer watching my every move. Don’t get me wrong, the foster carer is lovely and it’s the same one this time. That doesn’t stop me from being very, very nervous. She’ll be expecting us to know what to do.

I’ve never had a birth child. I don’t know how you prepare to meet the baby you’ve grown in your tummy for nine months. When you meet your child through adoption, you already know what they look like. They have a name and routines. They have attachments to their foster carers. We’re expected to go into the foster carer’s home and effectively take over. That’s a lot of pressure.

When we were preparing to meet our eldest, I did a lot of reading about adoption introductions. The adoption forums on Fertility Friends provided a lot of invaluable information about what to expect.

Photographs and smells

Photographs and smells help your child become familiar with you. As our eldest was a young baby, we bought her a couple of cuddly toys and a snuggle blanket and slept with them for a few weeks. This meant when she played with them, she was familiar with our smell.

A lot of adopters make some kind of scrapbook or photo album of immediate family. My mum is a whiz at crafting and put together a fabric photo album so that little Miss could play with it without there being any sharp edges. Not a Fictional Mum has created something similar.

We also laminated some photographs of hubby and I so that the foster carer could put them up around the house. It really broke the ice seeing our photos stuck everywhere the first time we visited the foster carer’s house. I burst out laughing every time I went upstairs as our photo was at eye level on the door. We’ve done the same things for baby sister and handed everything over at panel to be given to the foster carer.

Introductions with a sibling

It’s hard enough getting to know your child under the spotlight, but this time around we have the added dimension of our eldest being there too. We’ve got the first few days on our own while she’s at school and then she’ll be involved from day three.

Our eldest is so excited about meeting her baby sister. I know she’s going to want to be involved in everything so it’s going to be hard making sure she doesn’t overwhelm her baby sister.

We’ve bought her a present from her baby sister and will leave it at the foster carers the day before she meets her. We’ve also bought her a book about becoming a big sister which comes with two pairs of socks. One is a big sister pair, the other is a little sister pair. I’ll have to remember to keep both pairs when they grow out of them and put them in their memory boxes.

Adoption introductions

Introductions are a necessary means to an end. The end is we bring baby sister home for keeps. Getting to that point will no doubt be stressful and exhausting both mentally and physically.

We’ve known about her for nearly as long as a pregnancy would have been so I just want to meet her now. I’m trying not to get stressed or worried about my feelings towards her. One of my first blog posts was about it not being love at first sight when we first met our eldest. I’m prepared for it to be the same this time around, and that’s fine. I know with time the love will grow.

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When introductions start depends on how you’ve been matched with your child. If you’re matched through fostering to adopt from birth, introductions will take place in the hospital. Depending on whether there are any health issues, they are likely to be quite quick. Perhaps a day or two and then you bring your child home.

When do introductions start?

If you were matched the “traditional way” after the court proceedings have concluded, they take place usually a week or two after matching panel and start at the foster carer’s home. Introductions for our eldest started just over a week after panel. With our youngest, it was two weeks. The length of time will depend on how long it takes your agency’s decision-maker to approve the match.

With a young baby, introductions are usually about a week long. The older the child, the longer they are. If it’s a sibling group, it’s likely to be longer again. Our children were nine months and five and a half months when we met them. Introductions were seven days for our eldest and six for our youngest. That doesn’t sound like much time to get to know your child but both times felt like the right length.

Preparing for introductions

Part of the role of the foster carer is to prepare children to move on to their forever family. Things like laminated photographs of you, picture books, soft toys, or blankets with your smell on, are all things you can give to the foster carers to help them introduce you to your child.

By this stage, they will have told you the basics about your child’s care such as favourite foods, the brand they use of things like nappies, shampoo, style of sleepwear, and favourite type of toys.

It’s worth checking exactly what your child will be coming home with as this will vary greatly depending on the foster carers. Some will buy new for each child and send everything home with them so they’ve also got things for their memory box from when they were younger. Others will just send what they use at that stage and keep everything else for the next child.

If you are adopting a young baby, make sure you know the type of bottle that the foster carer uses, whether they’re coming with the child, and the brand of baby formula they use. This is really important because introductions and the first few weeks of placement are not the time to start changing brands and trying something new.

If you do find that you’ve bought the wrong formula, or you end up with unused and unopened boxes, you can get some money back using websites such as Sell Formula. It’s a quick and easy way of making sure the formula doesn’t go to waste.

Helping your child get to know you

We laminated A4-sized photos of us so that the foster carer could stick them around their house for our children to see. I’d forgotten about them until we turned up on day one of introductions with our eldest and saw our faces plastered everywhere. They certainly helped to break the ice!

As both our children were babies, my mum made photo books of immediate family out of fabric. A lot of printers can print onto fabric, so they are easy enough to make, or ShopNotaFictionalMum sells them. Having a fabric book makes it safe for a young babies to explore on their own.

We slept with a snuggle toy and teddy for each child which meant they had our smell on them. This helped the children feel at ease with us. Make sure you remember to wear the same deodorant/perfume for introductions so that the smell is the same.

For older children, you could do a video of your house and their new room. Or you can buy talking photo books where you can record your voice. Immediate family members could be included too.

Introduction plan

You should get a plan of how the introductions will work, from your social worker, either just before or just after panel. This will tell you where you need to be and when, how long each session will be and what is expected of you. I found this really useful because it meant I knew what food we needed to take for us and baby. It also meant we knew when we were going to be taking her out on our own so we could plan where to go and what we would need. I find that if I know when I’m going to eat and where the toilets are, I can deal with most things a lot better.

On day one we had a final planning meeting at the council’s offices then went to the foster carer’s home to meet our daughter. You will usually meet your child for the first time at the foster carer’s home, and then gradually transfer to the community and then your home.

The first session lasted a couple of hours. Our daughter’s social worker was there for some of the time, but it was basically just us, baby and foster carer getting to know each other. Over the next few days, the sessions were gradually longer, and we started to take over more of the care of our daughter.

Out in the community

On the third day, we took her out for three or four hours to our local park. We gave her lunch and then took her back early afternoon. We returned early evening to learn her bedtime routine. The foster carer brought her to our house on the fourth day. She stayed for about half an hour and then left us to it for the day. We took our daughter back to their house for her bedtime routine. The next few days were the same.

We had a final review on day seven and as everyone was happy, it was agreed we could bring her home. We picked her up from the foster carer’s house and then took her home for keeps. I’ll never forget driving away with her in the back of the car. I was excited, terrified, shattered, and felt a bit like we were kidnapping someone else’s child.

There’s no getting away from the fact that introductions are tough. They are emotionally draining and full of so many different emotions. You’re getting to know your child(ren) in a stranger’s home who’ve cared for them for months. They know your child, how they react to things, what they like and what they don’t like. As introductions progress, it gets harder and harder to take your child back to the foster carers as they start to transfer their attachment from the carers to you.

There really isn’t any other way of doing it. You have to get to know your child gradually so that they can start to trust you. For a lot of children, the foster carer will be the only parent figure they’ve known. Taking them away from that is hard. But most children will adapt and transfer their attachment to you quite quickly. Some will take longer and may need some professional help, particularly if they’ve experienced multiple moves and a lot of early trauma.

Foster family

It’s also an extremely difficult time for the foster family. They’ve been loving and looking after your child for at least several months, usually a lot longer. It is their job, but for most foster carers, it is much more than that. So be mindful that preparing to say goodbye to a child that they’ve opened their hearts and homes to, is going to be hard.

The best advice we were given about introductions was to be yourself and to not expect too much too soon. Don’t try to be perfect because you won’t be. You’ll make mistakes. The foster carer is there to help and guide you. They should tell you about routines, likes, dislikes and things like favourite toys.

You might not agree with the way they do things but maintaining the status quo until your child is home is best unless you think something isn’t safe. You might not agree with juice being given rather than water, or that your child naps in their pushchair rather than the cot. But they are all things that can be tweaked in time.

Reviews

Either yours or your child’s social worker should be in regular contact to check everything is going ok. Don’t be afraid to raise issues if you have any. Say if you think things need to be brought forward or put back. Some children adapt quicker than others. You might think that your child is becoming too distressed at being returned to the foster carer and so move-in date needs to be looked at again. There are no hard and fast rules to introductions. They have to be adaptable to everyone’s needs to make them as successful as possible.

There are several interviews in the magazine with adopters and a foster carer, sharing their experiences of introductions. Head over the introductions section to read them.

Because there was uncertainty for so long, I hadn’t really let myself think about baby sister. My first ever blog post was about how it took me a long time to love little Miss. I knew it would come, but it wasn’t there as quickly as I thought it would be. We’ve had a stressful year and I was worried that and the uncertainty around panel would mean I’d feel the same way about baby sister. I’d dealt with the uncertainty by not allowing myself to really think about or develop and feelings for her.

Little Miss started school in September and I’d decided last year I was going to take a month off work to try and make the transition a bit easier for us both. Having the month to just focus on her was amazing. It also gave me time to think a lot about what we were about to embark on. I’ll be honest, I started to have a lot of doubts. Life felt very settled and I didn’t want that to change. Little Miss was loving having all of my attention and me dropping her off and collecting her every day.

When we agreed to be assessed as adopters for baby sister, we’d said the timing of any placement had to be in the best interests of little Miss. Starting school is a big thing for any child and we were expecting it to be massive for her. She struggles with any type of change and became very unsettled every time she moved up a class at nursery. We’d therefore said she’d need a bit of time to settle first. We felt October half term would be the best time for introductions and placement.

I was really angry and disappointed when it became clear that in the end, our views around timing of the placement hadn’t been taken into account. By that point though, I didn’t have the energy to fight it. So, I was really nervous as we headed towards introductions. Little Miss was coping brilliantly with school but I couldn’t help thinking that all of that would change once she met her sister.

Last time we did introductions, we didn’t have a clue what to expect. I actually think that is better. Knowing what we were facing made me more nervous. Baby sister was with the same foster carers as little Miss which was a massive positive. The family are lovely so from that point of view it was good. But it didn’t change the fact that introductions are incredibly demanding and emotionally draining.

I don’t know how it feels to prepare to give birth to a child because I’ve never experienced it. I don’t know whether preparing to give birth for a second, or third time is better or worse than the first time. However you come to meet your child, I guess you experience a whole host of emotions. The few days before we met baby sister, I mainly felt panic. Panic that we had made the wrong decision and that we were about to take on more than we could cope with.

Meeting little Miss felt like an anti-climax. It had been such a long journey for us to find her that I’d built it up into something it was never going to be. This time round, I think it actually helped that my expectations were very low. I didn’t except to love baby sister. I excepted to feel nothing for her. On the first day of introductions we were late for the planning meeting because we couldn’t get parked and at one point I did think we should just drive away and not go in.

Sometimes it’s best not to think about things too much and just let them happen. I really wish I was better at doing that. Meeting baby sister was such a different experience to meeting little Miss. I was very surprised that I loved her the second I set eyes on her. She is the double of Little Miss. She has a lot of her mannerisms, her head is the same shape and she has the same amazing big blue eyes. I think that helped the love for baby sister to come straight away.

There’s no doubt that doing introductions when you already have a child is more of a juggle. But actually, I think it made things easier too. We had 2 days of meeting baby sister by ourselves and then little Miss met her on the third day. Seeing her face when she saw baby sister for the first time was priceless. She coped so well with it all and was really chatty with the foster carers which was lovely. She’s normally very shy with new people (she was only 9 months old when she left so has no memory of them) but she really took to them which made things a lot easier. It was amazing for them too as although they’ve fostered over 20 children, they’ve never had this situation before.

Baby sister has settled in really well and so far has been able to transfer her attachment from the foster carers to us without too much distress. It blows my mind that we’ve taken her away from everything she’s ever known and she’s just taken it all in her stride. She’s teething which is causing her a lot of grief, but the move hasn’t phased her at all. Only time will tell how her attachment to us will develop but so far, the signs are promising.