My week working from home – Adoption@Heart Social Worker

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Posted on July 17, 2020 at 11:00 AM

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The coronavirus has and continues to impact everyone. Here at Adoption@Heart, despite the challenges social workers are facing, the need to recruit adopters continues. The recruitment and assessment team are working hard to ensure that adopter recruitment continues to run as smoothly as possible – virtually for the time being.

One of our social workers has given you an insight below into what it’s like working from home.

Working at home with three children certainly is challenging and I have had to adjust my hours to fit around the kids whilst still being able to meet the needs of my adopters.

I work early mornings, around 6am - 8am. I use this time to catch-up and respond to emails and plan what I need to do in the day. I love this quiet time before the kids are up.

I usually have two solid hours to work between 12pm and 2pm whilst my toddler naps. I use this time to deliver assessment sessions with adopters. During the last few months of working from home, I have been involved in information sessions, full assessment sessions and initial assessment sessions. I have completed three full assessments and four initial assessments.

I also tend to work in the evening, around 7:30pm – 9:30pm. This has been great for my adopters who may struggle to get time off in the day due to work commitments or changes to their normal routine as a result of the pandemic. I am now able to do assessment sessions in the evening which wouldn’t normally have been possible prior to coronavirus.

The rest of the hours are scattered throughout the day, usually consisting of team meetings, virtual meetings with colleagues looking at adoption support plans, supervision or discussions with other colleagues. I set up learning activities or games for the kids before every meeting or call to try and keep them quiet during these meetings.

To help meet demand, I have been assisting with some adoption support cases. We have seen an increase in adopters requiring extra support due to the challenges they are facing as a result of coronavirus. Our adoption support team are stretched to full capacity and my flexible working hours have allowed me to support them and our adopters at all hours if needed.

One of my highlights during lockdown is seeing my adopters approved at virtual panel. It has been hard for our adopters who started the process prior to the coronavirus outbreak and the subsequent lockdown, as they had to adapt to our new ways of working and move all our interactions and sessions virtually. Our Panel Team at Adoption@Heart worked hard to ensure we could still hold panels for our adopters waiting to be approved.

Like with all things, working from home and going into lockdown has provided us with some challenges. One of the difficulties we have faced in our recruitment and assessment process is our adopters trying to get medicals through the restrictions.

However, we have supported them with guidance for the GP and medicals have since taken place virtually.

Like all members of the recruitment and assessment team I have been very busy during this time with higher than normal amounts of assessments coming through. I am proud we are continuing to offer adopters a high quality service even with increased demand. We are still meeting timescales and ultimately approving more adopters for children who are waiting.

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