Sing in the rain

Oh my goodness! I have said I'd share the good and the bad and phew has this been highlighting a  lot.  This does - so far- have a good ending, but oh my goodness it's been hard work. I will therefore apologise in advance for some ranting and less positive reflections - this isn't everyone's experience, but it's worth sharing in case this is useful for anyone to be prepared/know it's ok! Honestly, Getting this set up has been a lot of hard work and nagging that it shouldn't be. I'm going to skip for now the bit of just getting to the stage of engagement with the social worker about direct contact  The social worker for contact is separate to any of the previous social workers. This social worker's primary responsibility is working with the bio family to support them - though also to be able to assess them - to know the headspace they are in and ensure contact is safe. They are normally responsible for both letterbox and direct contact. They should ge...

I'll preface this by not everyone is lucky enough to have the option of contact - either from safeguarding, capability, circumstances or simply whether they are still in touch with the social workers or anyone else to be able to. In our case, it is an option, albeit with some hard safeguarding back and forths.  It's been interesting being involved in some conversations with friends, family and colleagues about perceptions and the idea of meeting directly. With little one's bio family.. Honestly, it's an idea many have struggled with. So here's the logic on my mind... Little one has and will have, questions. Different ones at different stages of life, but even in nursery and reception there are discussions about types of families and some generic traits. I mentioned when I had my own first meeting with her bio family members, I asked if they could roll their tongue... Now, I could leave it and she could then reach the age of social media, in all likelihood at a diffi...

(See also  Contact: Letterbox and Voices of birth parents  &  Contact - settling in letter ) Different children and agencies have different letterbox agreements. Contact generally is something they're trying to encourage more in modern day agreements. I'll do a different post on the detail of why's and some of my own thoughts/reflections, but it's likely that there will be an attempt to have at least letterbox contact, even if not direct contact. So, our agreement is once a year, but whilst little one is younger and so much changes so quickly, then i try to put something together for each month, I don't always manage to write it in month, but have the extra bonus of getting to use it as a lovely tool to think about the changes, developments and achievements in that month. I've been able to share when LO is asking questions about them, or about when she was with them - one example was when a friend was pregnant they showed her their ultrasound and LO asked ab...

One discussion I had with the foster carers during transitions was whether little one had had chickenpox. They were pretty sure she had, though did question whether it was another child they'd looked after.  It was left as they had. Which I ran with and therefore didn't get the (£150) chickenpox vaccine. This was likely disproved when LO did get chickenpox (pretty severely) a year or so later :o I then found out some info that would have been really useful earlier... So I'll share that with you now: If you've had chickenpox, you generally don't need the chickenpox vaccine as you're considered to have lifelong immunity. However, if there's uncertainty about your history, a healthcare provider might recommend/can do a blood test to check for antibodies. 

I had made a lot of notes about things i wanted to consider for letterbox contact (see  Contact: Letterbox and Voices of birth parents ), but it was still hard to work out what to include and how to do it. I was able to share how she was settling in (well, thankfully!), some activities she'd started to enjoy and i asked Little one (LO) for some favourites (colour, animal, tv show, activities, number....) I included some handprints so they had something that LO had touched directly and that gave them something specific from her. I also mentioned talking about birth family with LO, so that they knew she still knew about them. This also gave a good way in to asking a couple of questions, including whether they were able to share any photos that i could show LO - of them together or LO as a baby. I didn't get a specific reply back to the settling in letters (multiple family members) and am not sure they were given the chance to, however, they did send some additional photos via th...

I have mostly used online resources and remembered bits I've looked at previously, but will include other resources that I've been recommended in the below so that you can pull whatever is helpful for you!  A lot of the first ones are aimed at social workers, but still have been really useful. Not least of all, because although this is something with a lot more push than it used to have, in my case, I've found they're no more resourced and haven't necessarily had a lot of focus (training) time for this.  Online resources I've pulled from: Good practice guide - Contact-PG_E.pdf Staying Connected: the views of looked after children and young people on their contact arrangements - Coram Voice Supporting evidence-informed practice with children and families, young people and adults | Research in Practice   Contact: making good decisions for children in public law: Frontline Briefing (2024) | Research in Practice Staying in touch: Contact after adoption | Research...