Support That Actually Supports
ASF therapies
We adopted our children, full siblings, when they were 3 and 4. Right from the start things were very much harder than their social worker had led us to believe. We’d been given a story of two typically developing children who, “just needed a bit of TLC.” They had come a long way in 8 months of foster care, learning to use the toilet, eat with cutlery, and speak a few words. But we weren’t prepared for the challenges to come, which only started to become apparent during transitions as the foster carers explained how difficult their behaviour was and how they were different children when they were not together. By that time, the children had been told they were coming to live with us, that we were their new mummy and daddy, and it felt too late to call a halt. I wish we had known to ask for a sibling assessment, but we didn’t find out there was such a thing until well into placement.
We called on post adoption support a lot, right from the beginning. Our own adoption agency were great, offering 1-1 consultations with a really experienced therapeutic social worker and additional training without having to apply for ASF funding.
The children’s social worker for post adoption was also really good, very experienced and knowledgeable about trauma. She made an ASF application early on, about a year into placement, for our son who was showing much more distress than our daughter. The children’s social worker knew how to word the application so it would be accepted, while still allowing flexibility in what we would get from it. The application was for a Reducing Anxiety Management Plan (RAMP), but she made sure that the practitioner doing the RAMP was an experienced occupational therapist specialising in sensory integration. She was able to undertake a sensory assessment and offer a report with a description of sensory processing difficulties with a sensory diet for school and home to follow, along with the RAMP which included sensory strategies along with a more holistic approach.
The following year, the children’s social worker made an ASF application for Theraplay. This was approved, and arranged with a senior clinical psychologist with a view that the same practitioner might be able to extend the therapeutic relationship into other modes of therapy later on. This long-term view was a breath of fresh air – a social worker who was thinking ahead, not just securing a sticking plaster of 6 weeks of this or a short course of that. We made the most of our funding by travelling to the therapist’s location and finding a free venue at a school after hours – this was our choice, fully informed by the social worker being honest about how much money was in the pot and how much the therapy cost per hour.
The Theraplay was helpful, and of course the social worker was right: it didn’t fix everything. We all were not sure what to do next, so the children’s social worker suggested that we apply for a specialist assessment. This ASF application was also successful, and we had a thorough multidisciplinary assessment led by a qualified clinical psychologist with input from a psychotherapist and a therapeutic social worker. The report set out years worth of therapy, in a developmental sequence that made sense.
So, the social worker set about applying for the first therapy recommended in the specialist assessment, which was BUSS (Building Underdeveloped Sensory Systems). This therapy was delivered remotely, which meant a lot of work for us as parents. The therapist went to great lengths to try to engage our son, using his interests and treading the fine line between appreciating his existing skills and suggesting how he could improve even further. He did make great progress with key aspects like body co-ordination and rhythmicity, but interestingly no progress with needing to touch everything. This enabled the BUSS therapist to suggest why this might be and how we could work around it if it wasn’t going to be easy to change.
In the middle of all this, an application was also made for our daughter to have therapeutic life story work through the ASF. This was approved and she worked with an excellent therapeutic social worker who instantly connected with us and managed to guide our daughter through understanding her own story with care, sensitivity and fun.
There were also statutory processes happening throughout this whole period – we waited 3 years for CAMHS input, had a few assessment sessions and then the psychologist went off sick (hasn’t returned or been covered 6 months later). We got an EHCP in place, and moved our son to a special school where he eventually settled and thrived.
Now, it is mid-March and the government still have not announced whether the ASF will be running next year. We are ready for the next bit of the therapeutic plan set out in our specialist assessment, and waiting with bated breath to find out if it can happen.
The other big change has been that our children’s social worker has shifted from the Local Authority where they were fostered, to the Local Authority where we live now. The post adoption service has been very different – a procession of different social workers, with varying levels of understanding about trauma and about the ASF. I guess it really is a lottery, which you win if you get a social worker who knows what they are doing.
A Mum with a positive experience of support.