Parenting with bells on

YOU’VE gone through the soulsearching, planning and wondering if you’ll be good at it. You’ve imagined what they will be like and looked forward to holding them in your arms. And finally the day comes. You’re told you’re going to be a parent.

“There are usually tears,” says Margaret Bell.

“People have held it together up to that point, but then it gets very emotional. It’s a rollercoaster because many of our families have been through IVF or suffered multiple miscarriages, so this is their last chance of having a child.

“From first inquiry to this moment, it can feel like the waiting time during a pregnancy.”

Only “like pregnancy” because these are adoptive parents. They have gone through a series of questions, home visits, information exchanges, preparation days and assessment until the day that their application report is put before an adoption panel.

Finally, after a tense wait in a side room, Margaret and the chairman of the DFW Adoption panel arrive to pass on the recommendation of the adoption panel.

The statement “You’ve been recommended for approval” marks the end of one road, but also the beginning of a new, long journey of parenthood.

Once the decision is ratified, typically within a year, the family will welcome a waiting child into their home.

“We find families for children, not the other way round. There are children of all ages, cultures and backgrounds waiting, so we welcome a diverse range of families for them; from all ethnicities and faiths, single or a couple and from all income levels,” explains Margaret, director of DFW Adoption.

In the year 2010-11, DFW placed 21 children with 14 families in the North-East, including one sibling group of three and five sibling groups of two, to adopters who included two single women. The majority, however, are single children aged between one and four placed with white heterosexual couples. The agency is always keen to hear from people willing to parent sibling groups aged four years and upwards, offering a high level of support to families.

Family life has been at the heart of DFW’s work in Durham and across the North East for 102 years, a century in which its services have adapted to reflect the region’s changing social history.

The organisation started life in 1910 as the Durham Preventative and Rescue Society and was formed by the Church of England to protect and educate vulnerable women.

“At that time, so many women were appealing to the clergy to help them. They had no legal rights, often suffered abuse at home and, if they became pregnant, had nowhere to go – they were the so-called ‘fallen women’,” explains Margaret.

Gradually, the organisation came to look after the welfare of families.

By 1946, the now named Durham Diocesan Family Welfare Council was placing children with adoptive families on a regular basis, a situation that peaked in the early to mid-1960s when 400 babies a year were adopted.

Enormous ledgers detailing all the adoptions – in excess of 10,000 case files – arranged through the agency dating back to 1938 remain in storage and must be kept by law for 100 years.

The Abortion Act of 1969 and the Pill gave women choice and, consequently, the number of DFW mother and baby homes reduced.

In the 1970s, the agency, which had offices across the region, centralised its services in Durham, at the same time as local authorities began working collaboratively with voluntary adoption agencies. Margaret adds: “From then, everything moved in a different way and has done ever since.”

There are 32 voluntary agencies in the UK, with only Barnardo’s and DFW in the North- East. The not-for-profit charity employs 12 people, including seven social workers, as well as host of parish supporters who raise money on its behalf.

The agency also earns income through being commissioned by Darlington Borough Council to provide independent support to birth families whose children have been given up for adoption and also to run a “postbox service”, exchanging letters and information between adopters and birth families.

WHEN local authorities find they do not have the right families for the children they are trying to place, they contact DFW and pay an interagency fee if a child is given a home. Sadly, the number awaiting adoption far outweighs the number of families available.

Just over 3,000 children were adopted last year – the lowest in a decade – although DFW has seen a significant increase in inquiries from people considering adoption.

The number of children who may eventually need adopting is growing all the time. One of the effects of the Baby Peter tragedy has been a sharp increase in the number of care orders which Cafcass, the children and families court service, puts down to local authorities taking a harder line over cases of neglect or potential abuse.

Margaret, who has spent her entire career in social work with children and families mostly for local authorities, believes DFW’s original ethos of helping people and caring about family welfare is what stands it apart. It is still the adoption agency for the Church of England in the Durham Diocese, although it works with people of all faiths or none.

The Government is reforming the adoption system to allow for a more streamlined process that will cut the maximum time from initial enquiry to adoption panel from eight to six months, and for reports to be more concise.

Margaret welcomes a fresh approach, but believes it should still take time. “Identifying adopters is a risk assessment. You need to ensure that the people who want to adopt can keep the child safe and secure, so we must properly assess people on their ability to do that and on their own relationships and family network.”

IN line with its family ethos, DFW runs seminars, workshops and information days to prepare and support adoptive parents before they are approved, immediately after and typically for four months or more beyond a child being placed with them. Free post-adoption support is available for as long as it’s needed.

It has also piloted a parenting programme based on Carolyn Webster-Stratton’s The Incredible Years, which is being developed into a nine-session course to, among other things, promote secure attachments between parents and children and give parents the tools they need to deal with day-to-day challenges. They are also planning to start a support group for adoptive families that have attended the parenting course Margaret adds: “Finding adopters is not just about making sure that people have the right skills and attributes, it’s also about working with people to help them develop those extra skills. Adopting is parenting plus. There are a lot of challenges specific to adopted children about their feelings of identity, their past, any harm they may have suffered and so on. It’s parenting with bells on.”

For more information, visit dfw.org.uk or call 0191-386-3719.