AUTOFORMACIÓN MÉDICA EN UNA ERA DE CUPOS LIMITADOS

The assessing social worker is the key person in the assessment process for the adoptive parents.

Recognising that the nature of the relationship between the social worker and the applicants for adoption is an important element of the process, parents were asked to describe if there were any qualities or skills in the social worker’s approach which they had valued and found to be helpful. They were also asked to identify those that were least helpful. These observations give a picture of how the social workers and their assessment skills were experienced by the adoptive parents. The comments are by their nature subjective, and they are therefore not an objective measure of the skills and qualities of social workers undertaking adoption assessments.

Adoptive parents had significantly more positive than negative comments about the assessing social worker. Almost 90% made positive comments compared to 37% who commented on ‘least helpful’ qualities. Many who had positive comments expressed surprise that their experience had been so positive. From

information they had received from other adoptive parents about the experience of assessment, they had not expected their own experience to be positive. A small number of parents who made positive comments also had criticisms and vice versa.

The positive comments are gathered under four headings, with quotations from the adoptive parents to illustrate the views expressed. Many comments contained more than one of these elements.

The social worker was professional and practical in their approach:

We were told that she would be awful and that she would fail us but she really got in and asked the hard questions and that was good because it actually helped us (Parents who adopted from EE)).

She was a good communicator, personable, helpful and nice. She was thorough in a professional way (Parents who adopted from A).

The social worker was experienced and knowledgeable about children and intercountry adoption. She was experienced and knew her stuff. You could relate very well to her. We were worried we would get someone we could not relate to. She could handle the sensitive subjects very well (Parents who adopted from A).

She had children, and that was the most important, she knew what she was talking about more than someone who did not. She was down to earth and had a lot of experience of fostering and adoption. She was mature (Parents who adopted from SA).

The social worker was a good listener was sympathetic to the adoptive parents’ situation: She had time for us. She was attentive to us and what we wanted. She had a good 1:1 relationship with us and so when you get to the hard questions it’s easier (Parents who adopted from EE).

She was an excellent listener, great empathy, soft and kind, genuine. She was willing to give you help. A huge amount of the experience depends on the quality of the social worker (Parents who adopted from A).

The social worker was friendly, a ‘nice’ person, down to earth and easy to get on with: She was nice. She was very down to earth. We got on great. She was frank and

straightforward with an open mind. We had a very good relationship with her (Parents who adopted from A).

She was great, very professional, we had a very nice and understanding and

accommodating social worker, she really made us feel at ease (Parents who adopted from EE).

As indicated above there were substantially less negative than positive comments and where comments were negative they were often more pointed and directed at the particular situation. In cases where some parents had negative comments to make, these parents still expressed considerable anger about the social worker and the process even though the experience had been some years ago. One topic which crossed both positive and negative responses, and was mentioned by 10 couples, was in relation to the social workers’ poor punctuality and inflexibility:

She did not manage time well- she came late and stayed longer. She was inflexible around meetings/dates (Parents who adopted from A).

The other negative comments are summarised below: The social worker’s organisation skills were poor:

She was dithery and forgetful; she lost notes and rang us to check things she’d already asked us. She was stubborn and set in her ideas and she thought she was always right (Parents who adopted from EE).

The social worker displayed unpleasant personal qualities:

I didn’t find her soft or gentle or sympathetic, she was extremely abrupt and a bit tactless (Parents who adopted from SA).

The social workers lacked experience:

She was young and had no children or life experience and didn’t seem to have much knowledge (Parents who adopted from EE).

And in some instances there was a lack of understanding / poor relationship between adoptive parents and the social worker:

There was a lot of negativity towards foreign adoption; we never got one good story from our social worker about adoption. It was all negativity and problems down the road, problems, problems, problems down the road. They tried to put you off (Parents who adopted from EE).

Overall, the adoptive parents’ experience of their assessing social worker was enormously varied but predominantly positive. Most parents seemed to engage with the process and with the worker charged with carrying out the assessment but there was, at times, some alienation:

She was younger than us and she had no kids herself and sometimes we felt the questions were out of nosiness, and we gave her the answers she wanted to hear. You answer the questions knowing that you were giving the answers they wanted (Parents who adopted from EE).

Most typical of the comments from many participants, however, was the relief of the adoptive parents in developing a relationship that enabled them to be open with their feelings to the social worker:

We said thank you to her afterwards, she had made the adoption process a lot easier for us, because of her warmth. You felt you could say to her, this is how I do actually feel, without a fear that she would hold up the process because it was wrong.(Parents who adopted from SA)