Hi to all you lovely people - my social work career spanned some 30 years (now retired) and the last 15 years I was a manager of a fostering & adoption team. I just want to mention (although you may already know) that it is the child's social worker who makes the choice about the adopted family, together with his/her team manager. In an ideal situation the child's sw and the fsw work in collaboration when it comes to making this important decision. When you are waiting for a young child (0-5) there will almost certainly be more than one family for consideration. The usual practice is for the child's sw to read the Form F and then do a joint visit with the fsw, and they may be doing visits to other approved adoptors. They won't always tell you this (but sometimes your fsw will tell you) and of course that increases the tension, but that's the way it is I'm afraid.
A lot depends on the experience of the social worker to be honest, as for some it will be the first time they have been involved in adoption, and then they are more likely to be "led" by the fsw! If they're both inexperienced I would hope that the team managers would step in to help. I certainly did this when necessary.
The other thing is I notice that there is mention of looking in the journals "Be My Parent" and "Adoption UK" (think they are still called that) and of course the children featured need an adoptive home, but be aware that these are the children who have been unable to be placed in their "home" LA on a national basis. By definition therefore they are usually going to be children with significant difficulties, and of course children with disabilities and large sibling groups. Many of these children will have been sexually abused and that can cause problems for the child to a greater or lesser extent through their lifetime.
We used to hold "hard to place" days and the profiles of all the children would be up on boards for everyone to see. The social workers for the children used to come and give talks to the adopters though I can't recall if we did in fact place any of these children successfully.
You will almost certainly wait longer for a single child 0 -5 as most children come with siblings, and there is a need for middle years aged children, those with disabilities and sibling groups. Having said that, I recall that we placed significant numbers of children in the 0 -5 age range.
My advice is to stop worrying about the room and as someone has said read all you can, especially about attachment theory as I believe this is the single most important issue for adopters. Many of the children will have insecure attachment issues related to their experiences with the birthparents. Also it has to be said, foster carers vary hugely (like anyone else in society) and some children awaiting adoption will have had better foster carers than others. I think most LAs do cover "attachment difficulties" but maybe only briefly. BAAF and Adoption UK and Fostering Network should have books on Attachment and I recommend you get them and read them.
I won't say good luck, because successful placements aren't built on "luck" - they are built on adoptive parents having the understanding of how the child's past affects his future and how he/she can be helped to learn to trust adults again. They are built on adoptive parents who can be patient and resilient in the early days, weeks and months when the child may be particularly stressful, although there is often a "honeymoon period" when the child first moves in. A good book is Vera Falberg "A child's Journey through Placement" but I think it's costly, not sure. I'm sure Amazon have books on Attachment.
However sometimes the child's sw has his/her own very definite ideas and the