LOB's preparation for intros diary!

Life appreciation day.  its a day where everyone who has worked with the child/ren meet together to share information about them with prospective parents, who will have been officially linked and on their way to matching panel, so the people who will, if everything goes according to plan, become the LO's parents.  in our LA it is always done prior to matching panel, I have heard of some following matching panel but as it forms part of the information about the parents and child for MP I don't see how that can work properly in practice.

Most of mine have had myself (clearly becoz I am the person the child knows best),
my fsw partly as support for me but also for her take on the child (she doesn't usually attend the whole thing any more becoz I've done several and she's been promoted so very busy).  then the child's sw to give the history of the family and child, reason for child coming into care, history of the legal process journey etc,
the parents sw
the family finder (if different, my last one had the same ff and asw for family but was a local placement, out of county placements they are different obviously)
Child's IRO for similar but a slightly different perspective as coming from someone who knows the child on paper more than in person,
contact worker if there was one to give the perspective from contact with birth family,
LAC paediatrician (has never attended one of mine but always speaks to the parents separately if not attending),
health visitor to give any health concerns or to reassure that LO is fit as a fiddle!
LAC or school nurse if involved.
then nursery/school staff. i've had the class manager from nursery and senco,
portage home visitor (if involved),
speech and language therapist (if involved). 
for some children the specialist doctors that see the child are asked to attend or to submit a report but this usually comes via the LAC paediatrician.
the guardian is also invited but I have never seen one yet attend. 
and any previous foster carers that have cared for the child are supposed to be invited as well, though I have recently discovered that this seems to be up to the discretion of the sw's involved with the child as I was not invited to the one for the BBS recently despite having been her carer for 3/4 of her young life- but that's a whole different story and not one for here! oh, and of course the prospective parents becoz there would really be little point without them present!!
bubs do not attend and neither do any exisiting children within the new family, though I guess adult or teenage children might, but have never had a family makeup like that for any of my bubs

essentially we all get together for several hours, the longer the child has been in care, or older they are, the more there is to say by more people so they can last all day.  the bbs had one that lasted from 9.30 am til 4pm.  lunch is laid on (is here anyway!).  for my younger and less complicated babies they are much shorter, less to say and less people involved.  my last one had me, my fsw, parents (no sw attended for them) family finder, childs sw, iro, health visitor (and student) and contact worker and we really worked hard to stretch it to three hours and that included lunch!. 

we usually take it in turns to share what we know about the child, but everyone chips in with anecdotes etc along the way, parents can and usually do, ask questions along the way.
when its my turn to speak I share the child's routine, likes and dislikes, milestones, development, behaviour what they are like as little poeple, temperament etc I bring along the memory box, memory book, any photo albums, foot prints etc that I have made and my computer so I can show some videos and photos over lunch. I also take some of the child's comforters for parents to sleep with until matching panel when they are returned to me to put into LO's cot in the run to and during intros. and where there are siblings I take the reverse family book I have made for parents to share that with the siblings after matching panel just as I share the family book with the LO. there are of course differences between each LAD becoz each child and set of parents are different and the dynamics are different but more or less this is the pattern our LA take and the style I have within that for my own presentation.

We don't have LADs in our LA, I just meet the potential adopters, usually with their SW, child's SW and my SSW.
This is the time when I 'bring the child to life'. It is usually mostly about myself and the Adopters, the SWs are really there to hear what we discuss!!
Also useful if either side then feel that the match isn't viable, from the information, impressions of both LO and the adopters. The majority that I have been to have resulted in a match, just three that haven't.
One was the adopters deciding that their first AC just wasn't ready for a new little person in their lives, the other two it became obvious when talking to the adopters---and their reaction to info/videos of the LO ----that they just weren't the right match.
I find this a really useful session, as do the Adopters. In deed, one set of Adopters told me that it was The most effective part of the matching process.

We've never had one! Met two of the fcs at planning meeting on the day of intros and for littlys we drove for two hours to get there - not the same day as intros started - the male carer arrived half an hour late, had a strop, then walked out when sw refused to stretch intros over four weeks.

We gave female carer our list of questions and she looked at them, handed them back unanswered and instead told us that our daughter liked sitting on the potty to watch tv - MTV!

We had a rerun on the day intros started - this time with female carer. She walked out. Male carer didn't turn up.

It didn't get better! Thankfully it was our third set so I was a much stronger character by then!!

Donatella just seen your post - that's shocking! I hope you fed it back. Foster carers are constantly told we're "professionals" (when it suits the Professionals!) and it makes my blood boil when I hear of bad ones. They really let the good ones down.

feeling rather sad tonight.  I know its the right decision, I have no doubts about that at all but the finality of the final contact is heart breaking. 

squishy munchkin was a little star and of course oblivious to what was going on, managed all the passing around (5 family members attended, far too many) and stayed awake throughout, but so unsettled at bedtime poor thing.  and BM absolutely distraught.  very sad to witness.  usually the final contact takes place elsewhere, first bubs I have had that has had them at home which was good for him just less so for me! 

this is the first baby I have had that we have gone from the final contact straight to LAD, there is usually a very quick wind down of contact following placement order, used to be PO granted and then one final contact, these days the LA seem to be doing several weeks of wind down contacts first by which time with the new faster adoptions we are almost at moving day or so it feels anyway. 

but have sorted the memory box and got most things ready for the LAD in a few days time. 

just need to shake off the doldrums now!

Ahh wow, that's lovely to hear and reassuring for you that you had a good feel about the parents and the day. At least that's better than a not so good feeling, with 2 months to worry/ponder. Very hard though x

Why the break until intro's LOB's?

Sorry LOB's just me being stupid. I forgot it's different from the FC's side of things.

So mp said yes and so full steam ahead. Intros not til june due to sw and my pre existing holiday commitments (not giving up gsh camp a second year becoz of foster children! ). Family book delivered and duly shared tho as its a normal book rather than a tomy one it has limited interst for such a young baby and im not sure how much benefit it will be.  i hate the tomy books, they drive me nuts, but for very young children hearing the sound of their new parents voices is i think helpful, particularly when they are from out of area and speak with different accents. But squishy says it tastes good and he likes the feel of the paper and he's fairly certain it will sound good when I let my guard down and he finds the book and rips the paper!! 
next step planning, or preplanning meetings. Hoping my suggestions are taken on board, usually have a battle with the adoption manager over the plans despite my experience of adoption and personal knowledge of the children, but they do seem to be humouring me a bit more this time round! (Pays to complain!). Meanwhile I have a house sale to complete in the next two weeks and renovations to organise so never a dull moment! (House sale completes day of te gsh camp! Great timing! Large mug of something calming needed on arrival!

to be fair i'm not actually moving, its an investment property and my 'surrogate' daughter and her fiancée will be living in it and paying me rent.  is just the sale that's going through and then renovations, but not starting those til intros have finished.  wasn't expecting it to go through so fast! but yes, definitely go for a talking type album with littlies, always my preference (even if they do really irritate me they do then leave with the child, so I only suffer for a few weeks and then the parents have the books til the battery dies, mwahahahah)

Interesting about the books LOBs, the last couple of tinies I've moved haven't been interested in the Tomy ones. Maybe it's just they're picking up on my dislike of them!

Most successful thing is always a DVD. Even an 8 month old sat still and watched his new mummy and daddy being silly on screen (over, and over, and over...) and I think in all the moves (where the child was able to speak) the ones we had a DVD for were the ones where they greeted new parents as "mummy and daddy!" from the first minute of meeting. 

Hope you're listened to at the planning meetings, I know how frustrating it is to be ignored when actually you do know best.

Not really related but bubba is poorly.   hes very rarely poorly and is managing it well, but 4 really nasty nappies is taking its toll on my nose!!