Advice during early stages of adoption

[waiting4you]

Hi all,

My Husband and I are new to the world of adoption.. we recently found out that we can't have children of our own, but have had suspicions for a while so have been looking into adoption for some time.

We have been to information sessions and are in the early stages of the process - please do send over any tips and things we should be considering .

We are going through West Sussex County Council, so if anybody has been through the process with them please let us know how you found it!

Thanks all x

I think my main advice is try to be patient! Nothing works as quickly as we think it should in the world of adoption. I think it is a good idea to think about doing things you won’t have the time or energy to do when your LO comes home and preparing your home as best you can (don’t decorate bedroom etc but get any projects you can done).

If you or your partner don’t have much experience with children then now is the time to do this. Read any and all information you can find related to therapeutic parenting and adoption. Further down the line they will ask you about matching criteria, my husband and I had lots of frank conversations before this stage so that there were no surprises and we knew each other’s feelings.

We are in West Sussex but not adopting through West Sussex as we fostered our wonderful son first. Do feel free to PM me though if we are nearby.

Thank you SFCA.. it's a scary journey and so good to know there are others who have been there and can help us through it

Declutter, build your network of supportive friends, read about adoption, read old threads here, do things you want like weekend mini breaks, save save save (harder on a mini break!), and be patient.

good luck.

Thank you :)

We are south coast too and we used an LA in consortium with West Sussex. We are 12 years down the line.
Take each stage as it comes, and be realistic as to what you can manage.
Best wishes.

My advice at this stage would be make sure your social worker is ticking all the right boxes. We got to one month before our approval panel date and found out there was a lot of basic paperwork missing from our file which either we had completed and she had lost or she had forgotten to do. In the end she couldn't get all of it together in time and our panel had to be postponed. In hindsight I wish I had put together my own list of everything we had sent her and cross checked it with her and our giant file.

Get some experience with children with SN - the best prep I had for my DDs was that I spent a few years after leaving school working in the behaviour support unit at a day centre for adults with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour.

@waiting4you I'm with West Sussex, happy to PM if it helps you?

We’ve adopted twice through West Sussex, the second time very recently.