Friday, March 15, 2013

Training - Day 2

Wednesday was the second day of our training course. In the morning we had a session on attachment and some of the issues that poor attachment can cause. It was quite eye - opening and a bit daunting if I'm completely honest.
The second season was about the stages in the adoption process. It was good to hear the views and thoughts of the adoptive parents who had been through it all, but I have to admit I'm not sure it was the best use other training time. I think most people on the course had a pretty good idea of all the stages.
The afternoon was spent talking to adopters and hearing their stories. This was definitely the most useful part of the session, although again quite a bit of time was spent talking about the process and the delays and problems they had. I know the LA must be limited in which adopters are able to help on the course, but I did think it would be useful to hear from people who have had adopted children for 10 years or so. The adoption process is obviously important, emotional and stressful but it is only for a limited time. Once it is done we will be adoptive parents for life and I think it would be useful to spend some time thinking about longer term issues.
Overall though, the course was informative and thought provoking. I'm looking forward to the last 2 days next week.

Edit: I'm adding my regular link to the Weekly Adoption Shoutout.  The theme for this week is contact - not something I can really comment on at this stage in our journey, but there are some intersting blogs linked to it.

9 comments:

  1. Is there going to be a feedback form at the end? Could be useful for the SW to consider in future courses...

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    1. They've asked us to fill in a feedback form at the end of each day. Part of the problem is that the people on the course are at such different stages and have done very different amounts of background reading. What is old hat to one person can be completly new to another.

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  2. I'm so surprised you do a training course that is full of people at different stages...surely you all have different knowledge, information, questions based on your own part of the process? But it does sound like you found it useful?

    Thanks for linking this up to the Weekly Adoption Shout Out and for linking back to it too :-)

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    1. For us it isn't too bad as we are still at a fairly early stage, so most of the questions people ask are relevant to us. I imagine it is a bit frustrating for those approaching the end of the process.

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  3. I found the chatting to others the most helpful too in our training courses. We also had a similar experience where most people seemed absolutely shocked and almost distraught by some of the information. It was surprising that they had gotten to this point in the process without knowing that chances are they would be adopting a child with abuse and neglect in their past, maybe with FASD etc. It seemed to take a lot out of them.
    Sounds like you are taking everything in stride and really processing and thinking each step through...it's an exciting time!!!

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    1. That does seem quite shocking Lindsay. I'll admit that initially we didn't really know what to expect from adoption but it didn't take long before we started to come across information about attachment issues, FAS etc

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  4. I think your suggestion of talking to long term adopters is a great one make sure you feed that back. I think listening to others experiences is very useful through out adoption, even now for me at six years in.

    Thanks for linking up to the Weekly Adoption Shout Out

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  5. I think your suggestion of talking to more experienced Adopters would be great - they will tackl different themes throughout the 4 day prep group too, though, so hang in there. they have to go through the process so everyone knowswhat to expect and to give the reality that all children have considerable impact from their past, which might shatter some illusions. the course will help sift through those to go on to the next level or not.

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  6. If anyone is looking for the experiences of an adopter with a lot of experience, I've found a great blog at http://fiona-ferguson.blogspot.co.uk/

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