Child profiling evening

On Wednesday, Andy and I went to a child profiling evening.  I'd been looking forward to it for ages because it was going to be our first opportunity to find out about actual children, in our local authority area, looking for parents.

In some ways, it was a bit of damp squib.

There was film footage of maybe half a dozen kids who the authority is trying to place.  And collages about the children around the room, full of glitter paint and pictures of Thomas the Tank Engine and Peppa Pig.  But not a great deal of information.  The social workers of the children were there to quiz afterwards.  But without the information in the first place, it was difficult to know who you'd want to know about.  The DVD didn't even tell us how old they were in most cases.

For me, seeing footage of a child jumping on a trampoline and eating biscuits, in the absence of much information about them, didn't really help.  And knowing that a young lad likes Thomas the Tank Engine doesn't separate him from the rest of the male pre-school population of Britain.  My analytical and slightly cynical mind was trying to work out how old the kids were and what was making them difficult enough to place that they'd ended up being featured at the profiling evening.  I spotted a language delay or two, a severe speech disorder, a very odd gait and an obsessiveness with tidiness that could have indicated autistic spectrum disorder or possibly emotional difficulties.

I think the intention was to shower us with cuteness that would hit the maternal "Aaaaah!" button.  Didn't work for me.  I think I'm just very aware that a moment of cuteness is not going to carry us through twenty or thirty years of being parents and so didn't want to let my guard down.  That's not to say I don't have an 'Aaaaaah' button.  It's working very effectively at the moment and kicks into action at almost every opportunity.  Had a meeting in a cafe yesterday in some gardens and was constantly distracted by children playing in the grass and little girls giggling and running along hand in hand.

To be honest, none of the children hit the profile we've been thinking of.  There was one sibling group, but a little bit younger than we were thinking.

So.  And this is the exciting bit.  We asked the social work manager who was there, if they currently have other sibling groups waiting, perhaps a bit older.  She immediately knew who we were and her eyes lit up and she said that she'd been talking to Chris, our social worker.  There are older sibling groups and Chris is already thinking about some children who might be suitable.

How exciting!!!

How terrifying...