Local Authority Agency or Voluntary Adoption Agency. Any Preference?

[genisys]

Hello all. I was hoping to get some advice from adopters who have already been through (or are currently going through) the adoption process in the UK. We are in the very early stages of gathering information, attending seminars, etc, and wondered if anyone might be able to set out the pros and cons of either choosing to go via a local authority, regional agency or voluntary agency. Is there a 'best' route? On the face of it, our local regional agency, which handles adoptions for three Local Authorities, seems like a very good option, but we're also looking at Barnardo's and Adopters for Adoption. As I say, we still in the very early stages and are exploring the options. I'd be very grateful for any tips of advice. Thank you!

Hi, we chose a voluntary agency so I can only tell you about our experience but having spoken to a lot of other adopters during the process I don't think there is a 'best' route - just what is best for you.

We started the process in October and are currently waiting for matching panel for our 2 little ones that will hopefully come home in October this year - so the process has been pretty fast for us.

We met with our local authority and 2 VA's that operate in our area -
LA was a nightmare to deal with, never called when they said, promised us information/invites to information events that never materialised, took weeks to get back to us about anything. We researched them online and found lots of people saying the same and their journeys taking years because of it, so we decided they weren't the right fit for us.

VA1 was very slick and professional, sent us really glossy information and seemed impressive, but the social workers we spoke to didn't feel welcoming and they made the process sound very intimidating.

We picked VA2 in the end, they are a smaller, local agency and immediately we felt incredibly welcome and supported, the social workers have all been amazing and we are very happy with the decision.

The main 'benefit' of an LA is often said to be that they are responsible for the children, so placements can be made sooner when the child is younger. So if this is important to you, you would probably be best suited to an LA, regardless of how difficult they can be to work with.

For us, we knew we wanted a sibling group and every agency we spoke to said they were 'desperate' for adopters for siblings, so we didn't feel like we needed to deal with the LA to get what we wanted.

In our time family finding (it took us about 3 months after approval to find our right match) we've been approached about 80+ sibling groups with children ranging from unborn - age 6 (which was the maximum age that we set), so I can honestly say being with a VA has not limited our options in any way - but if you are hoping to adopt a single child under 1 you may have a very different experience with a VA as those placements are likely to be few and far between.

My advice would be to speak to them all and see what feels right - there isn't a 'best route'.

@genisys welcome to the adoption club, it is very rewarding but also challenging. Our AD has been with us for 5 months and we also have a birth child DS. I jumped on your thread as we looked at a few like you. Our LA, Barnardos and also Adopters for Adoption. We ended up going for AFA as we really liked the seminar and we had a great chat with one of the regional managers when we first expressed an interest. We have had a few SW’s over our journey but I don’t think that is wholly uncommon. We had one during all the stages before approval. After approval we had another SW, then it only changed again just before intros with our daughter as our SW was leaving to go to another agency.

They are very supportive and I have found all their training to be very good. We did have some challenges during stage one and two with some delays due to admin mistakes but you just need to be super proactive to keep things rolling along.

Personally we felt that going with AFA meant we had full access to linkmaker nationally, whereas using a local authority they always initially try and place local children first which limits the pool of children.

Good luck with starting your adoption journey please feel free to DM me for any further questions or advice if you wanna chat more.

all the best!!

Thank you for your advice. We will keep weighing things up and getting as much information from our three options as we can.

Thank you. Our initial session with AFA isn’t for a couple of weeks yet, but it’s good to hear that you had a good experience with them.

I would definitely look into what post adoption support is available.