Transcript:

So there are quite a few people that are up for doing fostering or adoption but they are nervous about the process and i can understand that, it is an invasive process, they are going to ask you questions about all sorts of parts of your life, and it’s kind of like one of the most difficult job interviews you can ever imagine except they are asking you about very personal things and it lasts you know, days. So why go through it? Why are the social workers going to ask you all of these things?

Well I want you to imagine that you have birth children and for whatever reason you’re not going to be able to care for them. Maybe you’ve got a terminal disease and you’ve got to hand these children over to someone else, and it’s a stranger to you, you’ve never met them before. I wonder how many questions you would ask them. 10? 20? I think if it was me I would ask a thousand questions, I’d want to know about all the intricate details because I’m trusting the most precious things in my life to a stranger. Well, our government has the duty of care, they are the corporate parent if you like, for children in the care system. And however nice you are, they don’t know you so they’ve got to be incredibly rigorous to make sure that you are a safe place for a vulnerable child to go.

Sometimes I really sympathise with social workers because I think they have one of the most difficult jobs in the world. Because when people go through the process we’re always a little bit worried, they ask so many questions, they’re so nosy but equally when something goes wrong everyone criticises social workers and say why didn’t they ask more questions? So I’m saying yes it is a painful process, it will be invasive, but let’s be the grown ups, lets take the pain so that children are placed in safe places.