Foster to adopt

[Flower20166]

I've posted this on the adoption board but will post here too..

Hi, I have a few questions for the people who've done foster to adopt.
Did you get approved specifically for foster to adopt, or we're you already approved a a foster carer?
I'm currently a foster carer and my social worker has mentioned fta and asked if I would ever consider it... We didn't talk about it a great deal but it got me wondering, would I get placed with a fta placement or would I have to be assessed before?
Also, is it only newborns they place as fta or older children too?
Thankyou

I'm not sure if I understand your situation.

Do you want to be a foster carer or to stop fostering and adopt a child?

Sorry I didn't explain it very well.
I'm a foster carer but considering doing foster to adopt in the future. I was just wondering if anyone has done foster to adopt from initially being a foster Carer rather than being approved as an adopted and then doing foster to adopt. Hope that makes more sense x

So you are fostering now but in the future you think you might want to stop fostering and Adopt a child instead ? Is that right ?

I don't know of anyone who has done that. I used to be a FC doing regular respite only but I stopped that before I adopted.

I know others who have had kids in long term placements and then have decided to adopt them. In that case, you will get the fostering allowance and perhaps the fee until the adoption order is granted.

Despite the name, I think FTA is just another way of doing adoption and not another type of fostering. So you need to chose to do one or the other.

Most agencies won't assess you for adoption ( for a child not already placed with you ) while you are still fostering, so you need to check what your agency's policy is.

Do you have children with you long term now ? How do you see that fitting in with adoption ?

If you are relying on your income as a FC you would need to manage without that , during the assessment and after approval , before a FTA child was placed. And then again after the adoption order was granted. Some agencies don't give a fee element for FTA either, as it's usually young babies and there's plenty demand.

You'd also need to work out how you would manage long term for work, as an adopted child probably won't be able to cope with your fostering again.

I have just adopted my fc who is 2.
He was placed with us as a foster placement at 11 months.
We were already interested in adopting in the future and told the childs sw before he was placed and they were looking to get a placement order on this child. We went through care proceedings fostering the little one and once placement order granted we began an asssessment and were approved and matched at same panel .We still had to wait 10 weeks to lodge papers and oa granted 2 months later.
So 19 months from beginning to end and we had a lovely day yesterday at his celebration hearing.
Not conventional and not strictly foster to adopt but has worked well for us so it is possible