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Adoption

Here are some suggested organisations that offer expert advice on adoption.

Original poster

new to all this - need some guidance

56 replies

herbaceous · 30/07/2007 16:46

After a couple of years of miscarriages and the dawning that we may well never have our own children, we've decided to look into adoption.

I realise there's lots of psychological stuff to work through - I'm getting there - but as the whole process seems to take so long, thought I'd better get cracking.

Could anyone tell me:

1 How much difference does it make if we're married or not (as only one non-married partner can be the adopter)? We're not, but as we will marry one day wondered if it was worth hurrying down the aisle!

2 We'd like a young child, as it will be our first, and possibly only. How much difference does maternal/paternal age make? I'm 41 and DP is 31 - would they 'average us out'?

3 Can you be signed up with more than one agency at once, to maximise chances of a good match? Or is that frowned on?

4 How easy is it there days to adopt from abroad - India or China, probably - and which are the best agencies? Or how do I find out?

Sorry for all the Qs - as you can see, I'm a bit new to it all, but don't want to set off down a wrong track that will take a long time to get out of...

Thanks!

OP posts:
fransmom · 30/07/2007 21:06

i don't know sweetheart sorry but will bump it for you
good luck x

moondog · 30/07/2007 21:09

Kewcumber posts a lot on MN and has recently adopted.She knows all there is to know about this.
Bump this up every now and then in hope she will see it and/or search out her past posts (also under name of suejonez}

fransmom · 30/07/2007 21:12

hi herby have posted a link thread on parenting for you in case kewcumber sees it. i tmay be worth posting elsewhere as well if you want to

gaydadtobe · 30/07/2007 21:42

My dh and I have been approved as adopters (the new ligislation allows us both to be recognised as parents, not just one of us) and we are now going through the family finding/matching process. Been 18 months already since we started down the adoption route. We find the BAAF and adoptionuk websites really useful, and we subscribe to "Be My Parent" and "Children Who Wait" publications.

  1. It doesn't make any difference if you are married or not although when you begin the assessment process you should be prepared to talk about your relationship - they ask lots of questions about everything...!
  2. Maternal/paternal age doesn't matter - I think the rule is no more than 45 years between your age and the age of your adopted child at the time of adoption.
  3. I think you can be "approved" by only one agency. We used our local authority - Hammersmith & Fulham, and they have been great. As a same sex couple we decided not to use the Catholic Adoption Agency
  4. If you are a white couple, local authority adoption agencies will "not encourage" adoption of children who have a different racial background/heritage to you...

Hope some of this helps. Good luck!

Kewcumber · 30/07/2007 22:45

best place for overseas advice is Intercountry Adoption Centre, they have fact sheets on countries. India very difficut though not impossible, China very possible but very time consuming (probably 4 years plus), but there are other countries you can consider Guatemala, Russia if domestic adoption doesn;t work for you.

Domestic adoption will very much depend on the area you live in. Some areas seem short of adoptive parents and will also consider trans-racial adoption if no other choice available, other areas (usually London boroughs) have a surfeit of white adopters and would rather perform open-heart surgery with a blunt spoon than allow transracial adoptions. However they are not by law allowed to prevent you on race reasons alone so they have to allow adoption from overseas provided you can convince social worker/panel that you will be competent parents.

Your local council will have open evenings probably try them as well.

Kewcumber · 31/07/2007 14:01

IAC have a phone helpline

grannyslippers · 31/07/2007 22:31

A good place to start is your local authority - they should have some sort of regular information evening. 1-2 years from enquiry to placement is not at all unusual and it can be longer. Any LA or independent agency can approve you but it's the local authorities who "have" the children to place so they will go to their own pool of adopters first. After about 6 months they put you out to some sort of database to look for wider matches, I believe.

Being prepared to adopt a sibling group or older children will get you up the waiting list, but there are children coming up for adoption all the time .

It is a long road but actually you can drop out at any point, in fact I got a bit irritated by the social workers constantly asking if we wanted to carry on and were comfortable with it (think social workers are just a bit like that though!). HTH

KristinaM · 01/08/2007 09:33

I agree with grannyslippers, except that i think that 2-3 years from enquiry to placement is much more realistic, especially since you wish to adopt a baby ( up to 2 years) or a younger child (3-5). any agency will not start to assess you until you have completed any fertility treatment and some agencies require a waiting period afterwards and / or counselling. So if you are considering any assisted conception treatment you need to do that first. Sorry to hear about your m/c

Kewcumber · 01/08/2007 09:44

I'm sure this is not the politically corerct thing to say (and slightly irrelevant!) but I found the adoption process was far more helpful to my acceptance of my infertility than anything else I did. The preparation course was very useful not only for preparing me for the adoption but also sharing experiences with other people who had mostly similar fertility issues. Sections of the course looked at loss and bereavment and how what you feel can help by using your experiences to understand your future childs feelings of loss and bereavement.

I applied for a home study immediately after my final IVF but it was in the days when there was a 6 month wait for a homestudy so they were a bit more relaxed about it. I understand that some councils may have changed this now.

Original poster
herbaceous · 01/08/2007 12:50

Thanks for all your replies. From piecing together bits I've read, it seems that my local authority - Waltham Forest - is linked with lots of other agencies, which should widen my 'pool' of children, should we be accepted.

I'm already worried that asking the wrong question to an official type could give us a 'black mark', and ruin the process for ever. Mad and paranoid I know!

Kewcumber - I'm kind of in the process of hauling my mind around from having my own kids to adopting, but I'm excited by the prospect, so think I'm nearly there. After five miscarriages, I can't really take it much more.

OP posts:
Kewcumber · 01/08/2007 13:06

I didn;t had any misscarriages so I didn't have that problem to deal with only the problem that I never managed to get pregnant despite throwing all the science at the problem that was available. If I'm honest I didn't really dwell on it immediately after my decision to stop trying and to move on to adoption, it was too raw IYKWIM, but the first 9 months of the adoption process was a time of reflection for me. An acceptance that adopting was not going to "cure" my infertility, that wasn;t going to go away, it was only going to satisfy my need to nuture and raise a family. It took me a while to understand that greiving for your lost preganancy is absolutely compatible with excitement at the adoption.

The big difference I found moving on to adoption was the predictability of it - ie I would have a family at the end (of course without knowing age/child etc) as long as I stuck with it and kept going. That was a great comfort to me over the years it took and apart from teh very downest of moments did keep me going.

Worth talking to as many adopters as you can, I'd be happy to meet if you ever get into central London as I work in teh city (I adopted overseas) but it is worth talking to other local domestic adopters if you can (perhaps through open evening?)

Kewcumber · 01/08/2007 13:08

oh and I should add that I can promise you that your children will feel like "your own" however you have them!

Original poster
herbaceous · 01/08/2007 13:54

Thanks Kewc. I feel all tearful now. You've hit the nail on the head with the 'knowing I'll have a family', as opposed to the dreadful uncertainty of cycles of "ooh, I'm going to have a baby! Oh no I'm not, it's died... ooh I'm pregnant!... etc"

I'd love to meet up one day - I live and work in London, too, and can easily get to the City.

Where did you adopt from?

OP posts:
Kewcumber · 01/08/2007 14:06

I work near Liverpool Street, lunchtimes are best as I leave early to catch a childminder or if you're ever sightseeing in Kew....

I adopted from Kazakhstan my blog www.simplesite.com/journeytokaz I had a long difficult trip so please don't think it is representative!

Kewcumber · 01/08/2007 14:07

and photos of the little gherkin on my profile

KristinaM · 01/08/2007 19:51

sue you are a very nice person

Kewcumber · 01/08/2007 21:31

pshaw Kristina - don't know why you say that! Others gave me as much help as I pass on.

Original poster
herbaceous · 02/08/2007 10:45

Hello, me again, being dense. I've done some more reading, and have got more confused. Does the home study always get done by the local authority, or can it be done by an outside agency, like Coram or NCH? If you have it done by an outside agency, does that cut you off from the local authority system? Or, vice versa, if you get it done by the local authority can you still go to other agencies? And if you wanted to adopt from overseas, who does the homestudy?

Sorry, I know these are v basic questions, but it's all rather confusing to a newcomer...

OP posts:
KristinaM · 02/08/2007 18:54

you are not being dense at all, the system is very confusing

Does the home study always get done by the local authority, or can it be done by an outside agency, like Coram or NCH?

any adoption agency can do a home study - they are either voluntary agencies or local authorities

If you have it done by an outside agency, does that cut you off from the local authority system? Or, vice versa, if you get it done by the local authority can you still go to other agencies?

Voluntary agencies don't children of their own to place. Local authorities refer children to other agencies , usually because they dont have a suitabel match ( ie a approved family of their own, one they prpeared and approved). They will place first with their own families so they don't have to pay a fee to another agency ( i think thsi applies whether or not it is another LA or a vol agency).

If you are approved and they dont match you with a child/ren within a certain period of time, they are supposed to put you on a national matching database. Rumour has it that some LA are slow to do this as they see approved adopters as "their" resource

Many adopters find that vol agencies offer a much better service and support to families, but of course this depends on the agency/authority.

If a vol agency take you on and then dont find a child for you, they dont get any money and if they go on doing that they will go out of business.Again, i am not sure of the current inter agency fee but i suspect its about £15K or more. So if they agree to approve you they need to be fairly sure that they can match you with a child.

And if you wanted to adopt from overseas, who does the homestudy?

Your LA have the statutory responsibility to do thsi, but they can sub contract it to another agency. Either way it will cost you...not sure of up to date costs, i'm guessing about £3-4K??? kewcumber will know for sure

HTH

beemail · 02/08/2007 21:44

Current cost of Assessment (as they call them now!) for intercountry adoption is anything between £3,000-£6,000 depending on where you live. As adopter of children from India would agree with KC that it's difficult for white adopters, not imposs but very difficult and some have waited so long for a match that they have eventually given up. There has been a lot of pulicity recently about it maybe getting easier (article in Guardian last week) but no news of changes as yet

Good Luck it's an exciting journey and I wish you well

grannyslippers · 03/08/2007 23:21

Herb

keep coming back if you have any more questions!

Hopefully you won't get any black marks at this stage. Ask everything you can. We asked at the info evening, straight up, do you tend to have children available that are likely to match what we are looking for or are we wasting our time? If you remember that they are actually looking for parents for their children in care, rather than children for you, you can see where they are coming from.

I found the whole adoption process to be really positive as well. It was a blessed release from that month-by-month maybe-maybe thing. And here I am, mum of two!

Original poster
herbaceous · 10/08/2007 17:02

Well, have fallen at the first hurdle. I spoke to the duty social worker at our local authority, and she said that it probably wasn't worth registering with them, as they a) have hardly any white children, and don't place non-white children with white parents, and b) they usually place out of borough, in case those involved in a legal wrangle meet in Sainsburys, or something.

So she said I should go to a neighbouring borough, or another agency. I dare say this is just one of the many highly annoying obstacles I will have to overcome, so shall take a deep breath...

OP posts:
KristinaM · 10/08/2007 19:11

sorry, its very discouraging

as teh Sw said, you could approach another agency but they will expect you to have completed any infertility treatment first. you are not allowed to try adoption and assisted conception treatment concurrently. so you need to get on with that now. or rule it out completely.

sorry, i know these are life changing decisions and it would be good to have a few years to think it all through.......

i suspect that given your ages and ethnicity, you are going to find it very hard in a couple of years to get any agency to approve you to adopt a baby or young child here in the uk I know this is very unfair as plenty bio parents ( like me!!!) have babies in their 40s. But its supply and demand i'm afraid

Original poster
herbaceous · 02/10/2007 11:44

Me again.

Another east London local authority has told me that as a white couple, we basically hardly stand a chance of adopting from a London local authority. This seems madness. Surely it's better for mixed-race children to have a loving home and family, of any colour, rather than move from pillar to post for even longer... Bah.

So, we still haven't found anyone to approve us. Does anyone know if it's possible to go to a local authority in a 'white' area instead? This sounds awful, but I'm sure you know what I mean.

OP posts:
Kewcumber · 02/10/2007 13:26

There are exceptionally few councils who would place a non-white baby with white parents. Your best bet is not to go to another council but to a voluntary agency. Also consider Corma and their concurrent planning option where you foster to adopt.