Alongside the formal support you'll receive as an adopter with Adoption Focus, you'll also have the opportunity to take part in social events, activities and groups. These are fun for you and your children, and great for making connections and building your support network. They're also an opportunity to enjoy yourself with your family and catch up with familiar faces in a relaxed environment.
Social Activities
Throughout the year, we host free social activities across our region. These events give our families a chance to meet up, relax and have fun together. Activities like these are always really popular with our adoption community, and it's a pleasure for our team to catch up with families and see them growing together and thriving.
We also regularly invite adopters and children to take part in funded outings at venues across Central England. Recently trips have included:
- Think Tank, Birmingham
- West Midlands Safari Park, Worcestershire
- Cotswold Wildlife Park, Oxfordshire
- National Space Centre, Leicester
- Nottingham Arts Theatre
- Twinlakes, Leicestershire
- Hatton Adventure World, Warwickshire
- Twycross Zoo, Leicestershire
- Trentham Monkey Forest, Staffordshire
- Go Ape, Nottinghamshire
- Oxford Playhouse Theatre
- Conkers, Leicestershire
Groups
Online groups provide you with the opportunity to link up with other adopters. Current groups include:
- A family finding group for approved adopters who are yet to be matched to a child or children
- Adopters Together, a regular Zoom session for adopters, hosted by our support team and covering a different aspect of adoption each month
- Education in Focus, another regular Zoom session hosted by our education experts and looking at schools-related issues through the lens of adoption.
With our secure, online Adopterverse platform, our adopters can also join or start their own groups based on anything they like - geographical region, age or needs of children, or a particular area of interest.
Find out more about our exclusive Adopterverse platform here
Our adopter committee meets regularly throughout the year, online and in-person. Committee members are people who have adopted with us in the past who kindly donate their time to help our charity. A couple of our members of the Adoption Focus team will join each meeting and discussions centre around updates in our organisation and in the adoption sector more generally. The feedback we get from their experience and expertise is instrumental in planning future topics of training, social gatherings and children’s events so that our services continue to meet our adoptive families’ evolving needs.
Newsletters
Our regular adopter newsletters will give you details of all our upcoming social events, workshops and training opportunities. You'll also get news and updates from our organisation and from the wider adoption sector as well as links to useful information and resources.
Adoption Podcasts
Our two original podcast series provide a different way to access useful information on a variety of aspects of adoption.
Adoption in Focus features a different guest each time. We have a whole range of podcasts featuring adopters, adopted adults, professionals and special guests, with lots more episodes to come. Subjects covered so far include:
- Adopting brothers and sisters
- Contact with birth families
- Transracial adoption
- Early permanence
Education in Focus looks at the experience of adopted children in school. Our education experts Lisa and Jason provide advice for supporting your child on matters such as:
- Choosing a school
- Homework
- Exams
- End of year transitions