An update

The second to last post back in November talked about how we were waiting for some post adoption support as we had referred ourselves back to social services.

Since then, things have actually changed for us a lot. Norman was so angry so often that we were struggling to know how to help him. He would stomp about and rage at us, his beautiful little face gnarled and twisted, shouting that he hated us, hated this family, how he wanted to get a knife… you can probably imagine the scene. He’s five. He also took to some name calling – “sabage onion” was a particular favourite of mine! It was very difficult to see him in such turmoil, especially considering the progress we felt we had made up until that point.

Marvin, on the other hand, was sweet, charming; whilst this shouting was going on around him he would generally keep himself to himself, which was good because Norman needed such a lot of input. Actually looking back, that was very much how they were when we first met them, Norman in fight mode, Marvin in freeze mode. Neither are particular healthy, but we coped the best we could and asked for help.

We finally did get allocated a social worker -we’ll call her Brenda.  Following the referrals we made in October we met her at the start of December, and she agreed that some sort of intervention would help. She agreed to complete a report requesting that we could access the Adoption Support Fund… and again, we wait. It has now been over two months since that agreement was made, and we have no idea when we will hear from her again.  I do want to point out again that I believe strongly that it’s a system flaw, not anything that any individual social worker could have done, and we’re very lucky that things have eased off a little. But the Adoption Support Fund is there for a very good reason, but very little use if you can’t access it.

We’ve changed tack, and lifted ourselves out of the negative cycle we were in, we’ve focussed on praising the boys, building up their self esteem and thankfully it’s making for a more peaceful household. Unfortunately after finally settling Norman down, Marvin became very difficult! Every request was met with a rather loud “No!”, even when the request was something he might want to do!  Then there was the day that he ran away from home.  I mean, literally, ran away from home. A mile or so in total, all the way past school, and nobody could stop him.  Let me tell you, there are few things quicker in this world than a determined four year old!

We mooch on, we do our best, and we look back two years and the progress we’ve made as a family is huge.

Two years ago this evening, Mrs S and I were going to sleep for the last time as a family of two, with no idea of how drastically our lives were about to change.  Tomorrow evening we will quietly celebrate as a family of four, with no massive fuss, just the knowledge that, whilst we are still early on in our journey, we have travelled a long way already and we will always have each other.