Adopting a child

HappySad

I have a friend who really want to adopt a child. MY friend and her partner have been trying a over two years and have found the whole process a complete disaster.

They also move and so had to start the whole adopting process from the begining because they moved to another area. At the moment they have been told to spend the next 3months reading a list of books and after this they adoption people will decide whether they can start attending the courses.

Do you know what are the best things you can do to speed up the process?

They are now thinking seriously about adopting from a country outside the UK. Do you have any advice about where the best agency to go for this? Which countries are best to adopt from?



Any advice or experiences will be very welcomed.

Thanks
HappySad :T

Bossyboots

HappySad wrote:

I have a friend who really want to adopt a child. MY friend and her partner have been trying a over two years and have found the whole process a complete disaster.

They also move and so had to start the whole adopting process from the begining because they moved to another area. At the moment they have been told to spend the next 3months reading a list of books and after this they adoption people will decide whether they can start attending the courses.

Do you know what are the best things you can do to speed up the process?

They are now thinking seriously about adopting from a country outside the UK. Do you have any advice about where the best agency to go for this? Which countries are best to adopt from?



Any advice or experiences will be very welcomed.

Thanks
HappySad :T

It doesn't matter whether they adopt here or outside the UK, they still have to be approved here first.

http://www.compactlaw.co.uk/tiscali/adoptf14.html

If I recall correctly, this was brought in to prevent the exploitation of children and parents in the poorer countries and to protect the children from being sold to people who were unsuitable. It means of course that everyone is now on the same treadmill and it takes a long time for the processes to go through. I am a bit surprised they had to start again when they moved. If they had got well into the process, the original local authority could have written them a reference to the new local authority to keep them in the loop. I suspect at the moment they are lacking in something the authorities are looking for, whether that is in their reasons for wanting to adopt or perhaps it is felt that they have a rose coloured view of what adoption brings. This period of three months to do the reading and research will test their committment and hopefully educate them in the realities of adoption. They need to do the reading required and loads and loads of research.

They might find some help and support from this organisation

http://www.adoptionuk.com/about_us.asp

If their reasons for adopting are unselfish and sound, then I applaud them. It is not easy taking on someone else's child (it is more likely to be a child than a baby and they have more chance of being accepted and becoming parents if they are flexible about this) and the child/children will come with baggage. These days, a lot of birth parents are allowed to maintain postal contact (usually twice a year) through an anonymous letter box scheme and your friends will have to be aware of that and think about how they feel about it.

princess

When we were looking into adoption we found local social services supremely unhelpful, even though we were looking to adopt an older child. However local social service depts are not the only way to go and in the end we decided to go thru the 'catholic childrens society' who were really excellent and the outcome was we adopted our son 2 and a half years ago. Please be assured you do not have to be catholic or religious in any way to be assessed as prospective adopters by the catholic childrens society. i am giving you the web address of the Westminster (london) group, but there are branches all over - if you want to PM me your friends location i can put them in touch with a local branch. Good luck to your friends - adoption was certainly one of the best things we ever did:)
http://www.cathchild.org.uk/adoption_services/families_for_all.html

HappySad

Thanks BossyBoots and Princess. I will pass your information on to my friend.

If there are anyone else that have more useful advice it will be very much welcomed.