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Adoption is the legal process by which a child who cannot be brought up with their birth family become full, permanent and legal members of their new family. There are different routes to adoption, such as:
The adoption most people know about what is often referred to in the adoption sector as domestic adoption. Children are mostly placed with foster carers by their local authorities before moving on to adoption. The child’s plan for adoption has been decided by the child’s local authority and by the courts. We may refer to this type of adoption as domestic or mainstream adoption.
The process is covered in detail in our process page here
Local authorities have a duty to ensure that every child with a plan for adoption is placed in their permanent home as soon as possible. An early permanence placement must now be considered in every case where the child cannot be cared for by their birth family. Early permanence includes both concurrent planning and fostering to adoption placements. Have a look at our dedicated Early Permanence page for more information.
Many adopters who have experienced the joys of welcoming a child or children into their family wish to adopt again.
We welcome our own adopters and adopters from other agencies to adopt again with Adoption Matters. Just like all our work, the child’s needs will be paramount in looking at your enquiry and in our assessment.
Depending on when you adopted, you may not need to attend the adopter preparation training again if you are an Adoption Matters adopter, but we would ask all adopters from other agencies to attend our training to familiarise yourself with our agency and processes.
We assess all enquiries individually and our team will advise you of the full processes and timescales, but most checks will need to be carried out again and but we will conduct what we call a ‘fast track’ assessment which should be a little quicker than your first time round – we aim for assessments of adopters who return to adopt again to be around four months from your registration of interest.
Inter-Country or International adoption is a type of adoption in which an individual or couple becomes the legal and permanent parent of a child who is a national of a different country.
Adoption Matters do not offer Inter-Country Adoption assessments. If you are interested in Inter-Country Adoption, please contact our colleagues at the Intercountry Adoption Centre on their Advice Line: 0208 447 4753
The Advice Line is open to members of the general public wherever they live if their enquiry is about intercountry adoption. The Advice Line is open every weekday from 10:00am to 1:00pm with call backs made by advisors up until 4:00 pm You can also visit their website at: http://www.icacentre.org.uk/
Partner or Step Parent Adoptions assessments are handled by your own local authority, please contact your local authority adoption service for more advice, further advice and details of your local adoption service can also be found here: https://www.gov.uk/child-adoption/adopting-a-stepchild
