Who this is for

Adoption practitioners and managers (Voluntary Adoption Agencies, Regional Adoption Agencies, Local Authorities, and independent social workers), children’s social care services, children and family social workers, foster carers, kinship carers, designated teachers, and other professionals working with children and families.

Details

During this practice webinar you will have the opportunity to explore ideas around family finding in adoption and start to think about the methods Coram practitioners use and how we can ‘think outside the box’ to try new ways. Alternative family finding can have lots of benefits.

‘Prospective adopters tell us that having the opportunity to engage with ‘real’ children helps them to establish if they feel a connection and encourages them to widen their thinking about the sort of child they envisage parenting.’

We will also explore ‘what makes a good profile’, reflecting on how we write profiles, the information we include and why we include it. Profiles are such a big part of family finding and it is essential we get this task right for the children we work with as often it can mean finding the right family or not.

During the session we will explore including children in their family finding and the importance of being open and honest with children and supporting them on this journey.

Lastly, we will explore the role of the family finder. The role is such a key part of a child’s journey, so what does the role involve? How can we develop our practice as family finders? What works well? What can be done differently?

The adoption climate is changing all the time and it is essential that family finding can adapt and change to the challenges we face and develop with the ever changing world of adoption.

Learning 0utcomes

• Current adoption landscape, court delays and who are the children waiting?
• Profiling children for adoption across a range of media, both local and national
• Preparation of written profiles – what makes a good profile?
• Featuring children in the wider media (including good practice for video profiles) – key issues for consideration
• Including children in their family finding process – how do we prepare them for this?
• The benefits of alternative family finding, including Adoption Activity Days & Exchange Events
• The role of a family finder
• Best practice guidance for family finders

About the trainer

Kirsty Hammonds and Stephanie Bentley

Kirsty is a Child Placement Consultant with the Activity Days Team at Coram. She has worked in the team for 9 years, organising and running Activity Days for both Adoption and Fostering. Kirsty works closely supporting RAA’s, VAA’s and LA’s during this time with their family finding and have also delivered training workshops around Profile writing. Before joining the Activity Days Team, Kirsty was an Adoption Social worker for nearly 10 years, family finding for children and assessing and supporting adopters.

Stephanie has been employed by Coram as a social worker in the Activity Days team for four years. Her role includes organising and facilitating both adoption and fostering family finding events and undertaking intensive family finding for priority children. Prior to working for Coram, Stephanie was a children’s social worker at Herefordshire Council and a fostering social worker at Walsall Council.

Instructions

A member of staff will be in touch with attendees one week prior to the event to share a pre-event delegate pack.

If you have any questions regarding this webinar, please contact us at info@cvaa.org.uk. We will aim to answer your query within two working days.

CVAA accept online payments only. In case you do not have instant access to your company card, we suggest using your personal card instead to book a training event and claim it back with your agency in your expenses. Requesting an invoice to pay for our standard practice events is not possible.