Certainly in general he is right that there is no one type of person that is more likely to be successful. There are some children who do need a certain type of parent eg. My DD1 was placed with a single mother and one of her siblings with two mums deliberately. The problem is to correctly identify which children really do need a certain set up, usually children with moderate-serious emotional needs, whether that's about parents, pets, brothers/sisters or something else. And not to apply a hierarchy of 'perfect family set up' to every child, and only look for say a married couple, when there isn't any need for that
His last point on chemistry is interesting. I certainly felt 'chemistry' or something like that (a gut connection) when reading my kids information and seeing photos. Some adoptive parents only want to be matched to a child they feel a connection to, but other adoptive parents don't feel anything and/or don't see a need to feel anything because the children are strangers at that point. Some want to be very involved (like me!), others want their social worker to find them the right child. Whatever way they, it's important that chemistry doesn't overide serious thinking, epecially when presented with a child with extra parenting needs. You can feel a wonderful connection to a child you can't cope with. And social services need to share all relevent information and not fudge facts in matching. Perhaps Mr Narey could comment on that next. I know plenty of other adoptive parents with stories of this besides myself