Adoption Social Workers: What Makes Them Special

Fostering and Adoption is a wonderful field of employment at Buckinghamshire Council — with a supportive team and rewarding work. We spoke to Jane Bowen, who has worked at the council as an Adoption Social Worker for 23 years. She kindly shared valuable insight into the role, commentary on how it’s changed over time and how incredibly fulfilling she finds it.

Hi Jane, how long have you worked in Buckinghamshire?

I first joined the council in 1975 as a trainee Social Worker in Milton Keynes when it was still part of Bucks — we were based in Bletchley. I worked there as a trainee and was then seconded to read an MA at Brunel University and gain a certificate of qualification in social work. I then worked for another 10 years in Bucks and in Milton Keynes as a frontline social worker, after which I briefly left and had a little spell in Surrey to start my own family.
I then came back to Bucks in 1999 and worked in one of the Children’s teams until 2001, when I joined the adoption and fostering. In 2001, the team split, and I became part of the Adoption team, which I’ve been with ever since. I’ve worked mainly with the recruitment and assessing part of the adoption team, which I’ve really enjoyed because I’ve helped prospective adopters to get through the process, be assessed and matched with children. Some of those adopted children are teenagers now and I’m still in touch with them, which is a lovely part of the job.

Have you seen positive change in the Fostering and Adoption team, over time, in how it has worked to improve its service?
Since October last year, I’ve been working on the Post-Order team, which help people who have adopted get the support that they need. I think this work is one of the most positive things about adoption now because, when I first joined, there wasn’t that much help after the adoption was arranged, it was very much, ‘You’ve adopted, so go off and live happily ever after.’ Nowadays, we have a much better understanding of the needs of children and how trauma affects their development (trauma that they suffered from readoption, for example), so there is more help available now, which we can help adopters to access.
It’s lovely to work with people that I knew as children, placed as ‘little’uns’, who are now teenagers — or if not quite teenagers, coming up for that.

It sounds like you really enjoy your job, which is wonderful. Tell us about the team culture.

It’s a great job to do, I absolutely love it. The people I work with and I are all passionate about helping families and children, which is a strong point about working here and working for Bucks. It’s a lovely team. When we have people join us as students we get really good feedback — people want to come and work with us. Colleagues and managers are supportive: I had a situation where I felt quite burnt out after lockdown and the support that I received from our managers was second to none. I was able to have some time off and I was well supported. The managers provided all the help that I needed, and I was very happy and ready to come back after some time off.

What would you say is the most rewarding and attractive part of your job?

I think one of the most rewarding things about this job is that you’re always learning.
You never ever know it all and you never stop learning because every case and every family is different which, I think, makes it really interesting. I’ve recently started doing more work with birth mums who have had children removed, which is a very interesting aspect of the work that we do and rewarding because of the important support we’re able to provide. We’re also trying to further develop what we call ‘direct contact’ between birth families and adopters which, again, is very helpful for the children where it can happen.

What would you say to somebody who’s thinking about applying to join the council?

Well, I’ve worked for the council for ‘donkeys’ years’ and I wouldn’t have stayed here if I hadn’t been in a very supportive environment. I think if you join Buckinghamshire, you’re joining a very supportive team with very supportive managers. You’ll have great colleagues and good management, which is crucial for an employee.