Unmarried couples...

[consideration]

Just starting to look into adoption (thinking about it for years), is being unmarried a major barrier?

We have been together for nearly 17 years, I'm 35 we have a dc aged nearly 6. We are mixed race - does this help?

We would be considered middle class ...good income blah blah blah . My partner is a SAHD. We could give a child a loving happy home.

Is being unmarried a "deal breaker" for VAs/LAs?

Absolutely not a problem at all

Being a mixed race couple may be very helpful to you - it depends what your background is - there are many waiting children from certain mixed race backgrounds (black African and black Caribbean backgrounds especially) who are desperately in need of homes and social services will bite your hand off if you would be a good match for them. Whereas there are few children who have a say, Chinese background waiting for adoption, so that might well bea longer wait for a match.

Being unmarried is no problem, though we did get questioned (in both home study and at panel) about why we hadn't had a civil partnership. We'd been together 16 years by then, and had a birth child, so I think they would have struggled to be convinced that this was evidence of our lack of commitment.

My dp is black Caribbean and I am white UK, and this undoubtedly made our adoption journey easier. If you're thinking of using a local authority agency, try to get one with a similar demographic to you (we went for Ealing - lots of black Caribbean and white UK and Irish - my Jewish heritage is nul points in the adoption market so I barely bothered mentioning it). One LA wouldn't take us on because they said they only get white children; one VA took against me thinking I could parent a black child.

Nope , mixed race is excellent. Birth child of 6 is excellent. You can afford to shop around for an agency you like .

Good luck