Advice for white single woman late 30s - where to register to adopt

[orangepig]

Hi,

A friend is starting to explore adoption. She is single, straight and white and the London Borough she lives in (in South London) says they are not accepting any white adopters as most the kids they need homes for are not white.

Can she register elsewhere? Are there any particular areas you can recommend she look into registering with?

Many thanks.

She doesn't have to stick to her local authority but can try others locally. It may be that some authorities are looking for different types of adopters.

Alternatively she could contact VAs (voluntary agencies) - not sure what VAs would be close

COram in London is quite single friendly from what I understand.

She should ring round London boroughs that have quite high white populations, and check out their level of interest. This may be out of date information, but I rang Richmond a few years back and was told they were not interested in us as adopters because we are NOT white. They were very helpful and friendly, so that may be a good place to start.

Also, definitely try the voluntary agencies like Coram and Barnardos.

But do advise your friend to ring round: just because one agency isn't interested in her shouldn't put her off trying the others.

Hester - richmond aren;t really interested in ANYONE! they have so few adoptions and a queue of "perfect" families to match with them.

Also some social workers are becoming more open to plavcing non-white children with white adopters in the absence of a better match but generally in my experience not the london social workers.

That's interesting, anc. I'll stop recommending them, then!

Just another piece of information on this subject. We had a single woman in our preparation group at Surrey CC 3 years ago. She had been told that they would assess her but on the basis that she would only be considered for a child of school age ie. 5 yrs or older. This was because if you are single, unless you are v rich, you will have to go back to work at some point to earn money to live on. However that might not be in the best interests of the child (plus I guess they have lots of couples already where the mum can usually say she will stay at home with the child for as long as needed). This also meant that she was being approved specifically for an age group that are much harder to find placements for ie. she was then a more 'attractive option' for them financially if you see what I mean.

Sorry to put it in such business like terms, but this is how SS see things. They invest in you to approve you and want to know if they will get a return on that investment.

I wish her loads of luck. Adoption is an amazing journey (we are going for no. 2 at the moment!)

Your friend will find it hard to find an agency to asses her, unless she can parent a school aged or special needs child. She will also need good family support as these kids often need a lot of time off school and it's hard to combine with work

Overseas would be a better bet but it's very hard now and very expensive

In her circumstances i would recoomed artificial insemination by a donor.. Sorry i cant be more positive about adoption

Sorry to jump in here - but can anyone explain why placing non-white children with white adopters, or white children with non-white adopters is not considered?

And why, if it is considered out of London, why not in London. London is so diverse.

If children need assistance why are not alternatives considered.

It is considered to be "Not A Good Thing" based on studies of children placed transracially in teh 60' and 70's and caused identity issues. Personally I think adoption training and sociaety has moved on enough for it to be a viable alternative to long term foster care which is often the alternative for non=white chidlren over 3.

For some reason london social workers seem to be more entrenched in this thinking that non-london ones but it isn;t unique to London.

I know a couple (white) approved for a sibling group and one sibling group (two boys black) social worker wouldn't even read their file because they weren;t black. That was 3 years ago and both boys are still in care (they subsequently managed to adopt a mixed race sibling group from the same LA so are still in touch with some of the social workers)

Not all social workers feel like that. Most will not consider ethnicity as the sole reason for matching. Obviously studies have shown that transracial placements can be more problematic but leaving kids in care has worse outcomes and so this is balanced when decisions are made. In my LA I know of many social workers who are prepared to place children with adopters who were not necessarily ethnically matched, however they would have to be considered to be able to meet the child's needs in terms of their identity.

At our prep course we were told it is the LAW that children can only be placed with parents of the same race and religion. Which is of course cobblers. But it makes you wonder if the social worker knew she was lying to us, or had been told this herself and believed it.

As lennon says, there may be other ways for a white adopter to demonstrate that they can meet the child's needs in terms of their ethnic/cultural identity. I know a white couple who were able to adopt a dual heritage child on the basis that they had a black sister-in-law. Not sure how common this is, but really worth talking to a number of VAs and LAs.

She was probably told it was a statutory recommendation and confused it with statutory law.

In most LA's it is not that common but that is more because the majority of adopters are white middle class and want to adopt children who match their own heritage. If a couple state during assessment they wish to be considered for a child of differing ethnicity this will be explored in the assessment. Sadly most adopters wont consider it as they want the child to 'fit' in with their family, which of course is understandable.

Also the majority of kids in the system are white (there is just a disproportionate number of mixed heritage in terms of population and in terms of adopters who are non white). This is not the reason they are not accepting her I am afraid because it simply would not be the case. Besides children are placed nationally so once your on the register you can be placed with children from all over the country..most places are predominately white.

"If a couple state during assessment they wish to be considered for a child of differing ethnicity this will be explored in the assessment. Sadly most adopters wont consider it as they want the child to 'fit' in with their family"

My (extensive) experience of couples who has failed to find a match in the UK is that "this will be explored" consists of either a 5 minute conversation where you are told there is virtually no chance you will get matched with a non-white child or a willingness to assess you but a complete brick wall on the part of childrens social workers to consider families who are not a perfect match racially and often even religiously.

I would also dispute that "most" adopters won't consider a non-ethnically matched child. The vast majority of adopters who go inter-country obviously would happily accept a non-white child and as partt of their assessment have to convince SW's that they can accomodate the need for a child to stay in touch with their heritage. I've only ever met 2 adopters (and I've met a lot) who adopted from another country who hadn't first applied in the UK.

I know not every sw refuses to place transracially and some SS are more open than otehrs but my experince indicates that its the exception rather than the rule and there are some london boroughs where the majority of childrne on the register are non-white and many young and their sw's would absolutely not consider a white family. Even if for example they were the mixed race child of a white single mother and no contact with a brith father or his family, they have still stated to me that they wouldn not consider placing with a white single mother, even if as in my case I already have a mixed race child. DS is not the "right" mix and therefore I'd be waiting a long time for a child of a suitable racial look.

Kewcumber firstly there are very few adopters who go down the inter country route (it is incredibly expensive and difficult), the majority of adoptions are within the UK (you can find the stats but its very few). Many inter country adopters often look to countries like Russia and eastern Europe were the children are white.

I am sure you have 'extensive' experience of adopters but perhaps you dont hear the intricate details of assessment in which most adopters may do a background nod to the concept of taking a child from a different heritage but actually it is clearly not what they want and so will naturally be dismissed by SW undertaking the assessment. Ultimately adopters have to feel happy with the match because breakdowns are very common (just over one in ten).

''The vast majority of adopters who go inter-country obviously would happily accept a non-white child and as partt of their assessment have to convince SW's that they can accomodate the need for a child to stay in touch with their heritage'' Yes and rightly so! These adopters have an obligation to meet the child's cultural needs given they have taken them from their country (well meaning or not).

there are around 250 intercountry adoptions in the UK in recent years and it has been up in the 300's before that and thats only the succesful applications, I'm guessing that there are probably 50-100 more who didn't make it to the end. The majority of intercountry adoptions are transracial - China is still the largest sending country by far, plenty of children coming out of Russia are of Asian or mixed adian heritage and there are no other eastern European countries currently open for ICA as far as I know. So I'm not sure why you think the majority of children from ICA are white, and its rarely the reason why parents choose ICA.

So thats probably around 300 adopters who would happily have taken a non-white child from the UK who didn't, because in the vast majority of cases they weren't even considered.

I'm really not sure of the point of your final paragraph. "Yes and rightly so!" - do you think I was trying to imply this was unreasonable? Quite clearly as an adopter I expect to have to demonstrate that I can meet the needs of any child I am matched with. My point is that it isn't any harder (in fact less hard) to meet the needs of a child born in the UK even of a different race than a child born in another country (white or of any other race) and parents repeatedly get approved for ICA because in my very humble opinion the issue is nothing to do with whether the parent can show an ability to parent the child effectively but whther the cw "approves" of the match and despite what is possible the majority of social workers just don't approve of transracial adoptions, its just easier for them to intervene at the matching stage to stop it in this country than intercountry.

"well meaning or not" I have no idea whether you meant this to sound as patronising as it does. ICA parents are no more noticeably "well meaning" than any other other type of parents.

Yes exactly given each year there are roughly 4.5-5 thousand adoptions it is minimal. The majority are domestic by far. So these couples you speak of are in the minority to say the least. No people choose ICA because they think they will get 'perfect' babies who have not been subjected to any trauma because they do not fully understand the unavoidable neglect that can happen in orphanages. They also want a younger child.

''So thats probably around 300 adopters who would happily have taken a non-white child from the UK who didn't, because in the vast majority of cases they weren't even considered'' What so you are saying that everyone who applies for ICA does so because they were turned down for domestic adoption? I dont understand this point you are trying to make here?

Your last point about matching and transracial placements is bizarre it almost implys that people seek out ICA just because they wish to adopt transracially?

ICA's are approved in the same way as domestic applicants. The matching comes afterwards..what I am saying is that in domestic adoption most adopters want children whose ethnicity matches there own. Nothing you have said here has contradicted that other than you providing some anecdotal evidence about some couples you have met who were open to ICA so CLEARLY would be okay about taking a child from a different ethnic background. I can assure you that out of thousands of adoptions every year that is not what most adopters want.

I am in London, so am of course only talking about the situation there in my experience, but I would concur with Kew's suggestion that there are many white adopters who would be happy to adopt transracially, but the system is not open to them where the majority of children are non-white. At my local authority adoption introduction evening, there was a large majority of white couples. Some of them got very upset by what they were told about not being able to adopt black or dual heritage children. There was no question of intricate assessment of individuals: the agency was simply not going to consider the possibility of transracial adoption.

By the time we got to prep course, there were NO white couples. We were told that in the last year, that agency had only four white children available to adopt, and plenty more potential adopters, so they simply weren't taking on white applicants. It was very clear that adoption is a market, and your best chance of success is finding an agency that needs your particular ethnicity. One couple on our prep course had travelled in from a long way outside London, because their particular ethnic mix was not of interest to their local authority.

What LA's are these? They should be assessing people anyway and then putting them on the national register after three months if they cannot find them a suitable match. There are thousands of white children all over rthe country who need adoptive placments. Most children on the register with adoption plans are white UK and between 0-3 years.

They should... but they don't. I talked to a number of LAs in London, and got a very consistent message that they will not even take you on if they don't think they can match you with a child. They are way too stretched to take on potential adopters who they will 'lose' to the national register. Early on in the process, I was advised by a social worker to research the demographics of different London boroughs, and go for the one that most closely matched our racial mix. That is what we did, and they snapped us up, despite us being old and gay. White couples we met at the information evening were not taken on.

Gosh what a crying shame..all those adopters wanting children and all LA's all over the country desperate to recruit adopters. See now in a sensible world there wouldnt be such restrictions with budgets and London couples could be assessed with a view to matching them with children in other parts of the country. That would make a lot of sense but sadly LA budgets dont work that way.

Exactly right, lennon.

"No people choose ICA because they think they will get 'perfect' babies who have not been subjected to any trauma because they do not fully understand the unavoidable neglect that can happen in orphanages" sorry but you're nuts if you think anyone going through ICA is under the illusion that they will get a "perfect baby". Most ICA specific prep courses bang home in horrible detail the risks of insitutional care often illustrating it with some of the worst institutional settings known in recent times and horrific videos particularly of the Rumanian homes in the 80's.

If anyone went into ICA with the perfect baby idea, they wouldn't hang onto it for wrong. And you're absolutely wrong about why people chose ICA, the majority choose it because they were turned down by the UK - in fact even turned down is a misnomer - most are not even considered for assessment. Usually too white, too middle class and/or too old.

Age of childrne is a fair point, most adopters (ica or otherwise) would prefer younger children though the misconception that you somehow miraculously get a tiny baby if you go overseas is wrong (and IC adopters know this or learn it pretty quickly). In fact the majority of ICA childrne are 1-3 yrs with a small number 6-12 months.

I'm not sure why you feel my post implies IC Adopters are "trying" to adopt transracially - no, but given that the vast majority of ICA's are transracial I think they would be pretty odd if they weren't positive about it.

I think you have missed my point. I am not trying to claim that all adopters are somehow open to transracial adoptions. What I am saying is that there is a significant minority of adopters who are open to transracial adoption who are not even getting as far as an assessment or are being told that even if they make it through panel will not be matched because of being too white, too middle class and/or too old. Little surprise that most people in that situation don't put themselves through a couple of years of pointless scrutiny.

"They should be assessing people anyway" well what they should be doing and what they are doing is a tad differnce in pratcice.

My experience is a little more than "some anecdotal evidence about some couples you have met".

Anyway my post was originally to answer the question put about why the adoption of non-white children by white adopters was "not considered".

Why people initially go into ICA and then have the facts pointed out to them during training does not alter their motivation. They think domestic adoption means an older more damaged child, hence the few who can afford it look abroad.

If couples are 'turned down by the UK' then they shouldnt be considered for ICA either. Lets not get precious about this..ICA's are not going over to 'save' children, ICA is demand driven with the youngest and healthiest children as most valued.

"ICA's are not going over to 'save' children" - no-one adopts to "save" a child.

"youngest and healthiest children as most valued" - as in UK.

"If couples are 'turned down by the UK' then they shouldnt be considered for ICA either" - you don't think that the 1000's of perfectly competent parents who adopted fom overseas should have been considered in the UK in the first place then? Given that the standard of assessment is supposed to be the same for domestic or ICA, how is it that so many parents who shouldn't be parents are getting through the system? "you are competent to parent a child, even a child of a different race but not one from the UK thanks" is the message.

"They think domestic adoption means an older more damaged child" - they think that UK = NO child as they have already been told they won't get a child here in the vast majority of cases.

I get the message - you don't approve of ICA, you think all potentially decent parents are assessed and go into the national pool after 3 months, you think that there are very few non-white childrne available for adoption and therefore no need to consider transracial adoption and anyway no-one much would want to consider it because adopters who choose ICA only want perfect little white babies anyway.

I assume you are an adoption social worker?