The 21st October is the start of National Adoption Week and for the first time, this is something that I will be celebrating since starting my adoption journey at the beginning of 2024. Data published on the website www.youcanadopt.co.uk shows that in the last year 33,000 children were taken into care and that currently there are 2210 children looking for an adoptive family to help create their forever home. In 2023, 2960 children were adopted.

At the start of 2024, I decided to embark upon one of my biggest challenges to date – to begin my journey to starting a family through the process of adoption. As this week is National Adoption Week, I thought it would be useful to create this blog to help others understand the process of adoption up until the point of being approved as a potential adoptive parent.

There are several stages of the adoption process, and each stage is an important aspect to establish whether adoption is for you and to ensure your suitability to adopt.

Information Sessions

These are informative sessions held by your chosen adoption agency. During these sessions, which can be held either in person or online, you are able to learn about the different stages of the adoption process, together with learning about the timescales for adoption. Alongside this, you are able to speak to a parent of an adopted child and hear about their experiences of what it is like to parent an adopted child.

Enquiry Discussion

The enquiry discussion is completed with a social worker and is an opportunity to discuss your background, your childcare experiences and your motivations to adopt. Further information is provided about the next stage of the process which requires the completion of a Registration of Interest Form. This form is your formal application to adopt and includes information such as your personal details, information on your health, placement considerations for an adopted child, details of employment since the age of 18, and the details for personal references. Once this form is submitted to your chosen adoption agency, within 5 days you receive confirmation that you are able to formally start your adoption journey.

Stage 1

Stage 1 is the pre-assessment stage whereby a wide range of checks are completed by your allocated social worker. This stage will last up to two months. The purpose of this stage of the assessment is to ensure your suitability to adopt, which in turn helps to safeguard the children the adoption agency works with. Stage one requires lots of paperwork to be completed that includes a finance form, an individual chronologies form (detailing significant events throughout your life) and an individual questions form, which explores different topics such as how you would describe yourself, whether you consider yourself to be resilient, how you maintain a good level of health and details of your childcare experiences. Alongside this, a DBS is completed and you are required to have a medical completed by your local doctor’s surgery. References are obtained from your current and previous employers, together with those from your personal referees. A home safety check is also completed, and you will also attend a one day training course with the adoption agency. Once all the check are complete, you then receive formal notification that you are accepted onto stage 2 of the assessment process.

Stage 2

Stage 2 of the assessment process is a much more detailed assessment stage and will last up to four months. During this stage of the process, you spend lots of time with your allocated social worker and they begin to compile all the evidence needed to write up your Prospective Adopter’s Report (PAR). This is a 60 page document that covers everything that is discussed during your assessment process and includes information on your strengths as a potential adoptive parent and also any vulnerabilities. A PAR is used when your social worker recommends you for approval for adoption, and it is also used by social workers when considering whether you would be a suitable match for a child.

Within the stage 2 assessment, you will attend weekly meetings with your social worker and these meetings can last up to 3 hours. During these meetings various topics are discussed, and this could include:

  • Your motivations to adopt
  • Potential matching considerations
  • Your family background and experience of education
  • The needs of adopted children, adoptive parenting and early permanence (foster to adopt)
  • Your support network and previous relationships
  • Your health, finances, neighbourhood and community

Alongside attending weekly social worker meetings, you will also attend four days of preparation training with the adoption agency. These training days provide you with more detail on the adoption process and help to prepare you for parenting an adopted child. There is also a requirement for you to complete a paediatric first aid course.

Once everything has been completed during the stage 2 assessment, your social worker will compose your Prospective Adopter’s Report (PAR).

Adoption Approval Panel

The final stage of the process is to attend an adoption approval panel. This is a meeting held either online or face to face and includes yourself and your social worker, a panel chair and other individuals who all have children’s best interests at heart. At the start of the meeting, your allocated social worker introduces you to the panel and makes their recommendations as to whether you should be approved. This includes highlighting both your strengths and any vulnerabilities that you may have. Prior to the panel meeting taking place, all panel members would have read your PAR and they would have identified questions to ask you about your experiences of the adoption journey and about the information contained in your PAR. Once these questions have been answered, you are provided with the opportunity to ask any questions to the panel. The panel chair will then thank you for attending the panel meeting and they provide you with some general feedback and you are asked to leave the meeting. The panel members will then discuss and agree on whether you are recommended for approval, and your social worker will call you to discuss the outcomes of the panel meeting.

Once you have received your approval, the process of family finding begins. Adoption agencies have a whole team of people who review the children waiting to be adopted and consider which prospective adoptive parents may be suitable to be matched with the children waiting. This is currently the stage I am in, and it is a time of mixed emotions. There is the excitement of knowing that I am approved and that I am being considered for different children waiting to be adopted. However, there are also moments of anxiety in terms of not knowing when you will be matched with a child and how long the wait will be.

If you are keen to follow my adoption journey, then please feel free to follow my adoption account @myadoptionjourney on Instagram.

– Louise Bloomfield, Operations Manager at Showcase Training