Adoption FAQs

Yes, you can. Adoption Focus welcomes adoption applications from single applicants, both male and female, and has helped many single applicants go on to become successful adopters.

You must be over the age of 21 to be allowed to adopt. There is no upper age limit. However, when considering how you are going to meet the needs of a child throughout their childhood and into adulthood, you do need to consider your health and energy levels, and to think about the types of children you could consider adopting.

We know that pets can play a hugely positive part in family life and owning dogs, cats or other pets is not a problem. But the child’s needs, of course, are the priority and during the assessment process you'll be asked about how pets are cared for, whether or not they are used to children and what you would do if any children placed could not manage with the pets e.g. allergies or a dog displaying agitated, snappy behaviour around children. 

IVF needs all of your attention – and so does adoption.  If you are still hoping to achieve a successful pregnancy through IVF, you need to focus on this before embarking on the adoption process.

There are two main reasons for this.  The first is that if the IVF treatment is successful, you will be enjoying your pregnancy and will not be in a position to adopt.  The second is because when we place a child, their adoptive parents must feel committed to them, and to do this they need to have given themselves time to grieve for the birth child they did not have.

When choosing an adoption agency, you’re likely to be deciding between Voluntary Adoption Agencies (VAAs) and Regional Adoption Agencies (RAAs). VAAs like Adoption Focus are independent, not for profit organisations, while RAAs are collaboratives of local authorities covering a region. Both VAAs and RAAs do similar work in finding, preparing, training, assessing and supporting prospective adopters – and most importantly matching them with children who are in need of lifelong, loving homes. The main difference is the VAA’s do not have ‘looked after children’ in their care and people who adopt with VAAs can be matched with children from local authorities across the UK.

Many adopters don’t. Spending some time with children could be really helpful. You could look at babysitting for your friends, taking your nieces and nephews away for a weekend or volunteering at a local school or playgroup.

Our training will help you develop your skills and knowledge to start you on your way as a family.

Yes, of course. Applications are welcomed from people who already have children, through birth, through adoption, or stepchildren, as well as from childless people.

Smoking presents a concern because of its damaging effects on health. In addition, passive smoking is damaging to the health of any adult or child in the vicinity of the smoke. An adoption agency has a duty to consider the effects of smoking on children in their care.

Our main office is in Marston Green in Birmingham and our catchment area covers most of Central England. Most training and assessment is done remotely, and we have social workers located around the country who can work with you to guide you through the adoption process and help you to adopt a child or adopt children. 
 

Everyone who wants to adopt, has to have an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check (DBS). This will reveal any convictions committed, including ‘spent’ convictions. If you have lived abroad for any length of time, we will also seek a check from the relevant country.

Having a previous conviction does not necessarily prevent you from being considered as an adoptive parent. A shoplifting conviction at 17 is very unlikely to be a problem.

Every assessment is seen by the agency’s legal advisor who will take a view about any conviction and its implications for an adoption application. The length of time which has passed since the conviction, the context and what you say about what happened are all taken into account.

There are some ‘Specified Offences’ which would automatically preclude you from adopting. These include offences committed against children and some sexual offences.

There are some other offences which may also mean that Adoption Focus could not take your application forward – e.g. drink driving and public disorder convictions (which may indicate a drink problem).

All the checks we do are about making sure that children are safe.

House moves and building work are stressful, and there are often delays. You need to sort your housing needs out before you embark on the adoption process.

The suitability of your accommodation is assessed. You don't need a big house, it just needs to be safe and have a room available for a child.

Adoptive parents need to have a good level of English so that preparation training is fully understood and so that they can advocate for a child once they’re in place. We would encourage applicants with limited English to attend one of the many English courses available nationwide before enquiring about adoption.

Adopted children need to know and understand their history to help them to develop a sense of identity and integrate the past with the present. Most children need to maintain some form of contact with significant people from their past. This could be with brothers and sisters placed elsewhere, birth relatives or foster carers.

Generally, contact with birth parents is via a letterbox exchange, at least once a year, managed by Adoption Focus and the Local Authority from which the child has been placed. This process does not reveal addresses.

Contact arrangements for early permanence placement are different, because the placement starts as a fostering placement and direct contact with the birth family is usually part of this. This is full explained and discussed as part of the preparation process for everyone who considers the early permanence route to adoption.

Please ask us anything you need to know about adoption. We will probably be able to answer your query, but if we can’t we will get you an answer from one of our experts. 

There is nothing too embarrassing to ask – we would much rather that you ask us, than worry yourself out of adopting because of something you felt unsure about.

Please contact us and we can talk through your queries.