Initial meeting with adoption agency

[PositivelyHopeful]

Hi There
We're about to meet with an adoption agency im a couple of weeks.
I've researched the process, but still feeling nervous.
Can anyone please give me an idea of what the initial meetings pertain?
We've done a couple of rounds of IVF and come to the conclusion that adoption is the way we want to go after ruling out surrogacy.
We are Indian and looking at the statistics it looks like they are not many Indian descent children. Reason we are putting ourselves in that box is as children know they are adopted at some point and may want to meet the birth parents we don't want the child to feel betrayed especially since we're both a little religious.
I feel we are over thinking it at this stage, but pointers to what to expect from the initial meeting with the adoption agency will really help.

[Ted27]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean about not wanting the child to feel betrayed or linking that to be religious.

The initial meeting is usually a general getting to know you chat, looking at why you want to adopt, they may take a quick look around your house. Nothing to worry about, but being nervous is natural and totally normal.

I think you have to be realistic, the majority of children in the care system are white, because thats the majority UK poplulation. So you may have to wait a bit longer to be matched. Having said that there is a shortgage of ethnic minority adopters so you often get snapped up.

Make sure the agency you choose has a diverse local population. Good luck

[PositivelyHopeful]

Thank you for your help
Also can you only use one adoption agency?

[Ted27]

yes you can only be assessed by one agency, but you can choose your agency which can be a local authority or a voluntary agency.

Talk to several and then choose

[PositivelyHopeful]

We had our initial conversation with Barnados before attending the event.
As we were going through the basic questions on the phone I felt that the sw was very pushy about us "spreading the wider". Husband and I have not really talked about age and more than 2 siblings. We also felt as we know that south asian children are difficult to come by, looking at the prospect of mixed race children would help as his sister has mix race boys. (If we had mixed race child they would settle easier etc. )
It seemed like all sw was concerned about was for us to look at sibling groups of more than 2 and potentially hard to place children. We both spoke about this later and felt that they were jumping the gun a little as we've not been to an event yet or signed up to an agency.
The sw asked about our age, employment, space for a child but didn't pursue that further, nothing about support systems.
We felt like the pressure was being piled on aboutseriously considering more than 2 siblings, even though we both stated we would prefer one and 2 at most based on where we are now.
Is it common for agencies to start talking about seriously considering more than 2 siblings EPP and hard to place children before registration and attending events?

[Dontbuymesocks]

When we first met SWs we were told that they were only accepting applications from people who are willing to adopt hard to place children I.e. children with disabilities, older children, larger sibling groups and children from minority ethnic backgrounds. This was a large local authority in a big city. I am mixed-race and was looking for a mixed race child of a similar ethnicity to me, so this wasn’t a problem for us. All the other adopters we have met were also told the same thing, but apart from us, not a single one of them has ended up adopting a child from one of those groups! In my area there lots of single babies and everybody we know has adopted one child under 2. Some local authorities, particularly those in cities with big Asian populations such as London, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester etc. will have children who are mixed - Asian and white. It’s much more common for the children to be Pakistani and white rather than Indian. However, you will have access to a national database and you can look further afield than your own local authority once you are approved.
Feel free to PM me if you need to.

[vincettenoir]

Are all LA’s similar? How do you choose?

DH and I are looking at adoption as one of our possible options for having a baby.

We have looked into it enough to realise that it’s a very different route to having your own child and the children up for adoption have experienced much instability. We know that many LA’s are looking to place older children and sibling groups.

Sometime ago now we went to an open day for Greenwich. I was surprised by some of the statistics they shared. They told us that in the past year they had only matched one child under the age of two. But they showed us a video where many had been matched to babies / toddlers. (This was probably a few years old).

Is it typical for LA’s to match as little as one child under two in a whole year? Is it possible this is a London thing? How do you know which LA to choose? Me and DH (along with the majority I suspect) are hoping for a child younger than two.

[PositivelyHopeful]

We're based in Yorkshire and our LA is part of a consortium that brings together various LA in west yorkshire, but have links to LA consortiums in north and south Yorkshire
Based on our very limited experience the LA will only place children with potential adopters that they believe will fit.
VA's tend to liaise with LA's to in effect sell you to them as LA's have children.
Good luck

[Dontbuymesocks]

OP you said:
Based on our very limited experience the LA will only place children with potential adopters that they believe will fit

What do you mean ‘will fit’? Are you talking about an ethnic or religious match? Our LA will match children with parents of a different religion/ethnicity/culture if parents show a willingness and ability to help a child understand their heritage. It’s no longer the case that e.g. black children are only placed with black parents.

[PositivelyHopeful]

Hi
I meant will fit in terms of what you can handle not gender ethnicity etc. I was told of you specify those things the potential children you could be matched with would be reduced.
My LA are not considering potential Asian adopters at the minute if they go down the road of stating ethnicity preferences it's more of what you can you offer the child and how will that child settle with you, what support you can offer. This stance makes more sense from my perspective as at the end of the day as parents we need to provide the stability and meet needs of the children not the other way round.
Still researching meeting with various VAs and our LA consortium at the moment as I think we need to prep before committing to any agency. The initial research convos and events are eye opening. Really appreciated the initial advise we got here.