Matching in adoption

[Bouncydoog]

So exciting but overwhelming we have been shown a range of profiles of children from our adoption agency, a number of whom we are interested in, as we imagine they may consider matching us and feel we could meet their needs.We have been told to contact our SW if interested. Could I ask if anyone has adopted if it is normal to show interest in quite a few profiles? Or do you only pick a couple? Or should we ‘know’ if one profile is right for us?
Thanks

Matching can be overwhelming. I think some people 'know' others don't.
I had a very strong pull towards the child who is now my amazing son, but is was hard stepping back from the emotional reaction to being practical about meeting his needs.
Personally I wouldnt express an interest in more than 2, 3 at a push, because you will get overwhelmed, confused and possibly feel guilty about the ones you don't adopt.
Good luck !

We were shown about 8 different profiles, expressed an interest in two sibling groups and went from there. One of those sibling pairs are now sleeping next door.

In my experience you’ll be asked to narrow things down quite quickly because they won’t want to give you lots of information about children unnecessarily.

I'm not sure which method you are using to view profiles but we were on linkmaker, the online portal, and this meant we had a lot of freedom to browse profiles and if can be incredibly overwhelming at first to narrow down those you wish to express an interest in.

We really struggled with this at first and asked what the right "etiquette" was. We were initially told that we should feel free to express interest in multiple profiles as there are so many factors that lead to whether a child's social worker will shortlist you that it doesn't do any harm at an early stage. However linkmaker let's you express interest in up to 5 at any one time and we found in practice when we did this it became a bit unmanageable and with hindsight probably being more selective (hate that word but you know what I mean) would have helped

Everyone is different but what I would say is don't be afraid to express interest in a few but I guess do be prepared that if you are lucky and a few of the different child's social workers take an interest in you this does put certain things in motion. We found that while sometimes you don't hear anything for weeks other times social workers are very quick to start sending over reports and communicating with your sw and if you have say 5 profiles in consideration it can become a bit overwhelming and although you are by no means committed at such an early stage it can make you feel a bit uncomfortsble to be "juggling" possible visits etc with several.

You do what's right for you but I think in our experience the times when we narrowed down to say 2 children at any time was better for us. We got clearer with time and experience as to which type of children we were well matched for and the type of info we wanted to ask about. We found that generally the unofficial "etiquette" was that by the time an agency is visiting you about a child there is an expectation you are not necessarily totally committed to that child but you are serious enough not to be pursuing lots of options at once. To be fair you should get enough info ahead of visits to give you more of an indication as to whether you feel the match is a good one and it'll help you in your decision if you're considering many to look through children's reports etc and ask Qs.

Ultimately at early stages it is normal to express in a few and it's at your discretion how many you'd like to consider at one time. It's just worth considering in advance how you might deal with any dilemmas (for example if 2 agencies want to visit), and some more selective criteria (again sorry about phrasing) which you will employ if you find yourself considering multiple children. We found it helped to keep.asking ourselves what was important to us, what do we feel we can and couldn't offer a child, and what were deal breakers for us in terms of the info we needed to know about the child etc.

Good luck!

Ps I should've said, each to their own but for us I think our honest experience is that no you don't always "know". I think altho it sounds quite cold and clinical, at the early stages where you have such little information it would be hard to "know" and really you are working from quite practical considerations etc - that said there will.be certain profiles or photos that may resonate with you more strongly for reasons you can't quite put your finger on but I would really caution against relying on an instinct or gut feeling which I feel can be a bit of a romanticised myth in the adoption community. Looking back I think there were some things we felt particularly drawn to with our boy but I am happy to admit that at the time this probably came down to a mixture of practicalities, information, and his looks in his photo!

We were told it was ok to show interest in a few at a time (profiles the social worker showed us). And on Link Maker you can show interest in up to 5 profiles at a time. Our SW was very clear we could show interest in multiple profiles but if it got as far as considering a child's PAR only look at 1 at a time and to stop showing interest in other children while considering.

We found that quite often unfortunately we did not hear back from children's workers when we showed interest, especially on link maker, so we often did show interest in a few at a time. We got turned down a few times and i think it can harden you a bit at least to the very early stages. Our SW would try and get us some more information to help us make a choice.

We were careful to only show interest in children that met our criteria and we felt we could parent off the information in the profile. But unfortunately the information can be so vague and generic at that stage it was hard for us to feel a really strong connection to one particularly child.

We actually saw our daughters profile at an exchange day event where we got to have a more in depth chat with the child's worker straight away which was nice. The exchange event was very surreal mind!

We took a different approach. Our social worker took the lead in matching for us. I felt it would be took difficult to take an objective view and would be emotional influenced on my decisions. What my social worker did, was to contact several social workers with children of various ages and shortlisted it down after receiving the pars and at that point, When she knew the children were a good match (and us a good match for the children) approached us. I was able to pick my son out as being the best match for us. It was two fold, his age meant he would fit into out family (we have a birth child) and he looks remarkably like my husband!! If you didn’t know he was adopted you wouldn’t think so. It was a long time before he joined my family (9 months from initial conversation to moving in) but despite our difficulties, he is our boy and I don’t think about the other children as I know they will be with their families now.

Thank you for sharing. Your thoughts have all been really helpful. It’s a new regional agency with the services that used to be separate just coming together so I think they are at the early stages of how to match between them. There’s quite a few who meet our criteria and we think we could parent but the information is slim on the initial profile. We have two profiles where we connect emotionally with the picture, maybe we will start with asking for more information on them. As a few of you said, we’re expecting not to be suitable for some, as it’s what the SW thinks best for the kids.