IX. Applying to an Agency, Page 5
What if We Already Know of a Child We Want to Adopt?
There are several ways you could be in this position. There may be a child in your family or neighbourhood whom you know will need adopting, or you’ve been asked by a child’s parents whether you would adopt him (yes, it really does happen, but rarely). Or you may have seen an advertisement (the professionals prefer to call it a profile) of a child in the media and you are interested in adopting that particular child. In any case the procedure is a little different from that of someone applying to adopt with no particular child in mind.
If the child is not already in care (your cousin’s daughter is pregnant, for example), you and the parent can make a joint approach to the local authority where the child lives or will live, and you will be assessed in the normal way. For close relatives of the child the procedure is somewhat simplified.
If you have seen a profile for the child in a newspaper or on TV or in one of the specialist newspapers, Be My Parent or Children Who Wait, you apply as directed in the advertisement. The child’s agency can then either do the home study itself or pay your own local authority or another agency to do it for them (especially if you are a long way away and travel time is a significant factor for the social worker).
If you are applying in response to a child’s profile in the media, your first approach to an agency will be substantially the same as your letter would be if you were making a general application, but should include the fact that you have seen the child’s profile (and where you saw it) and that you are specifically interested in him/her/them, or a similar child, if they have any. But if the profile includes a telephone number you should phone first. Tell the receptionist you are interested in Child AB, and where you saw the profile. The receptionist will take your name, phone number and address, and maybe a few other details, and leave a message for the child’s social worker. But if the social worker happens to be available, you may be put straight though to her, so be prepared to talk specifics right away. Tell her at first contact whether or not you are being assessed already or have been approved.
Following the initial approach for a particular advertised child you may have to wait a couple of weeks while the social worker sorts out the most promising leads from all the calls. If you make it through Round One, you will be asked to fill out the same forms as any prospective adopter. If you are already assessed or being assessed your current agency will be contacted for information. Adoption application forms and procedures are pretty standardised across the country. If one agency accepts you, that acceptance is more or less rubber stamped by any other agency, saving them lots of time, although they do have to pay a hefty fee to the agency that did the original assessment.
In either case, because a particular child is in mind, the assessment, although of the same type as any other assessment for prospective adopters, will be closely focused on that child’s particular needs. Assessment for adoptions within an extended family are usually fast-tracked. And when it comes time for you to go to panel for approval, it is usual for you to be approved in principal and for the match between you and the child to be approved at the same meeting.
Remember that TV programmes showing children who need adoption, much more so than newspaper advertisements, can generate large numbers of inquiries which have to be whittled down to a core of genuinely promising families who can be investigated more thoroughly. So don’t feel too depressed if your inquiry about such a child doesn’t get very far. And almost invariably an agency advertising a child in the media will be inclined to look seriously first at applications from families who are already assessed and approved, and only go on to consider unassessed families if none of the assessed families looks appropriate. Being able to take a pre-approved family means a considerable saving in time for the agency, and agencies are always interested in getting a child into a permanent new family as soon as possible, consistent with the child’s best interests. But even if you don’t get considered for the particular child that you saw profiled, the agency may well have other children who might be right for you, and they will almost certainly consider you for them, too.
But it is by no means always the case that advertised children get large numbers of enquiries; many get only a few or even none. Their faces appear month after month, gradually getting more and more mature; sometimes they finally disappear only when they turn 18 and are no longer eligible for adoption. But even if 500 families apply you have a chance. If you don’t try, you have no chance. After all, it might well be you who is the right one. It is not a lottery, with names drawn out of a hat, and it is most definitely not a case of first come first served.
If you are already assessed and approved and you apply for a particular child from a media advertisement, it can be a very short and really exciting time. But snags can arise, and it may take months and months, and sometimes things just peter out and grow cold after several years, leaving the child still with no family, and a very embittered prospective family.
© Roger Ridley Fenton
