International adoption - UK

[AnnaLCox]

Good afternoon all,
I am a single female currently looking into international adoption in the UK. I have been told by ICA (which I understand is one of the leading agencies) that, as a single person, I'll only be able to adopt from India or South Africa. I note that there is not a lot of information out there for adopting internationally from the UK, though there is a ton of info if you are a US citizen. I'm a bit skeptical about this information as it seems to me that a lot of Americans are adopting from Latin American countries (single as well as couples). Have any single women here adopted from Latin America or anywhere else for that matter? The reason Latin America is my preference is due to the fact that I am a fluent Spanish speaker so it would be much easier to communicate with a child from that part of the world. If that isn't an option I would, of course, be happy to adopt from India, but I'd like to get the full information first. Wandsworth Council hasn't been helpful at all as they only deal with domestic adoption, and want to encourage people to go down that route.

Do you mind me asking why international adoption? International adoption is becoming harder to do, many of the countries are closing their borders to international adopters. It also is not cheap! Just wondering if there is a specific reason you want to consider international and not domestic.

To echo pinklady, if you’re considering international because you think that’s the only way you’ll get a baby, that’s not true.

Lots of regular posters here have adopted very young babies.

Hi
Thanks for your comments and, as you state Thepinklady, international adoption does seem to be getting harder (not sure why this is) and is very expensive, I do concede that. The reasons why international appeals to me over domestic are as follows. Earlier this year I went to a talk about adoption with Wandsworth Council (my local borough) and was told that 90% of the babies/children up for adoption had suffered abuse or neglect and thus were likely to have serious health or behavioural problems and be on average 2 years behind their peers of their own age. Whilst in an ideal world I would be happy to take that on - the reality is I'm single, not loaded and need to work a 40 hour week. Unless I meet someone or have a stark change in my circumstances, this isn't going to change anytime soon. Consequently, I feel it would be unfair both on such a child and on myself to take that on - I couldn't give the child the additional time he/she needs or deserves and would potentially end up burnt down and doing a terrible job. The other thing that put me off is the knowledge that there has been a shift in adoptive parents/birth parents needs and rights, with the birth parents now being able to have contact with their biological child. Whilst I would be more than happy to share knowledge of a child's biological parents (and have them meet them later on in life), the thought of birth parents being in contact with the child as he or she is growing up (and bear in mind that the birth parents are likely to have neglected their child or maybe even worse) seems incredibly destablising and I would not be happy about that. The justification behind this appears to be that it's better to have controlled contact as now many birth parents are contacting their kids on social media and vice versa - whilst I do get that argument, I still think that the birth parents/children could do that on top of any controlled visitation anyway. In short, things have changed radically with domestic adoption due to social changes (social security, no longer a stigma to be a single mother, free abortion etc) - which makes domestic adoption a less appealing or realistic option now. I thus think that international adoption might be the better option - there are millions of children in the developing world that are given up due to poverty etc, the problem is it doesn't seem to be made very easy for us in the UK. It's very frustrating seeing so many news reports on Syria and seeing all those orphans walking around with nothing, but there is seemingly no system in place for adoptions, at least not at this stage. I'd love to hear anyone's comments on international adoption. Lastly, tdlr, I'm not concerned so much about adopting a baby or a child per se.

With the greatest of respect, you're making a lot of assumptions.

I'm a single adopter (soon to have my child placed), don't have much money and need to work too. Yes, lots of children in care are traumatised - that's the very nature of adoption. Wouldn't you be if you were removed from your mother? But that isn't specific to children in the UK. That's global. A child who is up for adoption in another country will at the very least carry this trauma. It's a given.

There are so many children in the UK looking for homes. Lots of them will have additional needs because of the horrendous start they've had in life, but there are also children who are relatively 'easy to place'. I'm cross you're writing these children off. Do you think that children from other countries won't have had mothers who've been victims of domestic abuse, poverty, sexual abuse, etc? Do you think the mothers won't have drunk or taken drugs in pregnancy?

I think you also need to read more about contact and life story work and why it's so important to a child's identity, and how that's facilitated in the UK. Go deeper into finding out more about this - do you genuinely believe it would be better for your child to not know anything about their birth family as they grow up? Chances are when they're old enough they'll want to know where they came from regardless. International adoption will make it so much harder for them to create a sense of where they came from and potentially to find their birth parents. Adding extra distance between where your child was born and the home you give them isn't going to stop this from happening.

Response to startoftheworld.
For a start, I am not writing anyone off, I'm merely looking into international adoption as an alternative to domestic and have not made a decision to go down either route yet. I'm not blindly making assumptions either as I've spoke with my local authority, have distant family members who have adopted and also have a close friend who is an adoption social worker (we lived together for many years so I have some insight into domestic adoption). You raise a valid point that children in other countries will also likely have suffered some trauma and neglect, but I never stated that I wasn't prepared to take a child with this background. My point was more that in the UK, I was told by local authority that most children will have suffered some sort of additional abuse which means they will severe needs over and above what I may realistically have capacity to offer. I'm trying to be realistic and not see things through rose-tinted glasses, apologies if that comes across as making assumptions to you.
I did not at any point state I didn't think an adopted child should be denied information about their birth parents. What I said was that I did not like the idea of regular contact. I think that is completely reasonable. There is a big difference in the two.

Yes, lots of children in care have been victim to additional abuse. However - and I say this as someone who has actively been looking at profiles for the last six months - lots have not. It will be interesting to see if children in care in other countries have suffered levels of abuse too. Unfortunately I would think this is the case.

Look more into the contact that adopted children have with birth families. I'd say the majority have yearly letter box - one letter with birth families facilitated by social workers. That's it. And as your child's parent, you choose when you share these letters with them. Some will have contact with siblings if it's appropriate. Again that will be once or twice a year. I don't think this is excessive or unreasonable. But of course, if you feel that's too much that's your right.

All those orphans walking round in Syria will be traumatised by the experience of war and the violent loss of their parents. They will have significant additional needs.

I think you are currently where a lot of us start - I imagined at one v early point taking the international route for a lot of the same reasons you’ve just described.

But yes. Whether domestic or international all adopted children, by definition, come with at least some kind of trauma so don’t imagine they don’t. (Plus additional needs wrt understanding their heritage/circumstances.)

If you choose to adopt domestically, you get to say what you think you can cope with - no-one is interested in foisting a child on you with needs greater than you can meet. But no one thinks badly of you for saying you don’t think you can handle FASD or what not. (The trouble is of course that you don’t always know, so you need to accept that there’s an elevated risk.)

And as PPs say, actual contact with birth family is usually (anonymised) annual letter exchange. You, as parent, get to choose how much/whether/when to tell your child.

And you will be expected to take a significant chunk of time off work to help child settle/bond (a year is usually preferred, it seems you can sometimes get away with less), so start saving.

I am sorry I am only coming back to you now re. Your response to my question.

I understand you are exploring both options and I would urge you to delve a little deeper into domestic adoption before completely rejecting it. Your two stated reasons for exploring adoption is trauma in domestic adopted children and contact.

Firstly I have a number of close friends who have done international adoption - attachment disorder is present to a greater or lesser degree in all of their children, just like it is present to a greater or lesser degree in the many domestic adopted children I know. Attachment disorder/difficulties come from early trauma, including in the womb, and this will be present in all children who have been adopted regardless of where from. Most children adopted internationally will have spent some time in an orphanage/children’s home, the level of care may vary in some of these. Also the cultural move alone from their country of birth to the UK will cause significant trauma that may manifest itself in the child much later.

With regards contact and understanding lifestory, many of the international adopters often say that they wish there was a way their children could have access/window to their birth family and culture that can be created thorough contact here. Don’t assume that just because he birth family are thousand of miles away that that is always a positive.

With regards the level of needs an adopted child has locally does as others have said vary greatly. Many have adopted children who are sailing through life fairly well, others have significant needs. There is no guarantees unfortunately with adoption no matter what route you take.

Many parents do find that working full time is no longer and option. You mention that you have to work 40 hours to make ends meet. This will be explored with you in a home study, both for domestic and international, and if they don’t feel that you will be capable of reducing your hours, if necessary, to meet the needs of your child then you will struggle to get approved. You might find it helpful to explore what benefits you would get to allow you to be at home more with a child if needed so that you can present this in your home study of how if necessary you will support your child.

Contact largely in the Uk is indirect/letterbox and not as intrusive as you would think. It is largely letters between adopter and birth family that may or may not be shared with the child until they are older. Direct face to face contact is becoming more common but still fairly rare. There is a recent thread about this although did go off track a little so you may not find it particularly helpful.

All in all I think you need to give much more thought to both options. My gut actually is that you will come back to domestic. You say you will have to work full time to support a child. The very large amount of money you will end up spending on international adoption may go along way to supporting you to be at home longer win a child you adopted locally.

Good luck with your exploring.

All the statistics are just that - statistics. Adoption is highly individual. I know both, children who have beaten all the odds and children who looked "easy" on paper and are anything but. Particularly with under 3 year olds it will be impossible to predict their future development. Though very few define themselves as such, adopters are risk takers.

When you look into it, you will find that children are placed for adoption for the same reasons all over the world: poverty, domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, mental health problems, learning disabilities. Abuse and neglect of children are the consequences of these problems. All adopted children are traumatised.

I would look into domestic adoption, because usually much more is known about the background of the child and why the child went into care. That will give you a much better idea on possible issues down the road. Support is much better for domestically adopted children than internationally adopted, eg. domestically adopted children have priority in choice of school, internationally adopted ones don't. I would also consider older children.

Contact to the birth family is usually indirect. I write a letter once a year and wished we would get one back like we used to. Some form of contact can be very stabilising for the child. It can be very hard to live with little to no knowledge of who your birth parents are.

My advise would be to read as much as possible and listen to podcasts about adoption (eg. creatingafamily.org). Adoption is different from having a birth child. However, I would not change my family for the world!

@AnnaLCox Totally agree with all the great posts here, especislly Thepinklady and Yolande.

I came to adoption thinking of overseas. I'd studied Madarin (can-t soeak it well!), watched documentaries about Chinese orphanages etc and it just felt right.

I'm married with a birth child; and the cost and wait for China were just prohibitive.

We looked at domestic adoption and our 3 year old boy joined us over 5 years ago.

Contact with birth family is limited to letters but we may explore face to face if possible before he turns 18 - so we can help him to manage that if he wants.

Honestly, for us domestic was good. We know a lot about his past, we feel we can cope with his issues and we 'chose' him because we felt we could parent him well.

The amount you would spend on overseas adoption could really impact your finances.

Much as i completely understand your desire to help children suffering in war torn lands the issues are complex. I did look into it. I can say more if you wish. Some do work out well. We do have adopters here ego adopted from overseas, I think it can be a good thing but it is complex. As I am sure you know.

Whatever you choose to do, do stick around because this forum is very positive and a good source of help

Re 'war torn lands' (I meant your example of Syria) I did not look into that. I looked into international adoption .

Adoption overseas (ICA) on Facebook might have someone that can help.

We are international adopters. My son is great but he does have some trauma behaviours. The whole pathway is ridiculous, we were asked for money at every turn and just ended up throwing more and more cash at the situation. The costs on the international side were actually much clearer than everything we were asked for in the UK. There are many costs beyond the home study and no-one seems to tell you about them until the bill arrives.

I agree with the points about contact, the info we have about my son is far too sparse and is something I am really unhappy about. I think contact is really desirable to help them with their identity. This has meant more costs for us in doing investigations, I know of some people who have done 3 different investigations to be satisfied with the info they have. I also know of people who take older children back to see birth family if it is something the children want and it seems appropriate.

The ethics can be treacherous, you really need to know what you are getting into. It can also really put you through the mill, countries can close a programme while you are in the middle of it.

Don’t know anything about S America, possibly it can be done but you would probably have to forge your own path and also I know of some adopters who recently had great difficulty getting the visa to bring their child back to the UK. Just so you know!

We are overseas adopters - chosen for a variety of reasons but I have family in and from the country we adopted from so we felt we could give the DCs strong links to their home area.
My older DC in particular has needs that are basically identical to UK adopted children. We knew this would be likely. Our younger DC is not White and her needs are different but her ethnicity is really unusual in the UK so we have to work HARD to make sure she stays connected to it. We do latch on to anyone we meet of her ethnicity!

OP were you told what you have written about birth parent contact by Wandsworth? As far as I know contact with birth parents would be entirely to do with adoptee's needs and nothing at all to do with birth parents' rights, and the driver to do with social media is to do with adoptees looking for birth family on social media in their teens. Would you mind just letting me know if what you have said here is exactly what Wandsworth said at the talk you went to? I know it isn't what your thread is about, but it would be helpful to know. Thank you.

Also keep in mind that some support - like Pupil Premium Plus, the Adoption Support Fund - are not available to children adopted from abroad. So you can have just as many (or few) issues, but with less support to respond to them.

I am living in SA, and have adopted here as a domestic adoption. Children only become available for international adoption when every possibility of domestic adoption has been exhausted. In practice that means few children under the age of 2 are placed internationally unless they have significant health needs or disabilities. The best case scenario is that those children lived with an attentive foster parent in the mean time, but the reality is usually less rosy.

Also, as a trans-racial adopter myself, don't underestimate the complexities of adopting overseas. Language is a temporary barrier with a young child (DD2 switched from Xhosa to English within a few months at the age of 5, although she had been exposed to it since the age of 2 so it wasn't completely new). Identity and 'fitting in' are on-going, not necessarily in an angst ridden way, but it does add on more thing into the mix that the child has to work out as they grow up.

ASF is open to children adopted from overseas.
PP+ shouldn't be but our DCs get it 🙍🏼

Hi everyone and thanks for all the comments - so many things to address! From what everyone has said here, I think the prospect of adopting from abroad does sound like one hell of a challenge and possibly not a better option than adopting domestically, certainly more of an expensive one. The cost estimate I was given for adopting a child from India was circa £20k (includes flights and staying out there) but, if as it has been said above there are hidden costs, I'm wondering if this could continue escalating, and I guess once you've got the ball rolling you just have to keep going. I think that if I pursue adoption I might well look at domestic again first.
Sassygromit - yes, the point about contact with birth parents was something that came up in an information evening with Wandsworth Council. This I understand is how things work now, so I'm sure the same spiel is reeled off by all local authorities across London. The reality is, however, that if I adopt it's likely to be elsewhere as being a single parent living in one of the most expensive boroughs in the country is not going to work for me. I'm likely going to be moving outside of London. I imagine the same will apply everywhere though. I think the way forward is just pursuing this on a case by case basis. I understand that if one is accepted as a potential adoptive parent, you do have options to decide what child you will take - an advantage over international adoption I guess.
Thanks all and if anyone else has any experience of either domestic or international adoption I'd love to hear as many of these as possible!

You really need to look into the experiences of adult adopters around contact with their birth families, too. You may personally feel that contact with birth families growing up will be "destabilising" but most of the new thinking on contact (and this includes a lot of families with very open adoptions from foster care, especially in the US but also here) is that children need contact with birth family where at all possible.

There are a lot of helpful interviews on the Adoption and Fostering Podcast, including with adult adoptees (some of whom are fairly young i.e. not lovely 1960s babies with single mums in disgrace) adoptionandfostering.podbean.com/

Have a look on Adoption Twitter too for many stories of birth family contact.

Different local authorities handle matters differently. Individual social workers approach things differently. Plus everything is shaken up at the moment, because of the recent merging of local authorities. I would recommend looking around and see where the chemistry feels right. You can approach any LA you like, you don't have to stick with your home one. I have had very positive contact with Merton. And check out Coram, they are excellent!

We were presented with files of many, many children in the matching phase and we did say no to some. It felt awful at the time. It also works the other way round: We were interested in some children and their social worker felt we were not right for the children. Matching is tough.

I really would not worry too much about contact with the birth family. As I said, I wished we would get letters back like we used to. Fortunately we have direct contact with siblings, which we all enjoy and which has been incredibly helpful for my children. They feel connected to their past and are incredibly happy and proud that they all look very similar. Contact is very important to them. The siblings have SM contact with the birth family, but none of them want direct contact. You will cross those bridges when you get there.

The thing is, if you have contact or not, the birth family will always be with you. To me they feel like distant relatives whom I have never met. But I live with them through our children. I am not my children's birth mother and that is fine by me and my kids. As my daughter once put it "I am not boring! I am adopted!" :-)

Hello AnnaLCox,

Good thing your middle initial is written in big letters
Anyway, I'm late to the party but I figured I'd offer you my perspective, in case it may help you or someone else reading this thread someday.

I am not an adopter but I've worked in a field related to adoption in Russia. Russia is closed to single adoptions, to the best of my knowledge, but it's still an exemple of what you might expect from adoption abroad.

I had access to the adoptions judgements of dozens of children and the recurring factor that led to them being in orphanages were as follows :

• alcohol and drug abuse
• violence (domestic violence)
• neglect (children inadequately clothed in flats without heating in very cold winters, inappropriately fed, etc)

Furthermore, the living conditions in Russian orphanages were not great, to say the least.
There was national preference for adoption which means a child could not be up for international adoption until they'd been on the local register for at least (I think) 18 months. Most of them as a result were around 3-6 years old when adopted internationally, sometimes older though children over 5 are "less desirable".

Children available for adoption had a host of health issues, global developmental delay especially but also other conditions such as hydrocephaly, etc. And probably FASD though I'm not sure it would have been reliably diagnosed in Russia.

I think it's possible for single adopters to adopt in Lithuania (don't have first-hand experience though), Colombia and (I think) Bulgaria ? Not sure. But most children there available to international adoption by a single parent will be :

• older
• adoptable only with brothers/sisters
• having significant health needs

You need to be aware of that and adjust your expectations before going down that route. Also, international takes longer. Local adoption in the UK is incredibly fast (1-2 years based on what I read here).

The truth is that the UK remove children from families much more easily than in other countries, which means there are a lot more children available for adoption locally than in most other countries and as a result it goes much faster. Waiting time in my own country is more like 5-10 years for local adoption...

So in terms of trauma and needs I don't think you'll get "easier" children from international adoption. If anything they'll need more help and support.

In terms of contact with birth family, I'm no expert. I do know that knowing where they came from, and often establishing direct contact, is hugely important to a large number of adopted children. That doesn't mean you are any less their parent. This is why, incidentally, I am not in favour of anonymous egg or sperm donation (and this is one of the reasons why I decided against donating, because in my country it is anonymous).
I know from reading these boards that contact with bio parents in the uk is not always very well maintained (but frankly the rules the bio parents have to comply with to write those letters are so stringent, I'd find it hard too ; especially as the letters are supposed to be addressed to the adopters and not the child themselves).

@Malyshek - thanks for your insight on international adoption in Russia - very interesting and informative. I think it's very sad that international adoption takes so long as the longer it takes the more damaging being institutionalised is for a child's long-term development. It's a shame governments don't appear to really take that into consideration. Anyway, as you say, single people are no longer able to adopt from Russia so that isn't an option for me. Re being in touch with birth parents - of course everyone is curious about where they come from and no one wishes to be denied information about their background - but at the same time there is a reason these children have been taken away from their birth parents and so I consider regular contact could well be destabilising. You mention, for instance, people having children with anonymous sperm donation, and that is too something that I have looked at. The general research on children who have been brought up by a single parent and a donor contrasted with children who have been brought up in a single parent household where one parent (usually the father) has walked out on the family (often in unpleasant circumstances) suggests that it's more stabilising for a child to have always had just the one parent from the off rather than an absent father, which can lead to rejection issues. That said, we should try not to generalise about any given situation as the fact is every child and every family is difficult and subject to a range of influences that determine their outlook on life.

As by means of an update, I'm actually laying off adoption for the moment. It's something I might return to in a year or two but for now I've parked it.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread - much appreciated!

About international adoption taking so long - I think the idea is, it's preferable for children to be adopted within their own country/culture. In fact I think some countries have an order of preference like this :

• nationals living in the country
• foreigners living in the country
• nationals living abroad
• foreigners living abroad

But yes, the consequence for many children is being stuck far longer in orphanages.

In any case, I wish you the best of luck with whatever you decide to do !

Hi @AnnaLCox. One thing to consider is that in the UK you will have full disclosure regarding the circumstances and events that led to a child being adopted. With a child adopted internationally there will be a lot of unknowns.

@Malysek - interesting to know the reasoning behind delays in international adoption. Thanks for the info.
@UKBAC - yes, that's a good point you raise there. I will certainly update on this forum if I decide to go ahead and start the adoption process.
Thanks again everyone.