Being rejected by Adopt South London without even reaching Stage 1

[NV42]

Dear all

I submitted the "Potential Adopter Form" to Adopt South London last week and this week I got an email saying that they will not take my case and I am not approved to proceed to Stage 1.

To say that I am in shock is an understatement. I am 44 years old, female, living in Barnes, single but with a loving partner of 3 years who lives in Portsmouth as his job and his young children from another relationship are there. I have a 100K job, my own property and lots of love to give as I dont have parents and the child will be my only real relative.

1. I applied as a single adopter as the Adopt South London made it quite clear to us a couple of years back that we both need to live under the same roof only to be questioned this time round why my partner is not coming forward as adopter? Why these mixed messages from Adopt South London?

1. Also in the form they asked me what is my preference and I stated a white girl baby but I am open as I appreciate that it is more challenging getting a white child and a girl.

1. What is worse, is that when I spoke to them back in December 2020, they told me that I need to do volunteering as I need to prove recent child experience although I have experience with my partner's children and my friends's ones. So I signed up to GirlGuiding and Scouts, risking my job who were not happy that I would need to leave the office on a regular basis at 16:30 twice per week to attend the sessions.

Having shown my commitment to this by signing up to volunteering and being open to what kind of child I would like to adopt, what I got at the end was a cold email saying that they will not progress with my application as they put the interest of the child first. All these was communicated to me via email (they didnt even pick up the phone to discuss).

How can they claim that they put the child's interest first, when they reject me? I can give everything to a child, a home, love, financial safety, education, holidays, emotional support.. They will be my world. Why do they prefer to leave them at foster homes than let me adopt?

Also if you know any journalists or groups that are trying to tackle and expose the english system and how difficult they make it for kids to get adopted, please do forward them to me as I am still in shock and I owe it to those children to expose the system and the people working in it.

While I will see how I can escalate this, I thought of also investigating the international path. I am Greek so maybe Greece but I am really open. So any pointers for international adoption would be grately appreciated. I have heard that most countries would expect of you, to go and live in the country during the process?

Any help would be so much appreciated as I am really heartbroken and angry at the same time as to how these people behave so recklessly with human lives.

[quote NV42]@sabzino

Thank you for the virtual hug.

Exactly because I am not living with my partner together every day (he comes here Thursday to Monday) that is why I applied as a single adopter. Wouldnt that be ok?

If ultimately I have to separate from my partner to be officially single, I will do it, as having a child is far more important than being in a relationship (regardless if I love to pieces my partner). I will do whatever the system asks me to do.[/quote]
If he is living with you half the week then he has to be assessed along with you. I'm not sure how this doesn't seem obvious to you? If he is only physically available half the time it just won't work. To be a single adopter you need to be truly single. To adopt as a couple you need to be a strong committed partnership who are living together. Adoption is hard enough without one half only being physically and emotionally available half the time.

We applied to adopt between the ages 0-7.

I volunteered in a pre-school (2.9 - 5) and a primary after school club (4-11)

I did this all the way through approval and while we were waiting, around 2.5 years in total!

OP - could you even consider changing jobs, moving to Portsmouth and adopting with your partner?

Sorry - by "another agency" I meant either a neighbouring local authority agency, or a voluntary agency such as PACT or Family Futures or Jigsaw. I think the national adoption pages on the government website have a list of voluntary agencies (which are non-profit).

My child was three, and white British, when they joined our family. I was asked:

• what would I do if my child's needs meant I couldn't return to work?
• how supportive and/or present, was my wider family?
• why did I feel adopting was the right path (instead of solo IVF for example)?
• who would support me, while I raised my child? Ranging from who could deliver an emergency bottle of Calpol at midnight, to who would give me emotional support when things were hard?

I think most of the other questions would have applied equally to people in relationships, so I won't get into those.

As others have said you are being too specific by saying you want a white baby girl. The reality is that the majority of children waiting to adopt are over the age of 3 and there are quite a few from either BAME backgrounds or with special needs.

If you really want a chance then you should be as wide ranging and open as possible. When my partner and I were going through the approval process we were looking for an older child and we were happy for either sex and an age range of approx. 2 to 7. As a result we were approved and matched with a child (just over 3 years old) much quicker than other adopters who were going through the training at the same time as us but wanted only babies.

Perhaps rather than guides/scouts you could look at toddler groups, particularly if you do want a young child. I volunteered at the local stay and play centre during the approval process.

It's possible that your age and the lack of family/support network may be an issue. You will need to prove that you are fit and healthy enough to support a child and there will be questions about your support network.

The process can be very intrusive and there will be a lot of checks and questions but they do need to make sure that they find the right person/people for the child as it is not as simple as having love to give or how capable you are financially to support a child.

You cannot adopt as a single person whilst living with someone half the week. No agency will accept you under those circumstances. You would have to be assessed as a couple .
They have already mentioned that so you need to consider whether adoption is more important than your relationship with your partner. Or adopt as a couple which would also be tricky as he has a life elsewhere and therefore wouldn't be completely committed to your family unit.
Sorry .

To add to all of the above - and you may know this - here’s the why:

A traumatised child with attachment issues (and all adopted children will have attachment issues to some degree, based on their losses) may not be able to cope with a ‘parent’ figure coming and going.

My son is 2.5. I’m a single adopter and if I had a male role model living with me half the week my son’s head would probably explode. Not an exaggeration. He’s been home for nearly a year and even saying goodbye to casual friends is traumatic for him - every goodbye could be for forever. He can’t bear it sometimes. A person he’d effectively live with as part of his family unit doing this to him once a week would be devastating.

I started the adoption process single, met someone and fell in love, kept quiet about it with the SW and when it came to matching I said goodbye to my boyfriend (it had been a year). I knew I had to focus entirely on my son and didn’t want or need the distraction. I miss my boyfriend every day, but I couldn’t have had a new relationship in my son’s life (I appreciate this is different to your situation).

Go with a VA like PACT or explore other bordering LAs who aren’t in your consortium. Once you learn more about why many LAC need these levels of stability it may help you understand if adoption really is for you.

I think you need to put yourself in the shoes of the childs SW, if you were the SW for that child would you pick you as the best possible option for the imaginery child?

You aren’t a prospective single adopter as you aren’t single.

I’m a single adopter, due to attachment difficulties my son would find it extremely traumatic to live with someone who vanished every week. Hes almost six, I’ve been his Dad since he was 18 months old. He has a good attachment to me, but clearly deep down he ‘knows’ I might not be his Dad forever, as not a single adult has always been there for him. That will never go away for him.

I now have a partner, dating as an adopter has been a journey. When my partner first started staying the night I knew it would be challenging and a huge test for all of us, I didn’t realise (which was a huge failure on my part) that my son thought my partner was going to be a new Daddy and one day when my partner went home my son would be going with him. We now live together, i thought him moving in would be hard, but about 3/4 weeks in when my son twigged that no one was leaving he genuinely relaxed (by which I mean he was a little bugger again), he was no longer clingy with me, he was no longer trying to please my partner. Over a year later they have a really lovely relationship, my son is now happy to be alone with him, go on a day out with my partner on his own, happily waves him off to work, likes being walked to school by him etc.

We would like to adopt together in the future, we are both well aware our main focus will always have to be “is this decision going to negatively impact my son” and our second focus “can we provide a child with everything they need”.

Think about your childcare experience, if you want to adopt an infant you need to be trying to get some experience with that specific age group.

Contact your local adoption support group, get involved with adopters and get to know their children. If you adopt they will be a huge huge help, but their children will also become the friends of your child.

Start learning about attachment theory, therapeutic parenting.

Exactly because I am not living with my partner together every day (he comes here Thursday to Monday) that is why I applied as a single adopter. Wouldnt that be ok?

That really wouldn’t be ok, because you’re not single. What role would you expect your partner to have with your child? He wouldn’t have parental rights and responsibilities but would have a caring role in your child’s life? As a sw I’d be concerned about why you were applying as a single adopter because I’d worry about why he wasn’t adopting with you, if you’re in a committed relationship and would be wondering if there might be something in his background that you didn’t want explored by sw.

A part time living arrangement also won’t work for adopted children because they need to know their new parents are there, physically and emotionally, all the coming and going would be very unsettling for an adopted child. If you then decided to end your relationship, I’d want to explore that very fully in any adoption process.

I also would have concerns about the meaning the child holds for you, in saying the child would be your only family, it sounds like you might be looking for the child to fill a gap/meet your needs rather than you meeting theirs. You being very specific about your preference for a white, female, baby would reinforce that concern for me - that you’re looking for a child to create an idealised family. That may not be the case but the picture your application paints (as stated in your OP) a concerning picture overall.

The system is there to protect children and to ensure potential adopters are going into the process in the right mindset. With respect, you seem to have a fairly old fashioned view of adoption (poor children languishing in care waiting for a loving mummy). It’s much more complex than that. I’d also question the wisdom of volunteering with an older age group when you’ve specifically said you want a very young child - that can come across as ticking the box rather than gaining meaningful experience with the age of child you hope to parent. I have fairly strong views about how useful most volunteering experience is as preparation for adoption but in your case I can’t see any relevance to your volunteering compared to you possibly parenting an infant.

Local authorities aren’t sitting waiting for folk to come along and give a poor child a home, they’re rightly choosy about potential adopters because if placement breaks down the cost to the child is enormous.

I get that you feel devastated, but really think you need to take a step back and think about the realities of adoption and what you have to offer, and the barriers in your way.

So your partner... where does he live? The other place? Does he have his own house/flat there?

So really at your house, he’s a weekend visitor?

I could see why that would qualify you as a ‘single adopter’ but I can also see why they wouldn’t want to assess you.

I wouldn’t want to assess/place a child with someone who has such a frequent visitor. The child would be all over the place.

Also what is his role? Is it dad? Mum’s boyfriend? (Breadwinner? You mentioned ‘we’ affording time off work.) Why does he choose to go be with his other children and not meeeeeee?

So I absolutely see the problem.

Which for my money means there’s two solutions; you make yourself genuinely single and when child is placed and settled, you can reintroduce dating, or you regularise your living arrangements now and applying jointly - either him moving properly in with you now or you moving there. If he moved in with you, he could still see his DC on weekends, I can’t see SS having a problem with that. But it would need to be a genuinely joint application.

Are his children not part of your life? I’m not asking you to tell us here, but as a SW I’d definitely be exploring that.

If you want a 'baby' then there really aren't that many. The LA I went through had 3 when we were shown profiles and they were all over a year old. One was 18 months.

If you want a little baby then Early Permanence could be the way forward but you'd have to be ready to potentially hand the baby back to a family member. And you might have to agree to the baby having contact a few times a week with the birth mum.

If you aren't happy then use a different LA. We didn't go with ours because they wouldn't take us on with birth children who were young. So I rang around other LA'S near us till we found one who would take us. In the end, the child we were matched with was 8 months when she came home to us.

I have a question for all not just. I was asked about my preference in regards to gender and identity of my child. Whilst I didn't have a preference for gender, I did specify that the child was black(as am I) and I wasn't bothered if their heritage was from a different country/continent as me, which the social worker was perfectly happy about. But hearing the responses to the OP about her wanting a white child...am I missing something?

@sabzino I think it can feel like you're playing a game at times. You have your preference but you need to say the 'right' thing. We've felt that sometimes the social workers will imply you need to be open to any child regardless of colour or sex. But other times they say you should specify if you have a preference so they don't waste their time. They don't want to show you 10 profiles of white and black children for example, if you're only going to look at the 2 black profiles.

They do try and match ethnicities or at least skin colour (not in a dulux colour chart sort of way ) so I don't think you would have a problem adopting a black child.

@RoomForMore yeah it's mainly for the child's purpose. I understand and accept that they will have that dual identity. But I would want for them that when/if they disclose to others they are adopted it's by choice. Not because they are white and their black mum is at the school gates and the other children are saying "that's not your mum". Also that sense of belonging for them.

@sabzino

I very much doubt that the reason the OP was rejected was saying that she wants a white baby, The issue she has is trying to adopt as a single person when she quite clearly isnt.
I’m a transracial adopter, it still is a very rare thing in England. SWs will want as far as possible to place children in families that reflect their ethnicities. My son’s birth mum is white, as am I. So I reflect his ethnicity.
I was never shown profiles of black or Asian children, I was shown one profile of a mixed race child, who became my son. But he was getting old in adoption terms and has ASD and they were really struggling to generate interest in him.
It’s very unlikely that you will be shown profiles of white children, but you will probably be shown profiles of mixed heritage children. And I don’t think you SW will be expecting you to seek out blond haired blue eyed children on linkmaker.
To be honest I wince when I see prospective adopters, usually white, say they would adopt any child regardless of ethnicity, because they are generally clueless about racial issues.
I think you will fine. There are generally not enough black and asian adopters.

@sabzino it’s not just the wanting a white female child, when you take what the OP has said in its totality there would be concerns. I do think the that more open folk are about a potential child the better but like @Ted27, I can’t see an issue in seeking a child that reflects your racial identity. Cross racial adoption is relatively rare and has its complications but it does happen. I’d really want to explore, for example, a white person who would only consider a black child (can come across as being a bit “great white saviour”), or someone who would only consider one sex or the other because it can suggest idealistic views about childhood and family.

Adoption assessment is a fairly complex process, there’s rarely just one issue that would disqualify someone from adopting but taking the picture as a whole can suggest problems and sometimes the picture is so concerning at an early stage that the agency just don’t have time and resources to unpick it all to see if it might actually be ok.

@Jellycatspyjamas yeah you are correct in regards to totality it just made me think was this an "gotcha" question. But I have found when I used to do family finding (many moons ago) that I did find a lady who was very specific about race and gender, whilst she articulated it very well, I found myself feeling very (can't think of the right negative emotion) towards her. There was other issues mind, I eventually transferred her over to another colleague as I felt on reflection that this could potentially hinder her matching. She was matched based on her preference.

I think it can be a very telling question in that it can highlight early on someone potentially having unrealistic ideas about adoption or parenting.

@sabzino What does OP stand for?

@UCOinanOCG Thank you for the clarification.

OP is original poster thats all, its a mumsnet thing rather than an adoption thing.

@Ted27 Actually that is why my preference was white, as I am aware of racial issues. I actually specified in my application form that the reason I wanted white was because it would fit better in the community I live and my culture... But I also added that I appreciate that white female maybe difficult to get, so I am open to other enthicities as I do live in an enviroment where people are open minded, very well educated and flurish, treated with respect regardless of their background.

Against the question "what would you do if you got another enthnicity in order to educate them about their culture, background" I wrote that I am lucky to live in London where there are lots of communities and events of different enthicities that we could attend and reach out so the child can have exposure with people of the same race, background plus I would take them to their country of origin quite frequently to keep in touch with their roots.

@sabzino @Jellycatspyjamas

I think that overall the system and the social workers, regardless of what you say, they tend to question it, scrutinise it and be the devil's advocate. Fair enough but there should be some balance. Or the more you expose rather than getting support and guidenance, they use it as ammunition to reject you. At least in this incident as the social worker I spoke to, two years ago was completely the opposite and was looking for answers, solutions, rather than problems which I believe looking for solutions is a healthier approach.

I wonder if it is also that they are understuffed or have been trained not to look at the good and the positives a potential adopter can bring, like in my case being already familiar with emotional attachment, abandoment, luck of belonging etc. I know exactly how these children feel as I was one of them and I wish I had someone who knew what I was feeling and what I needed at the time. But unless one does not have a family, it is impossible to really know how those children feel. So if I were the system, I would jump to a candidate like that, that can connect with those children in ways than noone else can, including the social workers who most of them might actually have families or a blood relative.

At the end of the day, what made me angry was that I got a rejection via email, rather than picking up the phone and going over the concerns to ensure it was not misunderstanding or not seeing the good I can bring to those children or what I need to change to create an even safer environment for them which is what I actually wrote when I submitted my application. That I am looking forward to their suggestions and recommendations.

On a separate note as far as using other LA, I was told by an LA that the social workers can travel up to specific distance (as they need to carry out visits) so not sure how I can get a child from another LA (some have quoted that it might even be better as they wouldnt want to be on the same area as the blood parents - personally I do not mind).

Again thank you all for the brainstorming... This is a very useful discussion, one I wish I had with my social worker.

@NV42

Just to pick up one point. My son is mixed race, his dad is from Zimbabwe. My son is however from Buckinghamshire. He has an interest in Zimbabwe but its not his primary culture.
Getting approved and finding a child are two different processes. An assessing SW will only travel so far. However many children are placed out of their home county. I was three hours away from my son's LA, family finders will travel further for the right match.
But these are not the real issues . As several people have said now, the issue is you trying to adopt as a single person when you are not.
This is nothing to do with lack of training or inexperienced or overworked social workers.

It doesn't matter what else you have to offer,unless you address the key issue you aren't going to get anywhere

@Ted27

As I have written previously the told me the reason they reject me is because they dont have white female babies.

They did not say that it is because I want to adopt as a single parent when I should be doing it as a couple.

And that is why I am questioning if they are overworked as I would have expected them to pick up the phone to discuss my application and not reject me via email. If they had picked up the phone, we could have discussed what changes or corrections we can make. My parner can move here tomorrow if required and apply as a couple if we both need to be under the same roof. We are both open to make any life changes required but they did not mention any of these when they rejected me via email. They only said that it was I wanted a white female baby although I had written I was open to other ages/ethnicities.

re it might even be better as they wouldnt want to be on the same area as the blood parents - personally I do not mind

It isn't so much about whether you mind, it is what is best for the child. If a child is placed 'in area' it could be too risky for them as you may run into birth family in shops, parks or whatever. One of my DDs looks remarkably like her BM there is no way she wouldn't have been
recognised - we actively avoided visiting a certain area when the DCs were with us for that reason.

I agree with Ted though, unless you can resolve the partner issue one way or another the other issues are less important.