Preparing for the visit by Jah and his foster family. Necessary steps to be taken in adopting an older child.

When I was writing the Memoir a couple of years ago about adopting our children in the 1970s and 1980s, somebody asked me “How would your experience be relevant today in 2013?”  It was a valid question.

Actually, although technology and many things have changed since then, I can’t help thinking that certain basic things must remain the same.  There will always be important steps that need to be taken when settling an older child into a new family with a view to adoption.

How many of us could contemplate being uprooted more than once into new families and surroundings?  We all had to ensure that this little boy did not feel that he was rootless.  He had to be helped to understand where he had come from and where he was going and the reason why. Both our social workers helped greatly in this process.

Jah already felt loved by the short-term foster family who had cared for him.  Their task now was to remind him that handing him onto a ‘forever family’ had always been part of the plan for his future.  It was something they had been very open about.

Our task was to do everything we could to prepare for his arrival and to reassure him that we were ready to love him and welcome him into the family.

So far in this blog I have told how we received the initial information about a child, followed by our decision to go and see him.

We visited and then decided fairly quickly that Jah was a child we could readily welcome into our family.

The next step was for our children to met Jah.  They were excited by the prospect, especially Sam, who throughout the long waiting period clung anxiously to his desire to have a little brother the same colour as himself.  He rearranged things in his bedroom, making sure that it would look appealing to a three year old.  He looked out the toys he thought Jah would enjoy.  These included a magnificent bag of wooden bricks.

They had been played with and treasured by Lucy, Anna and many of their friends, long before they were thought of as Sam’s bricks.

He also found a treasure trove of picture books that he used to enjoy.

 His bedroom already looked different and full of promise to him, as we had recently bought some bunk beds. He installed himself happily in the top bunk. He explained solemnly that the top bunk would be ‘dangerous’ for a child as young as three.  Clearly he was going to be a most solicitous big brother.

Soon everything was planned and we were ready for the big day of the visit.  The foster family would come up to Leicester by train for the day.  We would have lunch, look all round the house where Jah would be living in a few weeks’ time. The foster children would want to see this, so that they could picture him in his new life and surroundings.

We would then go to the local park for the children to let off steam and play together.  If we were lucky, we adults would be able to snatch a chance to talk and share useful information.

On the day itself D. took the car to the railway station to meet the family. There would have to be two trips.  We could hardly fit seven people in, in one go. Sam was chosen to go on the first trip, so that he would be the first to see Jah.  He had been jumping up and down all morning.  He just couldn’t wait to meet ‘little brother’!                                            To be continued