It's National Adoption Week - 9th until 15th November
2009.
In celebration of National Adoption Week, the Northumberland
Adoption Team is asking for people to come forward and register for
the next Adoption Information Session, or register interest in
coming along to a session in the new year. CLICK HERE TO
REGISTER!
The first session is in the evening on Wednesday 2nd
December.
You can also contact us for a one to
one informal discussion. 
National Adoption Week is the British Association of Adoption
and Fostering’s (BAAF) nationwide awareness campaign (9th till 15th
November) with the aim of finding families for up to 4,000
children across the UK waiting for permanent families.
Northumberland County Council are looking for people to come
forward to consider adoption of a Northumberland brothers and
sisters or a single child. The appeal seeks people who are
looking for either one to one contact from the team, or for those
who would like to attend an information session in early
December.
Adoption Team Manager, Hilda Frost explains “We need people to
come forward from all walks of life, you may have no children, or
you may have older children in your family – our children need lots
of different types of families. The adoption application is a
comprehensive process, so the team are here to help offer guidance
and advice every step of the way, and beyond to support you as a
family”
At any one time, we have a number of groups of sisters, brothers
and mixed sibling groups, who the team are trying to find a home
together for. This is a difficult task in finding a family that has
the physical space, but also for people to come forward to adopt a
group of children at the same time. Adoption and the creation of a
new family is a daunting experience for anyone, and the team
appreciate this and have supports, guidance and also signposting
facilities for the extra services that the team does not offer
directly.
School age children often wait longer for the right
family. One Northumberland family said: “When we were first
accepted to adopt a child, we never even thought about adopting an
older child as our hearts were set on a baby. Time passes very
slowly when you are waiting and it was a long wait. After seeing
how many older children are waiting for families, we enquired and
soon after our family placement worker approached us about a five
year old boy.
He had been in foster care on
and off since he was a few months old. His Social Worker came out
and told us all about him, and we said yes straight away. We didn’t
sleep for 2 nights, but it felt so right – we just knew in our
hearts that he was the one for us. The Permanency worker visited
‘Jack’ and talked to him about us, and he was excited as we were to
meet.
As soon as we met him we found he has so much to give. He has a
wonderful mischievous nature and so much love. He has been our son
for nearly four years now. We don’t feel we missed out by not
adopting a baby – our wonderful son gives us just as much and more
love. We thought we’d miss out on the bonding process by adopting a
school age child, but it has been the opposite. He settled in at
once and brought joy and happiness to our family.”
Councillor Lesley Rickerby, Executive Member for Children’s
Services, said: “Our children who need a permanent family have been
unable to live with their own parents or wider birth family, and
need unconditional love and a stable life. We are asking for people
to come forward and help our children realise their dreams of being
part of a family – if you have any doubts, please make that call,
because you never know until you try.”
If you are considering adoption - please read the
following information, which is designed to give you some insight
into what adoption is and the processes around it.
If you would like to take the first step towards adoption,
you can register for our next information session, or contact us
for a one to one initial discussion. The contact information is included
below.
We do need to speak to you before sending out the
appropriate information pack, so if emailing or writing to us,
please include your telephone details.
We welcome enquiries from people from
all walks of life and consider applications on their individual
merit and personal circumstances.
What is Adoption?
Adopting a child means that you become their
legal parent, with exactly the same rights and responsibilities as
if the child had been born to you.
What does the adoption team do?
Our job is to find parents for children who
are looked-after by the Local Authority and cannot return to live
with their birth family. Most of these children are presently
living with foster families but need the security of living
permanently with a family they can call their own.
Which children need adoption?
We need all sorts of families for all sorts of
children, especially school age children.
We are keen to hear from anyone who feels they
can consider a child with disabilities, or a child whose birth
parent(s) have learning disabilities and/or suffer from mental
illness.
Our greatest need is for families able to
adopt groups of two or more brothers and sisters. At present,
we have more boys to place than girls.
Many of our children have troubled pasts. Some
have contact with their birth family that needs to continue, in
some form, after placement with adoptive parents.
Who can adopt?
- An individual or both members of a couple,
who must be over 21 years of age.
- If one of the couple is the mother or father
of the child, and is over the age of 18, the partner in the
relationship may apply to adopt the child as long as they are over
21 years of age.
- Unmarried couples can adopt jointly.
- The partner of the biological parent can
apply on their own to adopt the child.
- A single adopter, or one of a couple, must be
domiciled in the British Islands or both adopters must have been
habitually resident for at least one year in the British
Islands.
- Police records will be checked, as there are
certain criminal offences that would prevent you from being
approved as an adopter. This includes any offences against
children and may include offences of a violent nature. All
offences are looked at and the circumstances of the offence will be
taken into account when considering your application.
- Enquiries from people from all walks of life
are welcomed and applications will be considered on their
individual merit, and personal circumstances.
- Unless there are exceptional circumstances,
we do not place children under the age of two, or children with
respiratory difficulties, in a household where there is a
smoker.
- We do not operate any upper age restrictions,
but we do expect adopters to be able to parent their adopted child
into the child's adulthood and beyond.
We welcome without prejudice enquiries from
people from all walks of life. Although no one has an
automatic right to adopt and our job is to find the best possible
families for the children we are looking after, you can expect to
be given clear information and to be treated fairly, openly and
with respect throughout the process. If, at any time, you
believe we are not meeting this commitment, please contact the Manager of the Adoption
Team, Mrs Hilda Frost, at the address below or the Complaints
Section, Tweed House, Hepscott Park, Morpeth, Northumberland. NE61
6NF - Telephone 01670 534426.
Would I get any help?
We are here to guide and support you
throughout the process of preparation, assessment, approval,
matching, placement and beyond. We recognise that adoption is a
lifelong process and that you and your child may continue to need
support for many years after adopting.
We work with other agencies to try to ensure
you get the right support at the right time. This can
include:
- Financial
- Birth family contact
- Behavioural issues
- Education
- Health
Our Adoption Support Services Adviser
also provides support in the specific areas of birth records
counselling and birth family tracing.
For more information click here to link to the
Adoption Support Services Page
How do I apply?
1.
INITIAL CONTACT WITH THE FAMILY SUPPORT AND PLACEMENT
SERVICE
Following an initial telephone discussion with
one of the team, they will send out the appropriate adoption
information pack. When you have read the pack and feel ready
to move to the next stage, please complete the consent form and
send it back to us along with your letter. (This gives us
your permission to check our computer records to see if you are
already known to the department.) The letter should contain
your date of birth and some indication of the reasons and
circumstances that have led you to consider adoption. We will then
arrange for someone to visit you.
2.
SCREENING VISIT
A Family Placement Worker will arrange to
visit you at home to conduct a screening interview. This aims
to determine whether adoption is right for you and your
family. The interview will cover the following areas.
- Why do you want to adopt?
- What do you have to offer?
- What can we offer you?
- Do you have enough time to give to a
child?
- Do you have enough space in your home and in
your life?
- What do other people in your family and your
friends think about adoption?
- Can you look after a child to adulthood and
beyond?
- Can you work with other people who are
important in the child's life?
- Are you in good physical and mental
health?
- Has any fertility treatment been completed or
given up?
- Can we be sure that a child will be safe in
your care?
You will need to show the worker proof of your
identity. (E.g. Passport, photo driving licence)
The screening visit will take about 2 hours.
There will be an opportunity for you to ask any questions and for
the Family Placement Worker to provide you with detailed
information about adoption, the process, the kind of children
needing new parents and the implications of taking an unrelated
child into your home. During the visit you may decide not to
pursue your application or the worker may advise you not to
continue with your application, as to do so may lead to
disappointment. If this happens, you will be given clear reasons
for this advice. If you are dissatisfied with this, you may contact
the Permanence Team Manager to discuss it further.
If you wish to proceed, please let us know in
writing. We will then decide on whether to invite you to make
a formal application to adopt, and on the timing of this.
By law, we must deliver your completed
assessment to our adoption panel, no later than 8 months after we
receive your formal application. We also have a
responsibility to you and to the children in our care to ensure
that what you are offering is likely to meet the needs of a
child/children on referral to us or likely to be referred. 8
months may seem like a long time, but your assessment cannot by law
start until you have completed an adopter preparation course.
Currently we run these courses in 2 blocks of 2 weekdays (4 days in
total) four times a year. Before your assessment starts, we
must also take up references and make medical and police checks.
The latter, known as enhanced CRB checks, take on average 6-8
weeks to be returned to us, and you can sometimes wait a number of
weeks before your doctor is able to offer you an appointment for a
medical examination.
3.
ASSESSMENT
When you have completed the course and decided
to proceed, you will be asked to complete and return to us Part 1
of the form that will be used to present your assessment to
panel.
A Family Placement Social Worker will be
assigned to you to undertake your adoption assessment. This usually
comprises of around 6 to 8 meetings, either at your home, or at the
Family Placement office. Where possible, we would expect these
meetings to take place during working hours, but we can be flexible
when necessary. The assessment provides the adoption agency with
information about many things, including your personal details,
background, family lifestyle, parenting experience, relationships
and support systems. In addition, your beliefs and views on a range
of subjects are discussed.
This information is gathered, collated, and
produced into a report by your Family Placement Social Worker. You
are encouraged to be actively involved in the completion of the
report by writing parts yourself if you wish and you will be
required to read and sign the finished article. Towards the end of
the assessment period, the manager of the permanence team, another
manager or a worker in the team may visit you to discuss any
concerns or clarify issues as needed. This will provide an
opportunity to secure a second opinion and to validate the content
of the report before it is submitted to the adoption panel.
4.
ADOPTION PANEL
The panel meets once a fortnight to consider
applications and other issues related to adoption. Your assessment
report is circulated to panel members in advance of the meeting and
you are encouraged to attend in person if you feel able to do so.
Your Family Placement Social Worker attends and the panel makes a
recommendation about whether or not you should be approved to
adopt. You will be informed of the outcome verbally and then in
writing.
5. POST
APPROVAL
After you have been approved to adopt, we will
endeavour to match you with a child/children as soon as possible.
Your Family Placement Social Worker will keep in regular contact
with you and has up to date information about children needing
placement. A great deal of care needs to be taken to make the right
match between adopters and child, which can take time.
If you seem likely to have to wait for more
than 3 months, we will seek your permission to search for a
suitable child/ren outside Northumberland.
A separate leaflet on matching, placement,
applying to adopt and post adoption support is available on
request, as is the Northumberland Adoption Agency Statement of
Purpose.
Should you wish to ask further questions,
complain or compliment us about any aspect of our service, please
contact us as per our details below.
Contact Us
Call us on 01670 534450
Email us at familyplacement@northumberland.gov.uk
Or write to us at Family Support and Placement Service
Tweed House, Hepscott Park
Stannington, Morpeth
Northumberland
NE61 6NF
Useful Links
Northumberland County Council Adoption Support
Services Page
British Association of Adoption and
Fostering
Sahara Adoption and
Fostering Project
