What does your future family look like? When you daydream about your family life, Is there more than one child?
Siblings have started their story together; they have a shared history and need to continue that story together; that's why we do everything we can to keep siblings together.
We cannot promise it will always be easy, and there will definitely be bumps in the road, but we are here to support you.
Please come and talk to us if you think you could adopt siblings. Help us keep brothers and sisters together
Adopters are desperately needed for brother and sister groups, older children, those with additional needs and children from ethnic minority backgrounds.
Nationally, children from these groups represent 65% of all those waiting to be adopted, with many facing year-long delays compared to those without these characteristics. For example:
Children over 5 wait 13 months longer to be adopted from care, we need potential adopters to come forward if they think they could adopt a child over the age of three years.
We are here to answer your questions.
At a time when national statistics reveal that black and mixed heritage children wait the longest for an adoptive family, we want to raise awareness that the key attribute for adopting a child is providing a loving, safe, stable home .
If you think this could be you, please get in touch.
**Sibling Sunday**
(We haven't done one for a while!)
We are always looking for people to consider adopting siblings, but regardless of whether you take siblings or not, you will probably still need to consider sibling bonds at some level.
Very few adopted children are only children; they may go to live with an adopted sibling, they may have full biological siblings living elsewhere, they may have half-siblings living elsewhere, or they may have siblings in the future.
Nearly every adoptive parent will need to consider their child's siblings and what contact will look like for those children and how this bond affects their child and shapes their identity.
We are here to help with this and want to offer support if and when you need it.
Children are at the centre of everything we do; one of our central aims is finding the right family to meet a child's needs. We are continuing to welcome applications to adopt, and what matters most to us is how you could meet the needs of an adopted child: not your age, not your gender, not your ethnicity or religion, not your relationship status and not your income.
Of course, these things are important, but what is essential is how you can meet a child's needs right into adulthood.
Do get in touch if you have any questions.
Have you heard of Early Permanence (EP)?
Could you offer a secure, stable and loving family for a child from the earliest opportunity?
EP is where children are placed with adopters who are also approved as foster carers, with the plan being they later adopt the child (if this is decided by the court to be in the child's best interests)
We encourage all our adopters to consider adopting through an Early Permanence route; they, as adults, take on the uncertainty and risk, and the child/ren experiences stability and the opportunity to create a positive attachment to their caregivers.
Find out more - https://adoptionwest.co.uk/early-permanence-2/
We encourage all prospective adopters to consider Early Permanence as a route to their family.
“The outcome for us was positive as the child we had in an early permanence placement has stayed with us, meaning we had them 4 or 5 months earlier than we otherwise would have – this enabled us to work on attachment at a critical stage, which we would have missed out on if they’d gone through traditional adoption. The process was incredibly challenging but worth it a hundredfold.”
Over the previous 12 months, we have seen an increase in the number of requests for Early Permanence Carers, coming from the Local Authorities we work with. This means we need people to come forward that would seriously consider this as an option.
Please look at our website to learn more about Early Permanence. link in our LinkTree
We are recruiting an Adoption Support Worker for our regional Birth Links team.
https://adoptionwest.co.uk/vacancies-2/
Christmas Parties - open to all our adopters
Fingers crossed you have received details of our Christmas parties in your inbox, if you haven't, please get in touch.
