IX. Applying to an Agency, Page 3
Your First Letter to an Agency
Write to agencies, telling them something about yourselves and the kind of child you are interested in adopting. The letter should include:
- Names,
- Address,
- Telephone number,
- Ages,
- Marital status (including length of marriage/cohabitation),
- Other members of your household,
- General health,
- Religion,
- Ethnic background,
- Home language, if not English,
- Why you want to adopt (such as infertility, a decision not to have any more birth children, repeated miscarriages), and
- Type(s) of child you are thinking about (you won’t be held strictly to this, but do give it serious consideration even at this early stage).
You do not need to say anything about occupation, income, education, citizenship or criminal record at this stage. The information about why you want to adopt and the type of child you are considering can be brief. If you have a particular reason for being interested in a specific kind of child, such as professional or family experience, you can also mention that. What you want at this stage is to give the agency enough information to decide in principle whether you are the kind of adopters they are looking for at the moment. You should be easily able to get the whole letter on a sheet of A4 paper.
You might also ask them some questions:
- How many children they placed for adoption last year, and how many of their children were formally adopted,
- How many children needing new permanent families by adoption or long-term fostering are currently on their books,
- What kinds of children they currently have waiting for new families,
- What their application procedure is,
- How long it is taking them currently to assign a social worker and begin assessing new applicants,
- How long in general it takes them to assess new applicants, from first meeting with the social worker to acceptance,
- How long people wait on average for a placement after being accepted,
- If you are Black or a mixed-race family, you can ask whether they have any Black social workers, if you prefer to be assessed by one.
But asking too many of these questions too early on or asking them in the wrong tone of voice, like the Spanish Inquisition, can make you seem too pushy, and you don’t want to put them off. Just ask a couple of them in your first letter and save the others for when you have established a relationship with someone there. I know you want to know all these things now (in a nutshell, what you want to know is, “How long before I get my kid?”), but take it easy as first-time adopters.
Also say in the letter that you hope to hear from them in a next couple of weeks. Enclose an SAE.
Make a list of about 20 agencies you think might be right for you. I would send this initial letter to the first five on my list, and then every two weeks, if you haven’t heard something promising from anyone, send it to another five. If you get to the end of your list of 20, choose some more.
Another approach is to use the online registration functions of the Adoption & Fostering Information Line. This service forwards your interest profile to your local agency, who responds directly to you. Some agencies also have their own online registration forms. Agency web sites are also listed in the BAAF database.
© Roger Ridley Fenton
