Children 3 and over

[ShootingStarsinthesky]

Our SW was discussing matching with us and said that there were many less children out there now and the ones that have been available over the last 6 months have been all age 3 and over. Is this your experience please??

We are about the same stage. It depends on the LA/VA but the most common age that's children are placed for adoption is about 3.5, 4 - I'll try and find the link for you.

That - no apostrophe, damn you autocorrect!

www.baaf.org.uk/res/statengland

This is not the case in my LA, where numbers of children who need adopted continues to increase, whilst the age profile of those children dropped several years ago and continues to be pretty young, certainly majority of single children are under 3.

Not sure but we saw our SW a couple of weeks ago and she said because of the re B-S case, they have a lot of adopters waiting and not many children. So I think it could be true.

I think it's very area dependent to be honest. Our LA predominantly has younger children/babies as there are a lot of women continuing to get pregnant after having already had multiple children removed and their situation not changed. Their babies are then removed at birth so by the time it's gone through the legal side of things they are between 6-8 months old.

We've just had a little girl placed with us who turned two a few weeks ago, and we did see a few profiles of other children between 8 months and 2 years old, so it's not always the case.

Good to hear! I hope everyone gets happily matched soon - if they want to!

Congratulations Closer! How is it going?

Think there are always going to be more children over 3 available than younger. Also a lot depends on what you are looking for and comfortable to consider in terms of health, unknowns etc and if you are happy to wait. There are also likely to be babies removed from BM's who have had other children removed and adopted who will become available as the other adoptive families who may be asked to take another sibling decide they are at their capacity and decline which is what we have recently done.

For the types of children 'waiting' ie those who we were given a book of profiles for, this was true. However, for those children who are coming through the system that they then approach adopters about individually once approved, this was not the case. However the B-S case has meant that for the younger children there are 5-6 adopters being considered, again this was in our LA. Each LA will be very different so if your SW is advising this is case in your LA, it probably is but we were told it changes all the time, so they'll have 6 months with many babies to be adopted, then siblings, then older children so what they tell you in stage 2 may not be case by time you get to matching, again in our LA. Wish you all the best with your journey.

I should have said in December we had a 6 month baby boy placed with us. He was placed under foster to adopt protocol but he had already had the placement order issued. They used the foster to adopt scenario to move him to us quicker because of the delays that xmas woukd have caused. We went to matching panel this week and are now back on the normal adoption route, he is now almost 8 months. Good luck.