Can I adopt a child with Adoption Focus?
If you're thinking about adopting a child or adopting children, we can help you. Hundreds of couples and single people like you have adopted with us. People from all backgrounds and in all situations have become successful adopters with Adoption Focus.
Adoption Requirements
- Age restrictions
- Do you already have children?
- Health
- Faith, culture and ethnicity
- Relationships
- Domicile Status
- Criminal offences
Age restrictions
Applicants must be aged 21 or over. There is no upper age limit, but applicants should be able to parent a child through to adulthood.
Do you already have children?
We welcome applications both from people who already have children and those who don’t.
If you have children, their needs and attitude to your adoption plans will be considered during your assessment. This includes the views of children who live with you, as well as those who live with a previous partner, and adult children who may live independently. Children placed for adoption tend to be younger than any children already in the family.
Health
Applicants need to have good physical and mental health, and manage any disabilities effectively. All applicants need to have an adoption medical with their own doctor.
If you have an existing health concern, we recommend you consider your adoption plans with your doctor and seek their advice on what to discuss with us.
Fertility treatment is not a requirement prior to the adoption process. However, if you have had this treatment, this needs to have ended before you progress your adoption plans.
Faith, culture and ethnicity
We welcome enquiries from people of all ethnic backgrounds. We're particularly keen to recruit Black and dual heritage adopters for the Black and dual heritage children who wait longer for new families.
Applicants may be practising a faith, may be nominal, non-practising or not religious. You will be asked about this because some birth parents request that their child is raised in a particular faith, and every effort will be made to meet their request.
Relationships
We welcome applications from:
- Single people
- Married couples
- Couples who have a civil partnership
- Unmarried couples
- Divorced people
When applying as a couple, the stability and length of relationship will be considered – it’s important that adopted children are placed in secure and stable homes.
The most important factor is that a child is entering a stable and loving environment.
Domicile Status
If you are applying as a couple, at least one of you must be a resident of the British Isles or both of you have been ‘habitually resident’, which means that you have lived permanently in any part of the British Isles for at least one year ending with the date of the application. A court would not grant an adoption order to anyone who does not have 'leave to remain', or permission to stay in this country for a specific period of time, with your activities limited to the restrictions of your visa. For this reason, we would not be able to accept an application before this matter is resolved.
Single applicants must either be residents of the British Isles or have been ‘habitually resident’ in a part of the British Isles for at least one year before submitting an application.
Criminal offences
If you have a criminal conviction, this will not automatically prevent you from being considered as an adoptive parent. Anyone wanting approval as adopters, and members of their household aged over 18, must have a Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) check - previously known as CRB checks. Having a conviction doesn't necessarily prevent you from being considered as an adoptive parent, but there are some ‘specified offences’ including some sexual offences and those against children, which will prevent you. We will discuss the results of the DBS check with you.
