Can you adopt with a sex offender in the family?

[Disneylover42]

Me and my husband want to foster to adopt. We both have a clean criminal record and have never been in trouble with the police. However... my brother recently has been changed for indent images of children. He’s on the sex offenders list and has a suspended sentence. I have NO relationship with him whatsoever, he disgusts me (always has). The thing that worries me is he unfortunately still lives with my parents, me and my husband live 3 miles away. I’m concerned that because I have an amazing relationship with my parents (yet have no contact with him) that I won’t be able to adopt a child. I only ever visit my parents when I know he’s at work or not home, I never visit when he’s there.

I can even begin to explain how angry and heartbroken I will be if he ruins my chances of becoming a mother because of his disgusting ways. Even just thinking about it makes me want to cry.

I also forgot to add that in NO WAY will he ever set eyes on any child and and my husband raise.

I have no professional experience but I'd imagine it would be quite a hard sell for adoption! You may have to go fully no contact as well as even with your parents if they are supporting/housing him.

I hope this doesn't mess up your chances of having a child.

That’s what I was afraid of. I know they check every adults criminal record who lives in the home but I wasn’t sure if they extended it to our siblings. I have no contact at all with him and I would be heartbroken to find out we couldn’t adopt because of him.

I could not say for sure, but I would advise you be totally upfront with your social worker about it. We have been through Foster to adopt and as you are Foster parents util the matching panel there are extra considerations.
The whole process only works with total transparency about all of your lives, good and bad. I would hope it wouldn't affect your chances but with him living at your parents it may be sw will want to explore how that would work.
Good luck with it all

I've name changed because this is deeply personal and very outing!

I was in a similar, although not quite the same, situation. During my adoption assessment process my dad tried to kill himself and his partner and is now charged with attempted murder. I informed my social worker immediately and the honesty really helped. It did delay my assessment process by a further 10 months and required extra meetings and lots of additional information in my PAR. Although surprisingly wasn't brought up at panel! I now have a baby placed and I am not allowed to take him to visit my dad (until we have an adoption order) even though he is not a risk to children, and is actually not a violent person. Obviously your brother absolutely is a risk and they will want to know how you are going to safeguard your children when visiting your parents, they may not allow you to do this while the local authority still has parental responsibility (before an adoption order).

My advice is to be completely open and honest from the beginning. I don't think it will prevent you adopting, but you do need to be really clear on how you will manage the relationship with your parents and how you will explain to your children why they can't see their uncle.

Also should have said, currently doing foster to adopt and still in the fostering stage. The situation with my dad did not impact negatively on the matching process for this.

As others have said, you need to be very upfront with social workers and clear about how you would safeguard any child placed with you throughout childhood, not just pending the adoption order. Your child would have a good chance of being removed post adoption of you allowed them to be around a known sex offender. You’d also need to be sure your parents were fully on board with your plans eg that they wouldn’t let your brother be around your child when they were caring for your child.

I’d not rule out adoption but I’d expect some very robust discussion about it, including the reasons for being non-contact with your brother, how you negotiate the relationship with your parents who clearly don’t feel the way you do about them.

Given he’s only just been charged sw may want to wait for the outcome of any criminal case before progressing your application - so that they knew for example his sentence, could have sight of any court reports etc.

Although surprisingly wasn't brought up at panel!

They’ll have discussed it fully in private, your sw has clearly prepared very well and given them all they needed. They wouldn’t discuss something so sensitive in an open meeting unless they really needed more info. Congratulations on your little one.

@Jellycatspyjamas yes I absolutely understand they will have discussed it at panel before we went in. We did expect some questions directed at us about it so it was just a bit of a surprise that they didn't ask us.

I apologise if my post sounded like I was just talking about before the adoption order. I was trying to explain how it might impact the OP visiting her parents in the short term as well as the long term. We have had to have lengthy discussions with our social worker, our little one's social worker and his family finder regarding how my dad's situation will impact us as a family long term, and impact our little one's life story. He may never meet my dad as it is incredibly likely he will die in prison, he also has birth family in prison so reconciling that with also having adoptive family in prison could be hard.

Social services did want to wait until the trial so the outcome was known, but Covid delayed it substantially so we went to panel without the known outcome (after 10 further months of waiting and meetings, so 16 months of assessment in total).

I’m glad they made the decision to just go ahead, you could have been waiting for a long time. I didn’t think you meant just up until the adoption order, it’s just that the OPs situation is different to yours in that presumably your dads offence wasn’t direct towards a child so if he’s convicted/when he’s out of prison there wouldn’t be the same restrictions on you as there would for a relative of someone convicted of a Schedule 1 offence.

They would likely be concerned that you are in contact with your parents/your parents are still in contact with your brother.

It's likely that no child would ever be able to visit your parents house.

Also name changed!

I had a sex offender in the family who was jailed for it. I bought it up straight away. Social worker has no problem with it, we are now on stage 2 of adoption.

The saving grace is that we have cut all ties with the person. They have children with a family member so can't be cut out of our family forever but at least will never see us ever again.

I think social services will want to explore how you dealt with it (it's horrific finding out something like that isn't it).

They will also want to 100% know that you will not have contact with your brother. They will need to be reassured you will protect your child.

You will have to explain to your parents that whilst your brother lives there, they will never be able to look after your child or have you visit them.

It will make the process longer but ultimately you aren't the ones who committed the crime and you have cut your brother off. The sticking point will be your parents and their close contact with him.

I assessed a couple (as an adoption social worker) where there was a lot of family trauma including a sex offender and a convicted murderer. The couple had no contact with either and nor did her mum. They were very open and honest. The assessment was extremely in depth and look much longer than a less complicated one. I met all of the family members in order to undertake a throrough risk assessment. They now have an adopted child.

The issue about your brother living with your parents is a cause for concern. Are your parents supporting him, or do they not believe he is guilty? If the former then they may be able to have contact with their grandchild but not at their home and I would think only supervised by you. If they consider him not guilty I do not think they could have contact at all, in which case an assessment would need to consider in detail the impact of this on you. Other family members would also need to be carefully assessed.

I hope that helps. Good luck. I know my client was extremely frustrated at the level of assessment required but understood the reasons for it.

Your parents being willing to allow him to continue living them with them would be a massive red flag surely? I would not trust them with your child

I would have thought either your brother moves out of your parent's house or you and your new child have very little (no?) contact with them.

What do your parents think about it all? Do they prioritise your sex offender brother over your having children?