We have taken the first step..

[henryhsmum]

Having thought long and hard about it, my husband and I have sent an enquiry to our local adoption service. At this stage, we want to find out more before making a decision. What can we expect now? Also, I am pretty sure that our county has a low number of children relative to the national average. Does this mean we could be considered for children out of county?

How long can we expect the process to take? We are not too specific in terms of we would consider older children/sibling groups but we would ideally like a child with no significant special needs whilst recognising that many adopted children will have some degree of extra needs

You will either get s call, or be invited to an open evening/day then once we said we wanted to proceed we got a visit. We had that, in that order Good luck. Just curious But because of your mumsnst name, do you already have a birth child?

Yes, I do have a birth child, he js nearly 8 with autism and ADHD which is why we are proceeding with caution. On the one hand, I have dealt with quite severe disabilities with my son so that equips me but on the other hand I couldn't cope with a other with same level of needs as his . Can't have another birth child for medical reasons

henrysmum I am sure you know that there needs yo nr a gap of ay least 2 years between children adopted into a family with birth children. Some would day 3 or more is better so this may limit your age choices s bit. I know you said you were open to age. Hope all goes well.

Yes I know it's 2 years gap so that would make us looking at a 6 to 7 year old at oldest. That is probably the upper end of the age range we would consider anyway. What I meant was I don't necessarily expect to get a baby. I guess a 3 to 5 year old would be ideal

If you have a sibling group of 2 and both are the same gender, can they share a room with each other or do you need one room per adopted child ?

at that age you would almost certainly need separate rooms. And they need them. They will not actually feel like siblings for quite a while and sharing personal space with someone you hardly know is very tough when you are going through an upheaval like adoption (for both of them)

sorry I just realised you mean can a sibling group share a room.

Depends IME on the situation. In some cases yes when they are used to it and there is no risky behaviour.

In other cases it would not have been safe to get bio siblings adopted together sharing

You can also look at Local Authorities near to you as well as your own, you aren't restricted to your local council. Many say they will consider people within 50 miles or an hour's drive.
So in this way you may find a LA with a bigger pool of children.
It's worth talking to a few agencies to get a feel for them, their organisational skills (or lack of) and how you find they answer your more difficult questions.

When we enquired about adopting no 2 I rang 3 diff LAs near us. One was v uninterested and would not consider us until DD was already at school (clearly had a lot of prospective adopters on their books at that time!), one was helpful but wanted us to wait one more year (dd was 3yrs at that point) and one was happy to assess us straight away. We went with them (of course!) and DS was home living with us less than 12 months later! So LAs do vary... :)

henrysmum As has been said, you don't need to go with your county council. You can look at other authorities or agencies. You can shop around, contact a few and go with the one you feel most at home with.

The process can be quite quick. Once you have submitted your formal application, the target is that you should get to panel within 6 months. There may be good reasons why this is not the case and you can probably slow the process if you wish. It can be quicker however and we go to panel this week having formally applied in early July.

You will be able to specify the types / levels of disabilities you feel unable to cope with. As we already have a DD with profound physical disabilities, we chose not to be considered for a child with similar issues.

Good luck with your journey.

I hadn't realised we could go through an agency so will look I to that. Which ones are recommended?

Rational thought - I am relieved that we can specify what level of SEN we could take on. Whilst I am sure in some ways they would want our experience with SEN, I feel it is very important for us and all the children that we do not take on more than we can cope with as that will not be helpful to anyone

Hi, all UK adoption channels are known as 'agencies' and that covers both local authorities (LA) and voluntary agencies (VA) which tend to be charities like Coram and Barnados. Have a look at those and any others and see whether they cover your area. They don't have their 'own' children as all looked-after children are under their LA, however they are often thought about positively because they don't rely on local govt funding and are purely focused on adoption.

Henrysmum if you son is not yet 8, assuming he is 8 when you are approved you will probably be able to adopt up to age 6, but I would (personaly) aim for a bit younger as bigger gap might be desirable. Again, person al opinion but I would go with a county council as they may have children you could adopt and a voluntary agency won't. After three months you can go onto the national adopton register. The other thing to ask a county council is if they are in a consortium with other county councils becaused if they are this would mean more children you could here about.

Just out of interest but you are mentioning a sibling group, how will your DS cope with two new children? I know you cannot know for sure but just wondering how you have thought about all this. Our dd is 9 and we have decided to only adopt one, for many reasons and partly because DD would feel 'over-whelmed' by more than one.

All the best.