Overseas adoption

[Smith11551]

My wife and myself are currently looking into the option of adoption and was hoping that we could get some views from people that have been through this process.

We attended a seminar that was run by our local authority and came away somewhat concerned not so much around the process, but around the possibility of the child having continuous involvement with not only their birth parents, but also their extended family.

Following on from this, we then decided to investigate the option of adopting from overseas and are currently trying to understand the process, however the only way it appears to be able to fully understand the process is to pay for consultations with specialist.

We’re more than happy pay for consultations, but before we embark on that I was hoping that someone could recommend an organization or consultant who we could work with and also if you could offer any tips or advice from your own experiences

Many thanks

I can't help on the overseas adoption bit. Someone with knowledge e.g. kewcumber will be along in a while I'm sure.

But re the child having continuous involvement with not only their birth parents, but also their extended family

Our children have letterbox contact twice a year with BPs. This helps keep them not worrying about BPs. They should also have had yearly with one set of GPs, but they never responded so we stopped. They don't have any siblings outside out care though.

It really isn't 'continuous' by any means, and although does bring up emotions it is, on balance, beneficial for the children.

Smith11551 "We attended a seminar that was run by our local authority and came away somewhat concerned not so much around the process, but around the possibility of the child having continuous involvement with not only their birth parents, but also their extended family."

It's actually quite rare (as far as I know) for children to have ongoing actual contact. As Sanders says there is letterbox. This is an exchange of letters once or twice a year. The letters may be accompanied by photos from the adopters. At first I was not keen but we agreed to it and I can honestly say we are happy to do it. We can show our son when he is older that we made an effort to keep his birth parents informed about him. WE do not show him the letters we get back, not yet. They are for us and we can ask birth parents questions and if our son is ever worried we can reassure him we have this form of 'contact'.

Other contact would be possible if our son had siblings who were not living with the birth family. Our son does not. But if he did I would want him to have contact with them. The only other form of contact I have heard of is with a grandparent, and I have only heard of one family (out of maybe 60 or 70 I have met through training etc) who has this form of contact. This would usually be in a totally safe place and only considered if it were safe for the child.

"Following on from this, we then decided to investigate the option of adopting from overseas and are currently trying to understand the process, however the only way it appears to be able to fully understand the process is to pay for consultations with specialist."

There are children in other countries awaiting adoption and I would never want to put people off doing this. However, be aware it is very expensive, and you may not get the same level as information on the child (medical etc) as you would if you go for a domestic adoption.

Re "We’re more than happy pay for consultations, but before we embark on that I was hoping that someone could recommend an organization or consultant who we could work with and also if you could offer any tips or advice from your own experiences."

I can only say we looked into this about a decade ago, with PACT.

pactcharity.org/adoption

At the time we were looking at adoption from China. The waiting list was quite long and the costs were high. In the end we did not pursue this and went for domestic adoption.

Before spending too much money you may wish to find out exactly how many countries you can currently adopt from worldwide.

You can google around and find information. But I am not sure how official any of this is. You will need to dig and weigh what you find....

www.internationaladoptionguide.co.uk/about-international-adoption-guide/personal-adoption-story-adopting-from-russia/

www.gov.uk/child-adoption/adopting-a-child-from-overseas

You can try calling the Intercountry Adoption Centre. They have an advice line.

We were also put off domestic adoption by our LA as we came away with the idea that we would risk bumping into the birth family all the time. They didn’t explain that children would be matched with us from another borough in their consortium. Sometimes they don’t explain things very well.

We adopted internationally, however the costs are huge and the process was extremely stressful. Having been through that, we would look at domestic adoption if we adopt again.

International adoption may mean you have no family info at all. This is hard to deal with in other ways especially as your child grows older. It is better for the child to have some family info, even if the story is difficult, than no info at all.

Raising a child of another race is also quite a big deal - I won’t go into all the issues here.

Having said all that, we are happy with our cheeky little boy and it is doable.

Yes, as others have said, it's usually really not continuous, in-person contact. We're supposed to have twice yearly letterbox contact (where letters are exchanged via the local authority), but our DD's birth mother didn't sign up to the agreement so that's not happening. (I'll continue to send letters so they're there if she ever does re-appear, they're there waiting for her, and so that we can tell DD that we tried).

Sorry, can’t help on international adoption either, we did research both but it just seemed like there was too many unknowns. We were also nervous about domestic adoption after one meeting but we met 3 agencies and spoke to 3 local authorities before deciding the right path for us. It then took a year to bring home two wonderful girls - we have yearly letterbox contact which is not onerous and I feel I do for the future of the children. My advice would be to continue your research in more depth, speak to a range of sources before you decide either way. Good luck x

It is worth noting that some children who have fewer issues may be adopted in their own country.

www.dreamadoption.org/index.php?page=profile-of-the-children

You could specify no direct contact in your homestudy.
It should only rule you out of a very small number of children.

Children adopted from overseas don't qualify for priority on school places, nor the additional pupil premium funding, even though their needs are likely to be as high as children adopted from care domestically.

I have adopted both internationally and domestically.

On the last point- priority places for schools and pupil premium for internationally adopted children is currently being updated and should be in place within the year.

As someone else has said the international adoption centre can advise - I know they are starting up a program with Kazakhstan and the lady who runs the agency from the Kazakhstan side will be coming over shortly to talk through the process - you can also get an idea of costs so maybe see if you can attend that for more info. International adoption is hugely expensive - we really had no idea how much it was going to cost when we started and that was probably a good thing because we wouldn’t have started if we had known. Every govt agency that touches wpyour paperwork will charge for around £2k for looking at them (FCO, dept of education, border agency), I think your home study is around £7k, you’ll need a notary, the list goes on - if you’re serious about it let me know and I can dig out the coatings.

We adopted our daughter at 12 months old from an orphanage - her first year had been pretty deprived and we had a really rough start with her because it was so hard for her to adjust and she needed so so much that it drained us.

We then adopted domestically twice, first came from foster care at a similar age to daughter and the difference was huge. He had love before he came to us and that made it possible for him to over time transfer his love to us. It was a hundred times easier with him than with daughter in the first 6 months. For the domestic adoptions we do a letter fpto birth mother twice a year - it’s actually between us and her not the child!

tictoc can I ask why you chose international adoption first?

I think international adoption is brilliant.You have given your child a great start in life. But, of course, like all adopters you wanted to be parents.

You do need to consider why you don’t want contact (which is usually by letter) with the birth family. It seems a small issue to then make you start thinking about adopting abroad. The costs of this will be high but there will also be little or no information about the child’s background if they have been abandoned at an orphanage.

Adoption is tough wherever the child is from but having the children is lovely. Look into local support groups in your area and which family or friends will be able to support you when the children arrive.
Best wishes for your assessment whichever route you choose

We only chose international because we couldn’t get any LA’s to assess us for domestic due to having a young birth child. I do feel a duty to my daughter to help her retain a link with her birth country though which is actually pretty hard work.

Firstly, many thanks for all you responses, it certainly has helped us evaluate our options.

A number of people have asked why we are considering overseas adoption and the reason why is that we came out of a seminar that was hosted by our local LA and based on the information we were given it sounded potentially very restrictive to adopt domestically as both the birth parents and grandparents still had rights even though they were deemed unfit (ie abusive or addicts) and we were not sure that we would be prepared for those types of scenarios.

We do not have an issue with sharing with the birth parents, but our concern was that if the birth parents are unstable and there was regular visits how would this impact the child especially when we are wishing to create a stable loving environment for them.

Having read the posts above, I now wonder if we have read too much into what was presented as opposed to looking at what we can offer to the children.

Once a child is adopted in the UK parental responsibility is with the adopted parents - biological parents no longer have parental responsibility or any rights in regards to their biological children (this is why adoption is seen as draconian, and a last resort by the courts).

My son's adoption is an open adoption meaning I have annual face to face contact with birth mother. This is very unusual - normally with adoption it is just letter box. While I agreed to contact (and to review it once a year), however there is no legal obligation for me to do it - I can stop it at any time (which I will if at any point I believe it is no longer in the best interest of my child).

Patents share responsibly with local authority before the adoption is final, I believe, but I 've final the adopter/s the parent/s. Our adoption became final within six months of our son moving in with us. The birth parents had no input at all. We asked social workers if it was ok to take a short holiday/cut his hair rtf, and it was. And to be honest I doubt they would have known if we had not gold them.

We were very much treated as ds's parents from the day he moved in bit legally he became our son when the adoption order was made.

" Parents,as in birth parents share..."