September

We have amended and updated our A4 profile and sent it out to seven social workers; we got a reply almost straight away from one of them and they are interested in us! Early days still but at least some movement in the right direction! We feel much more in control now.

Our social worker is on holiday so we are dealing with a two-week enforced break.


We have had various contacts and swapped paperwork on three groups of children, with another one in the pipeline.  Again, more movement, albeit sloooooooow!

August

After a failed link at the end of July we have been taking some time off and are re-starting family finding.
We have been looking at ways to 'sell' ourselves better to social workers.
We had our annual review on 27th August, where we assessed the last year's family finding and to decide on the way forward. There is already so much being done and very little to improve upon; it was agreed that we just haven't yet found our Midges. We are to update the agency's profile form of us and they are to ensure we are invited to attend more family finding events. Another review is to be held in six months time if there is are no strong links in place.

July

We have been potentially linked with a sibling group of three! Woo hoo!
We had a linking meeting on 7th July and our social worker said they would be 'bonkers' not to go with us :D
We received the call on 9th July and it was a YES! All systems are go go go!! We are now officially linked! We will be meeting the Local Authority's medical adviser on 27th July.
As requested by the children's social workers, we have stopped family-finding, as have they :D
A court case was heard where the birth family now have a plan that does not include adoption and the courts have asked for assessments to be carried out. As the plan is stronger than the one they previously had, there is no certainty of the outcome. The next court hearing is February. We have decided that, due to time scales and the now uncertain outcome, to pull out. Our and the childrens' social workers fully support our decision. Back to square one.

June

We have now been potentially linked with a sibling group of three from 'L'. We have a linking meeting on 7th July to meet up with their social workers.

Our social worker has put on hold our interests in the following sets of siblings:
- Two from 'D', awaiting contact from social workers to advise if they are interested in us as a potential link
- Three from 'N', awaiting outcome of sibling assessment to ascertain if they will be kept together as a three
- Two from 'Nr'
- Three friom 'H'
- Two from 'Le'.

May

- Still awaiting a phone call / paperwork about three groups of siblings: S+2, a group from 'N' and a group from 'L'.
- Decided to take S+2 off our radar, due to a lack of response from their social workers.
- Also expresses our interest in three other groups of siblings: from 'Nr', 'H' and 'Le'.

April

- Had a phone call from our social worker on 2nd regarding potential parents for H+2. They were advised of a couple living nearer the children who have just been approved for 3 children aged 6 and under. As they are closer to the children and are more likely to be able to provide a better cultural reflection of their birth family, they have decided to put us (and the other couple) on hold for now until they can meet up with this new couple.
- We have now been advised that they are going to go with the other couple so that's it for those children.
- We are thinking about the other set of children (S+2) and what we can do to progress those. Our social worker has still had no contact from their social workers.
- We have now had contact from S+2's social workers, who is now on holiday for two weeks!
- Social workers from a place called 'N' have a sibling group of three in mind for us. They are carrying out a sibling assessment to see if all three should be adopted together. This assessment will take six or so weeks, so they are very much on the back burner.
- Social workers from a place called 'L' have a sibling group of three who are all under 4! The oldest had suffered an incident at 4 or 6 months, then at 3 and 1 the oldest two were taken into care. The youngest has been in care since birth. As it stands, we are the only couple being looked at - but as we know from bitter experience this means diddly squat!

March

- Possible interest in S and two siblings. Our social worker has read their profiles and there doesn't seem to be anything that we can't handle. We have received the profiles and are reading them at the moment.
- We also have received profiles on another sibling group of three: H and 2 siblings. Again, we haven't read the info yet.
- We have a meeting with our social worker on Monday 23rd March to discuss if either set might be suitable and decide what happens next.
- Mary has read through the profiles and is happy with both sets of kiddies.
- Had the meeting on 23rd and our social worker is also very happy with both groups, so we have asked her to progress our interest in them both. Yay! Feeling happier now, as the last three months without any movement has been taking its toll!
- We also discussed the length of time it has been since we saw her and how we don't feel that anything has been happening in the background. She is now going to tell us about every contact by email.
- Had a phone call from our social worker on 27th March, H and two siblings' social workers are very interested in us. They are holding a meeting on 31st to discuss whether to progress us as a potential link, so we hope to hear later that week.

February

- Awaiting infomation from our social worker regarding a sibling group of three girls.
- Our social worker says the three girls are not suitable, so back to the drawing board!

January 2009

- Awaiting the visit of some social workers for three boys on 7th
- Meeting held, boys to be split up so we decided not to progress our interest
- Four groups we previously had an interest in have now been linked with other prospective couples, so we are unable to progress our interest in those. Back to the drawing board.