VI. Alternatives to Adoption, Page 5
Adoption and Fostering as a Career
Some single adopters and couples are able to make a professional career out of adoption or fostering, caring for several special-needs children, and living on the adoption allowances and other state or charitable foundation payments. This is not scrounging by any means; it is most assuredly “real” work and you earn every penny. There is a financial snag later, though, as the children grow up and the benefits are scaled down, unless they are still in need of care as adults. You need to be careful about providing for your retirement and pension plans, health insurance, etc.
If this idea attracts you, you could contact your local authority, one of the specialist fostering agencies, or the Children’s Family Trust, who run a series of what are in effect children’s homes, caring for more than the usual number of children, but which are run as families, with the foster parents living in full-time with professional and practical back-up.
Other Work with Children, Paid and Voluntary
If you decide that you want to include children in your life, but that having a family relationship is not for you, you might consider professional or voluntary work with children. These are also excellent ways to get to know more about children while preparing to adopt or waiting for a placement (and of course, there’s no particular reason why you should stop working with children after you adopt).
For any job or voluntary position that includes unsupervised contact with children you will have to pass a Criminal Records Bureau check.
Paid Work
We all have to eat. Why not work with children and get paid for it? There are any number of jobs which involve working with children. Some of them need specialist training, others don’t. To learn more, see your local careers office or the careers section of the public library; talk to friends who do these jobs. One might be right for you.
- Medicine: paediatrician, hospital or school nurse, physiotherapist, psychotherapist, play therapist, music or art therapist, psychologist, dentist,
- Social services: social worker, children’s home worker, escort for children to and from special boarding schools or courts or secure accommodation units, access visit supervisor,
- Teaching: teacher (in ordinary and special schools), home tutor, school head, lunch room or playground supervisor, playgroup teacher, classroom assistant, special needs helper, private tutor, music teacher, dance teacher, educational psychologist, careers officer, school secretary,
- Sports: coach, swimming instructor,
- Religion: minister, youth worker,
- Sales: sales assistant in a children’s wear shop or toy shop,
- Child care: au pair, mother’s helper, nanny, governess, nursery nurse, child minder,
- Children’s party planner or entertainer,
- Children’s theatre worker,
- Crèche worker,
- Leisure centre employee, riding stable employee, outdoor activity centre worker,
- Librarian.
Voluntary Work
If you have time after your job, many organisations in the voluntary sector need helpers. These have the advantage that you can largely determine the extent of your involvement, instead of being committed to full-time work. This is just a selection from the hundreds of possibilities. Your local public library will have directories of voluntary societies with many more ideas, some of which may tie in with other concerns or hobbies you have.
- Youth clubs (Red Cross, St. John’s Ambulance, Young Farmers Clubs, Urdd Gobaith Cymru, Scouts, Guides, sports clubs, drama clubs, choirs, brass bands, after school and homework clubs),
- Sunday school teacher, church crèche helper,
- For the social services (family centre helper, family support scheme volunteer, children’s home volunteer, “independent visitor” (mentor) for children in foster care and children’s homes who have little or no contact with their families),
- Big Brothers & Sisters mentor.
- Home physiotherapy (patterning) helper for children with autism and delayed development,
- Telephone help line volunteer,
- Riding for the Disabled helper,
- Volunteer helper in holiday centres for deprived children; host family for children needing a holiday (British or foreign, such as children affected by the Chernobyl nuclear accident),
- Home Start UK volunteer,
- VSO volunteer.
We were unable to have children of our own and I had taken to going to a local children’s home to read to the children. One little boy, with a cleft palate, would often want to sit on my lap and we became friends. Then one day he asked me, “Hold me like I belong”. That did it. I went home and told my husband about it. Not long afterwards he did indeed become our little boy.
My wife and I were unable to have any more children. I was selling some junk at a car-boot sale one Saturday and a little boy about four years old came and started talking to me. His mother wasn’t around, and he wandered off. An hour or so later, he came back, with his mother. She said to me, “You like this kid? Well, you can have him!” and walked off, leaving him. We couldn’t find her anywhere; she just disappeared. There was nothing to do at the end of the day but call the police and social services. Because we were known in the community and thought to be a safe family, and the boy had taken a real shine to us, they decided we could look after him while they traced his mother. Eventually they did find her, but she really meant what she had said, and we formally adopted him.
© Roger Ridley Fenton
