Anticlimax

 

I wasn't surprised to be waiting for ten minutes before being allowed into today's zoom panel interview. The wait had the effect of allowing me to think of all the negative things about the process so far which threatened my mood. 

When the meeting started, the formalaic process was less than stimulating and in no way challenging. The panellists were pretty much EXACTLY as I expected them to be with the youngest taking charge of the organising-chair stuff and others looking comically distrustful - of the technology as much as of me. There were smiles albeit strained lol. Strangely, they apologised for the number of questions they asked, I didn't find it excessive, but wondered if they generally ask fewer and if so, why I got extra treatment.

There was one slightly challenging moment when they posed a fairly left field question about my neices and nephews -I'm pretty sure I've not mentioned them in any previous assessments or discussion and my Supervising Social Worker said he found himself going through his notes when the question was asked. It appears they were fishing for me to share recent or current experience of interacting with younger people in a family context. I'd already told them that I'd gone past that: initial motivations were about a selfish desire to parent rather than a vocation to support young people with complex needs. In any case, my neices and nephews are adults now and I have minimal contact with them.

Fascinatingly: NO mention was made of the issues which allegedly caused enough concern for them to postpone the panel twice. Part of me itched to address it- to at least query what actually happened: the nature of the concern; what actions were taken when it was raised; how was the concern finally resolved and by whom. -But it is foolish to introduce additional queries into an interview situation, so I restrained my impulses... for now.

My Supervising Social Worker and me were consigned to a virtual side room whilst they deliberated. I found out that this young'un is quite high up in the British Association of Social Workers. It is no wonder that he saw the panel's queries over my suitability as slightly personal after he had supported my application.

Eventually I was told that the Panel unanimously approved my application {hooray!} but that now becomes a "recommendation" to an executive body who may yet reject the application AND, that decision will be in the next "seven to fourteen days" {BOOOOOO!!!!}. On past form, it is likely to be a month before I hear anything and then it will be some further query, by which time I will be financially FUCKED!

Ho hum.