Prep groups or 'how I learned to think different'

First of all, in a slightly ‘scientific paper’ kind of way, I’m going to start with a conclusion: Prep groups rearrange your head.

This is telling, even in the way I have approached this blog post. I haven’t dashed it out straight onto the blogger straight after the groups finished. I’ve cogitated, processed, sketched out my thoughts, typed them out away from the browser...

...and still I was really unsure what to write and it is probably why it has taken me a while to write it. And this is the nub of taking part in the group. All the information we went through is, to all intents and purposes, available to us elsewhere. We could have read it online, bought the books (we have actually read pages and pages online and, ok, borrowed the books from the library) we could have had the discussions on Twitter.

But the shared experience with other couples face to face, the exercises that tapped deep into the soul, the worst-case scenario bluntness of some of the questions slowly started to evolve the way we thought about this process. I’m not going to go through the exercises and the discussions we took part in one by one, because I really don’t believe that is the essence of what we have taken away.  In the interests of not seeming so airy-fairy about this though, some things we think we learned:

During part of an exercise looking at uncertainties with adopted children, we discussed how difficult it can be to, for example, diagnose autism in a young child if they are on the lower end of the spectrum. As all the traits were read out, they could have been describing our birth son. In fact, not long after, we took part in a teacher consultation for our son where the words ‘special educational needs’ were mentioned for the first time. Although an issue, we are doing something about it, we have practical steps forward. It occurred to me that we are already quite used to dealing with uncertainties and, although they will probably be more extreme in an adopted child, it is just a matter of doing your best by your child and planning a route forward. Suddenly a whole world of scary stuff was demystified a little and, yes, perhaps we will be willing to consider some children that we weren’t before the prep group.

We were lucky to speak to a few adopters and foster carers and, would you believe it, they aren’t saints with degrees in child psychology. Who knew?  I know, I know, it’s easy to put these people on a pedestal (and also wonder if the people running the course are just showing you their ‘superstars’) but they came with warts and all and it was brilliant. We all started to believe, just a little bit, that we could do it too.

Finally, one of the most contentious discussions was that of birth family contact. If I’m honest, myself and my other half never really had a massive problem with contact. We both come from fairly ‘scattered’ origins. Since it was introduced by the social worker as something we would have to look into, we have got ourselves as comfortable as we could be with the idea. That’s not to say we were totally sold, we had just considered it as something we ‘had’ to do. What was fascinating was to see everyone go through the discussions, go through the exercises, question the adopters that came and come out realising how contact could be a positive thing, where appropriate. There were many ‘I had no idea!’ discussions in the coffee break after that one. ‘What, you mean the birth parents aren’t all monsters...’ etc.

Of course I have to mention the other people who are now sharing their own journey with us. A more fascinating, lovely, friendly bunch of people you couldn’t hope to meet. Taking them away as friends is one of the most important results of this group. A ready-made local support network.

Finally, while we wait for homestudy, we need to read, to talk, to discuss, to read some more, to google, to discuss a bit more...  We were shocked to learn that potential adopters could be halted in the process during homestudy for not being prepared enough. I must admit I was slightly self satisfied, however, to have already read some of the suggested list. My one and only bit of smugness, in my defence!

Well, then, are we prepared? Not completely. Our heads are in the right place, though, and we are prepared to be unprepared. We’ll be OK.