New to all this

[Mwilliams31]

Hi there
We are new to all this and wondering if we could get some advice:

1. Is it possible to adopt a baby from birth in the UK?
2. If you are a UK citizen with no connection to the country, can you adopt a baby from another country e.g. USA?
3. How long does the process normally take?
4. My husband has a child from a previous relationship (15 plus years ago) who he does not see, would this affect our chances (absolutely no safeguarding issues just a personal situation which I don’t want to go in to detail in on a public forum).

Thank you xx

Hi,

1. Sort of. Research Foster to adopt, as this is what you would be doing to be placed with a baby realistically.
2. Foreign adoption rules change depending on each individual country so you'd need to research the countries you were looking at individually to see this.
3. In the UK the application process for adoption once accepted onto stage 1 is approximately six months, and then you enter the matching stage. How long this part takes is a how long is a piece of string type question. Could be a day or a year or more. It all depends on individual circumstances such as your criteria, the children that need homes and if you are suitable candidates for them
4. Yes this could absolutely affect your chances. Your social worker would discuss this with you in depth as part of your application to determine whether the circumstances would affect your application. You may well find that depending on the circumstances this could rule you out completely with some services.

In terms of the process, the minimum it takes is around 6 months, many assessments take longer, and some take much longer usually due to issues that are more complex which may be out of your control.

If you did foster to adopt, there would be uncertainty about the child’s outcome in that the focus would be assessing the birth parents capacity to have the baby returned to their care and the child’s legal status would be “looked after”, and you’d be expected to facilitate contact with the birth family unless and until adoption was agreed as the plan for the child.

There’s not a system like the US one where babies might be relinquished to adopters, the U.K. process doesn’t work that way.