Mixed Asian/White Adoption

[Peona]

Hi, does anyone know which boroughs are good for mixed Asian/white adoptions? We live in Lewisham (London) and were told they never have any children who would match us and we have tried Newham, Tower Hamlets, Ealing and Hounslow and have had no luck. We have considered adopting from abroad but have been put off by the amount of time it takes and the cost. We're in our 40s, so feel time is running out, and we've spent about £20K on IVF already!

opps!!! I didn't mean heehaa!
I meant Yeehaa

Hi Muli, Congratulations on being matched with your little girl! It sounds like you were much more pro-active than we were. We left it up to our SW pretty much, apart from looking at Be My Parent and Children Who Wait on-line every day. She said she would only contact us when she had a serious potential match so as to spare us disappointment if any child's SW wasn't interested in us, and I know she made lots of inquiries before she told us about 2 children, of which our potential DS was one. We were going to go to an Adoption Register open day, but by then we were being considered for him so cancelled it. We're looking forward to getting all the kid-stuff too. DH won't let me get anything or decorate rooms until panel has approved the match - he's very superstitious and doesn't want to jinx things.

Huge congratulations

Peona - I am half-Pakistani but not muslim and I also had no luck with London agencies when enquiring about mixed Asian/English children. I just gave up, basically, as there seemed no hope of a match.

It's rather ironic, that my being adopted into a xian family now means I cannot adopt myself (literally...).

Peona, we are Asian as well Hindus and we have just started the adoption process we live in Gloucestershire and there are not many Asians n the area. We decided to go through barnados and would like to adopt a Hindu Indian child or from a mixed race White or Hindu. I don't know how realistic our wishes are. We would love to find out more from you just so we know what we have ahead of us. Our training is in January, we have had our first visit filled out numerous forms and just getting medical and crb forms done. Any help you have we would be grateful.

I know this is a very old thread but I'm by this...not the OP's story so much, that's lovely! :) But in the UK do they really match children based on looks? Here in the US you can adopt any child if you can suit their needs (except Native children because of the Indian Child Welfare Act, but that's the only exception).

It's not looks so much as heritage, and has led to some real shortfalls where there are many children of a particular background, but few potential adopters. Or where a child has a 'complicated' parentage, say Thai/ Norwegian. For that reason as a 'set in stone' policy, it's been relaxed, but I'm not sure how it's working out now.
The adoption system in UK is all about the child's needs and the thinking behind this policy was that, for example a white couple adopting a black child wouldn't be able to bring that child up with a healthy sense of his own identity.

There are a few transracial adoptions, it's not set in stone, but it depends on the agencies and SW's involved. It's mostly matching based on heritage although looks can come into it. As lamb said, it's an issue for waiting children with an unusual background, for prospective adopters with an unusual background or one which deosn't match the witing children's profiles, and it might be an issue for a white British couple living in an area with a very high black and mixed race population. But the vast majority of children in care are white British, and therefore for the average adoptive parent/s (who are also white British), they will never have to think about transracial adoption, because they will be able to find a child with their background

I feel that race is important, and must be considered in matching, but it shouldn't block a child from being adopted at all. If two sets of parents are interested in say, a Nigerian child, and one set is Nigerian and the other is not, then as long as all other things are equal, the choice is obvious. If a child has very little prospect of finding a family with the same background, then SW's mustn't wait years in hope of finding someone, there must be a move to find other parents, unless that particular child really needs parents of the same race/background. Prospective adopters who want to adopt transracially should be getting some training on the issue, and hopefully the opportunity to speak with adoptees who grew up in that situation. They should be able to demonstrate some understanding of potential issues. We shouldn't be treating it as a non-issue and sending people in blind, we shouldn't be allowing ANYbody who wants to adopt transracially to do it. But we should also recognise that being adopted transracially could well be in a childs best interests if they can't be adopted otherwise

By the way, Cheerful, are you still planning to adopt? Just being nosy, feel free to ignore! :)

Maybe it's that in the US there are not as many black adoptive families (though there are programs like One Church, One Child which are trying to change that) but I believe about an equal number of black/white children in the system.

Yes, I am still planning to adopt! I'm pregnant right now though so it will probably be a few years. :)

I am half English, half Asian and remember meeting a woman FC who my Mum knew who was looking after a little boy for a while of the same mix. She said people often didn't want MR children , don't know how far true it is so I thought Peona would find it fairly "easy" (I know adoption is far from easy) but iykwim. Hope she got her dream DD or DS though! .

It's probably just normal jitters, but when we started out we had hoped that our child would not look obviously different from us

One of my friends who just happens to be black says the one thing she never expected in life was to have a white child.

Her mother and the midwife actually argued in the delivery suite as to whether the child was white or just pale.

She is now the grandmother of 4 children, who, to all intents and purposes look white.

For reasons I will not go into the eldest was adopted and my friend had to fight for her to be classed as mixed race.

She said she and her daughter had no problems with her being adopted by a white family, but if she grew up not knowing her black/Jamaican herritage and went on to have children with a white partner it would casue problems if the baby was black.

Anyway, to stop the rambling, birth children can look very different to their parents and siblings.