How many enquiries

[Dailymailsuxass]

Hi everyone,
We are just beginning our journey and have started getting in touch with agencies. The first one I spoke to were brilliant and I'd be happy to go with them, however I'm aware getting in touch with as many as possible is beneficial. Just wondering how many agencies you all contacted and what was it that helped you come to your decision?

My partner called 3 he said he instantly knew that the one we went with were right. One of the others was very rude and the 3rd just didn't seem right.

I rang about 15 as we have a birth son who is was not yet 3 and it meant that many would not accept our application. 2 were happy to work with is and we chose the most helpful.

Two very differing amount there. Pleased that your partner taybalt went with gut feeling as that's the way I'm edging at the moment, but don't want to jump in with the first one I spoke to.
I contacted one and have had no reply off them makes me weary of going with them if that's the first contact I have had with them.

Hi Dailymail. Myself and my husband are also at the very beginning of our journey. We have just been accepted onto stage one and finished our prep course yesterday. I only enquired at 3 agencies I think but one really stood out to me as being so friendly and offering so much support not only throughout the adoption process but also offering lifelong support plus they also got back to me first so we decided on them. Best of luck on making your decision.

We spoke to about 5 before we made our decision - one we found to be rubbish (never answered the phone, never turned up for the meeting they scheduled with us), one didn't want to take us on to Stage 1, two seemed very disinterested and then finally we found our amazing LA! Definitely worth calling around. We knew ours were the right one as part of our circumstances that everyone else saw as a weakness was something that they viewed as a strength - this really made them stand out to us and made us feel confident that they would advocate well for us further down the line

Could I ask what is probably a silly question? We are also in the process of making enquiries and I'm unsure whether it's best to go with a voluntary agency or LA? What is the benefit of one over the other? From what I understand the LAs only place children in their care whereas the voluntary agencies try to place children from all over the country that the LAs cannot place in their area. Is this correct or am I misunderstanding?

Hi wildflower, no such thing as a silly question! Yes, that's about right re. LAs and VAs - LAs will try and place the children in their care (ie. locally) first, then your SW will family find nationally if no local match can be found. Usually this tends to be about 3 months before they'll consider non-local links, but this can vary. VAs are usually national straight away, which means you're immediately available to a much wider pool of children's SWs straight from approval.
As a result, the friends I've known who've gone with an LA have been linked fairly quickly after approval because their SW had a particular local child in mind, sometimes even before approval panel. Whereas VAs don't have actual children in their care (unlike LAs), which means that you aren't restricted at all but matching can be a bit more of an overwhelming process as there are so many options (or there can be, depending on what you've got to offer). That said, we got linked about 6 weeks after approval panel with our VA, so national doesn't always mean slower!
FWIW, we had a very odd reception from various LAs we spoke to and then finally went for our VA (sorry, ignore the typo in previous post - it was a VA not an LA) who were absolutely fantastic. It's said that VAs are particularly well-suited to adopters who are interested in children who are considered harder to place (chdn with ethnic minority background, medical needs, siblings etc) as these are the children that LAs cannot always place in their local area.

Thanks Illias, that's really useful to know. Actually one of our local VAs does the work of the LA in that area so was thinking they may be a good way forward as I'm assuming they would have access to both local and national children. Another LA we can apply to seemed to have quite long waiting times although they were lovely to speak to. We are interested in possibly adopting siblings if we were approved, although from reading another thread it seems most people think one at a time is the best way forward. Thanks again.

We contacted 4. Two never got back to us. The others both did. One booked us on an open evening but the other one sent someone out to see us. They were lovely and we cancelled the open evening with the other as we really liked the home visit one (they answered our questions well, calmed our nerves and seemed genuinely positive about us) we were matched 4 months after our first enquiry!

Thanks everyone, So far I've contacted 3 agencies two actual agencies and one LA. So far only one has got back in touch! I'm not keen to contact LA in surrounding areas as I want a bit of distance from us and the birth family. I don't know if this is reasonable or not but I'd hate to bump into them by accident. Have other people had that thought?

Better to go slightly out of area.
We went with an LA about ten miles away. We have no links there, don't shop there etc.
Close enough for our SW and to visit the office but far enough away to not bump into anybody.

Sorry 20 miles!

Havea we have contacted one about that distance away, reassuring to know that they are far away enough but still a travel able distance for sw.

We contacted four: one wouldn't assess us as we were living locally; obe wouldn't assess us as we weren't living locally. One wasn't recruiting for a while, but gave us the details of the fourth (LA) agency, who we went with basically because they would have us and there was no reason not to