Opening doors

> Background
> Current work
> Recent activities 
> Advice and information
> Ways you can help us
> Project team and contact details

Background

Opening Doors is BAAF’s disability work which aims to develop new and more effective ways for agencies to find permanent families for disabled children. This is done through consulting with professionals about their practice,  reviewing emerging research and developing and disseminating new ideas.

Current work

Placement Activity Days
We are convinced that only by families meeting children and responding to them directly will some children find a family. Video profiling events are successful, but now we want to extend this to see if we can actually introduce a group of prospective carers to a group of children. No amount of third-party description or even videos can really convey the whole child: it is meeting the child that counts.

Activity days and adoption parties were successful in the UK on a small scale in the 1980s (see Argent & Kerrane 1997 Taking Extra Care). They are common practice in over thirty states in the U.S.

We have secured funding for a demonstration project with a group of partner agencies, to be backed by research from a university team. Bridget Betts has been appointed our Placement Activity Day Programme Manager to steer the project. She will be visiting the U.S. this summer to witness the planning and implementation of an activity day and talk to staff and participants.

Opening Doors Network

We are working on compiling a network of agencies specialising in the placement of disabled children. This network is intended for use by social workers seeking families for specific children. If your agency specialises in placing disabled children, either for short-term placements or permanence, please let us know if you would like to be added to our agency network. On completion, the final list will be sent to any social worker seeking a placement for a disabled child.

In My Shoes
In My Shoes (IMS) is an interactive computer programme, designed for direct work with children and vulnerable adults (reviewed in Adoption & Fostering Vol 30:1 (Spring 2006). In partnership with two local authorities, the Opening Doors project explored the use of IMS with looked after children, including disabled children, to see how it could be developed to aid child assessment, profiling and family placement. Social workers learned important new things while observing the IMS psychologist working with their child. The report of this project has been submitted for publication.

Fostering with a view to adoption
We have seen so many disabled children being adopted by their foster carers and think that this can be a really important route to permanence, so we are interested in exploring this further. We welcome your ideas and opinions.

Advice and information

Our project consultant, Jennifer Cousins, can be contacted about adoption and fostering enquiries relating to disabled children or adults, either from member agencies, individual BAAF members or from the public. She may also be able to help with enquiries relating to a complex disability issue. For other types of enquiries one of our country or regional offices may be able to help you.

Our brief resources guide PDF may also help you.

Ways you can help us

• Tell us about your projects so we can pass on 'what works' Opening Doors has relied heavily upon learning from individual professionals and agencies across the UK. Our 'added value' is that BAAF's national profile and networking capacity enables us to promote and disseminate the innovations we learn about. At the moment we are particularly keen to hear about family-finding methods, so if your agency runs video evenings or placement parties – or has other innovative ideas - we would really like to hear from you.
• Feedback – we welcome feedback about what we do and how we do it and are happy to answer any questions.

Project team and contact details

Jennifer Cousins - Project Consultant  with extensive practice experience in family placement and children's disability. She is also a trainer and consultant in BAAF's mainstream work.
jennifer.cousins@baaf.org.uk
0121 753 7793

Dr John Simmonds - Project Manager and also Director of Policy, Research and Development,