Court Update

Where does the time go to these days?!

Update on our Court Day...

We kept Tom out of school and headed out all together just after 8am. We had to report to social services in Verulam where we parked and walked over together to the Verulam Magistrates Court.  I did not realize until a couple days before that this was not in fact the beginning of the foster proceedings but that all this was for - was to vary the “place of safety” so that they are officially placed in our care according to all legal requirements.  We had been allowed to take them in December because of the need for space and the fact that they where comfortable with us - but it has not been official until now.

All we had to do was appear with the children and a recent medical report from the district surgeon and it should have been a very quick procedure.  I took them through to Stanger to get the medical report done and I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t dreading it. I imagined long queues of people and a stressful delay and it was the complete opposite – no queues and no delay AND it cost nothing!

So we arrived at the court with our latest medical, ourselves and our children and they asked us to produce our ID books which…we did not have… SO back home and back to the office we went and collected both ID’s and back to Verulum we chased – and hour and a half later and all rather tense. (I thought they would simply accept the info provided in the screening report from the social worker but no apparently not. Note to self - just take everything you may need to court every time!)

It seems like during the time we were away our social worker had time to review their case with the judge because when we got back took about 5 minutes and we were done and she then asked to have a word with us. She told us that she was going to dispense with consent in April and begin adoption proceedings!

NO one year of fostering which is something that we have struggled to understand from the beginning (based on the fact that they have already been through a long period of abandonment by the parents and been in care for well over a year.) 

Whatever the reasons this is awesome news and a real answer to prayer and we were overjoyed to hear it.

Common April!