To wonder why adoptive parents get paid?

[Member786488]

I’ll try and post a link to the story…

Possibly being dim… not unheard of.
I understand the fostering payments obviously but surely finance is something you consider if you’re going to have a child, so why is that different if you adopt.

other than some initial costs, why do you receive regular ‘adoption’ payments until the child is 18?

If you read the article it says;

“It is designed to encourage people to take in children who might otherwise not be adopted due to the extra costs of looking after them and is usually paid weekly or monthly.

The amount paid is often calculated based on the adoptive parents' incomes.“

mystery solved.

Well you could do a bit of reading yourself but for starters children coming from trauma may need extensive long term therapy. They may go through clothes, toys, furniture much more than your average child. At least one parent may be required by terms of the adoption to stay at home.

Theres more but that’s a taste of the reality for many. And it’s still far cheaper than state provided’care’ which can also be extremely dangerous.

I don't. Many don't, I'm not sure of percentages. It's usually for children who are harder to place e.g. complex needs or a sibling group and the adopter(s) have associated extra costs or have to give up work.

Yep, we have received £0 for our children. We are unable to work fulltime due to our childrens needs, vital therapy our son needed was not funded, we paid thousands as that was the only way he could access it. The NHS specifically would not refer him due to being adopted, if he wasn’t adopted the NHS would have funded it.

Without being goady, do you know any families with adopted children?
I know quite a few. Most of them have issues that you might not see or be aware of due to what they were exposed to before they were adopted.
I take my hats off to people who adopt and only wish the resources they needed for their children were easier to obtain..

and you are wrong about fostering too, it isn't always paid, you might get allowances and expenses, but when we fostered we did it at a huge loss.

You haven't read the article OP?

Seems unfair. Do you know what their reasoning is on that?

NICE feel the LA should fund certain things for LAC and ex LAC, LA laugh their heads off and essentially say fuck off when they received a post adoption support request.

and goady

My friend was a corporate lawyer, her wife was a social worker. They adopted a group of 4 siblings from an incredibly challenging background. They receive caters allowance as well as other benefits. They deserve 10x as much. It's humbling to see what they have done and the life they have given these children.

It’s not unusual for one parent to need to stop working entirely for a child’s entire childhood when adopting which is not what all couples can do and isn’t the norm for when you have biological children. There are also extra costs that help adopted children cope. I’ve mainly come across this with sibling groups or children with complex needs

I have heard exactly this from so many parents by adoption.

OP, are you actually trying to whip up a controversy about something you know nothing about via an article you haven’t read?

Family friends adopted. They weren't given all the facts about the parents, and ended with 2 siblings that had complex learning difficulties/SEN due to drug use/alcohol abuse during pregnancy and physical neglect in their early months/year of life. Their story didn't have a happy ending, and they had no support financially or physically - they took the children on and were shown the door. Neither were able to work full time due to them not being able to manage the children 2:1.

I think it's appalling that these wonderful people aren't financially supported to take children on. Adoption isn't like it was in the 1960's/1970s from single mothers who were shamed into adoption; children removed these days have often suffered horrendous neglect/abuse and are very damaged as a result.

When my friend fostered the allowance was much more than the children actually cost them.

As PP have mentioned, adopted children have often been through so much trauma they’ll need more care/ specialist help/ therapy. This little payment is there to help the kids out.

Well I for one had no idea that adoptive parents were paid. None at all. Not saying it’s not deserved, just had no idea.

Goady post.

A friend adopted a disabled child. As they grew, she realised she needed extra help. We got respite for our disabled child, she didn’t. Social services said it was because she said she could cope alone and that’s why the adoption went through. Awful behaviour. No one is allowed to have changes to their life then?

PP said they knew a professional couple that got carers allowance for their adopted children. That wouldn’t be correct if they stayed in their professional jobs, the benefit is £76.75 per week and you only get that if your job pays less than £139 a week.

We adopted two amazing kids and we receive nothing. Only thing we have ever had was £500 for furniture and stuff when they first came home over 7 years ago. That didn’t even cover the cost of the double pram, but we were very grateful for it.

@Tlolljs

That's because adopters do not get paid.

I received an adoption allowance, which was means tested. I had to drop to work to three days a week to meet my son's needs.

Without the allowance I would have had to give up work. Then I would have been on benefits and costing the state a lot more.
Then I'm sure I would have beeb seen as benefit scrounger.
Adopters save the state millions of pounds in social worker costs and fostering costs. We care for and raise the most vulnerable children in society. Many struggle financially.
We do not get paid and we certainly do not profit.

That's bad.

I've not read the article, but even if they received some money to help support a child, good. It's often very difficult to find people to adopt children with complex needs as a result of what they experienced with their birth parents. You aren't going to get some rough head family adopting for the money, from the people I know who have adopted or attempted to adopt it's a very long and difficult process, they'd need to be able to afford to support the child, any extras they would receive would be to support their additional needs, through therapy etc etc.