Advice wanted from any adopters in SE London

[Squigglypig]

Hi there

My husband and I have made a positive decision to look at adoption in the new year. We have a DD who is now 3 and have been ttc for a couple of years but it's just doesn't seem to be happening for us this time around. We always said before we had DD that if it didn't work out we'd look at adoption - IVF does not appeal at all to us.

Anyway, we live in Lewisham so I was going to contact the Council but a friend has informed me that we can't adopt from within the borough - which I guess makes sense.

So basically I'm looking at other's experiences of other London boroughs adoption services teams, and any recommendations or tips about getting started?

Thanks

I am not sure that you definitely can't adopt from within your borough - although, unfortunately, when DH and I were starting the adoption process 3 years ago, we were
turned away automatically from our W London borough because we were white and they had prospective white adopters.

Give Lewisham a call at least - but also call up your neighbouring/close by boroughs - eg Lambeth - and see what response you get.

Also consider charities like Coram who are based in Bloomsbury and are part of the Central London network and work with agencies/authorities all over the country to place children with their prospective adopters.

Good luck!

most London LA's work in a consortium that will place each others children so I don;t think that necessarily a concern but there are more recent adopters in the london area than me who can probably give you better info.

This is from Lewishams website

Placement of children

We are part of the South London Adoption Consortium so If we have no suitably approved adopters then we make a referral to the Consortium.

My borough doesn't assess people who live in the borough so referred me to one of their consortium partners and I think that is the case for quite a few boroughs now. It's worth going to a few open evenings as you can get quite a good sense of what the adoption team is like and whether they are likely to be able to match a child with you.

If you use public transport then I'd suggest going to a borough that you won't often have to travel through - I end up having to take quite roundabout routes when crossing the next borough to avoid going through areas where birth family lives - not always an issue but may be depending on the child's background.

It doesn't particularly matter if you go with a borough that's a bit further away since the social worker will usually come to you for the assessment - although you would usually have to go to their offices for the preparation course and meetings about matching etc. You get passed back to your local borough for adoption support further down the line (I think 3 years after adoption but not sure).

Good luck.

ps you may know this already but just in case not....
once you are approved you can be matched with a child from any area so if the council that approved you can't find a match for you themselves or via the consortium then you can look in other areas

Thanks all, that's really helpful and encouraging. I'm going to get Xmad over with and then call Lewisham and get the ball rolling - very excited!

ps I do use public transport a lot, so that's a great tip - thanks

You could try also try Tower Hamlets. We adopted through them, we lived in TH but there were a lot of prospective adopters from outside the borough on our training course.