But like any journey into the unknown it does not come without its problems. They say that nothing is easy in life and with regard to inter-country adoption that is an understatement!
From the first decision to adopt to the actual moment when you stand in the court and have the final decree announced that your child is legally yours, the road is filled with pitfalls and obstacles of the magnitude you never anticipated.
'Hang In There' will become your mantra.
The process is complicated, forever changing, uncertain, complex, tricky, emotional, difficult, frustrating, endless, tiresome.
You will feel vulnerable, hopeless, distraught, frustrated.
You will want to bang your head against the wall, you will want to slam down telephones, tear up documents, scream at by passes.
You will cry, you will laugh, you will wonder how people can be so stupid, ignorant, naive.
You will ask 'how can this be?'. You will become concerned about the minutia and loose sight of the big picture. Your friends will stop asking you 'when is it going to happen?', your family will wonder about your sanity.
You will question your intentions, you will be aghast at the negativity that you come across, you will be ashamed about attitudes.
So you have to have fortitude, perseverence, patience and most of all maintain in your sights your future son or daughter.
You have to remind yourself that you are doing a beautiful thing, an honourable act, a generous gesture.
And you are going to give a home and a life to a child who will never feel wet sand beneath their toes, run freely through the forest, feel the warmth of loving arms around them, have their hair stroked, and their nose kissed.
And you are not only giving this child a chance to fulfil their potential, but their children's children. You are giving hope and that is a rare and precious gift. Hang in there!
First things first
You have decided that you want to adopt and you have decided what country you want to adopt from now you take the deep breath and call your local social services adoption team. The number can be found on the links page.
International adoptions in the UK have to go through the local authorities - they act as adoption agencies. There are two independent agencies in this country - one is Norwood and the other is PACT. Norwood is a Jewish agency (but not exclusively) an is in North London and PACT is in the home counties.
The initial reaction you will get from the local authorities will be negative.
This is a fact.
There are very, very few councils in the UK who are positive about international adoption.
But do not be put off. They have an obligation to act on your behalf, no matter how they feel. They will come up with many excuses to put you off. We don't do inter-country adoptions, it is too expensive, we don't have the staff, etc etc. You have to be firm and to put your emotions aside. Do not give up on this first call. Politely tell them that you want to do an intercountry adoption and you would like to start the process.
Each local authority has different rules - this is where it gets confusing. So what they do in Richmond is not the same as what they do in Surrey. Some LA's (Local authorities) will want to come out to your house to do an initial assessment, others will invite you to an open day, others will begin the process immediately, others will ask you to first attend the Preparation Course.
Some LA will not allow you to adopt if you are too old, smoke, do not own your own home, have ailing parents, are single.
There does not seem to be any regulating body about inter-country adoptions, so you are a little at the mercy of the team at your LA. We hope in time to lobby for some control over the process.
Be aware that the Local Authorities charge you for their services. A whopping £6000. Some charge slightly less but it is still an awsome amount of money. They may ask you to pay all up front, half, or a third. Of course it is a moral question if you should pay for these services at all. Another thing to lobby for. By charging an above commercial rate we are able though to demand a professional service. Right. But it does give you some leverage. Even though you pay for this service it does not mean that they will automatically agree that you are suitable - they still have within their power to reject you.
Depending on the local authority they may start the home study straight away or they will devise reasons for delaying it. It is known that Surrey has put off starting a couples home study for over two years.
What you need from your local authority
Before your papers can go to the Department of Children, Schools and Families (the body that governs inter-country adoption) you need from your local authority confirmation that you are suitable potential adoptive parents.
To satisfy the LA that you are suitable there are three stages that you must complete. The Preparation Course, The Home Study and the Panel.
The Preparation Course:
This is a three day course sometimes offered by your LA, and sometimes from outside for example The Intercountry Adoption Centre, which covers many issues that you will face in inter-country adoption. It is a good grounding for what you are likely to face once you have adopted. It is very informative and thought provoking.
You will have the opportunity here to meet other parents and set up a support network for yourself, pick up written material, ask questions, share concerns.
The course either runs on consecutive weeks or on three consecutive days. The cost for this course is included in the 'adoption fee' you pay to your LA. Both partners have to attend. If you or your partner do not attend one day, or if you are significantly late this will be held against you as they will feel that you are not 'committed'.
Information that the Preparation Team gather about you will be passed on to your social workers to be put in the Home Study.
The Home Study:
A social worker will be assigned to you to assess if you will make suitable parents.
She will come and visit you 6 - 10 times, depending on their experience and knowledge of inter-country adoption, over a period of 6 - 10 months. They will ask you EVERYTHING from what sort of teenager you were, to where the cat sleeps.
Past relationships, present relationships, family relationships, religious beliefs, child rearing plans, philosophy of life, what sort of childhood you had, medical history, health of you and your family, how you have coped with disasters in your life, etc, etc. They have a set criteria that they have to fulfil and the homestudy runs to about 25 pages.
They will also interview two references that you provide. Make sure that these people are 100% on your side as there was one case where the referee cast a doubt on a prospective parents ablility as a parent even though she cared for and baby sat their children for 13 years.
You will also have to provide a 'support tree' to show your support network. Although this is theoretical at this stage as things change and expand once you have your child, it is best to show that not only are friends and family supporting you but neighbours and other bodies such as your church are there for you.
The home study is incredibly invasive and it is at this point that you realise you are no longer an autonomous individual but have now become part of the state. Although teenagers can fall pregnant and rely on government hand outs, you have to be some thing align to a super power to fulfil their criteria. And again there is no standard, some LA will accept smoking, others will not, some will allow pets, others are critical, some insist that you own your own home, others are happy with rental. Most are concerned about any mental illnesses - even a bout of depression when you discovered you were infertile. Some are concerned about where your parents live and how well they are, others are unconcerned if they are in another country.
They will try to trip you up, they will appear sympathetic, which makes you open up, and then query that response. Everything that you tell them will follow you through your whole adoption and will even be saved on file for time immemorial. So be cautious. There are certain things that they need to know about you, which is fair enough, but often it seems that the 'investigation' is over zealous. More information about the home study can be passed on if you contact us.
The Panel:
Once your home study is complete the social worker will write the report which then gets presented infront of a panel of about 15 people.
These people may be medical professionals, laymen, other adoptive parents, social workers, council members, etc. You are not told who will be there before you arrive. Theoretially your adoption supervisor will have agreed that you will be a suitable parent before you go to panel. But there have been cases where the social worker has turned around in the panel to say that they do not think that you are suitable.
You have to appear before the panel and for approximately 40 minutes you are subjected to a barrage of questions. Many of the questions have already been answered in the home study, but some are new. They will ask you how you plan to bring up the child, what your income will be, what child care do you have in place, your next work, how you have dealth with 'the loss' of fertility, death, redundancy and other events life throws at you.
No one will congratulate you for what you are embarking on and the feeling is that you have to 'prove' yourself. This is the feeling that you have through the whole process. You will then be asked to leave the room and your social worker stays on for another half an hour while everyone discusses your case. You are then told if you have 'passed' or being 'rejected'. They may also raise concerns they have about you.
If you 'pass' your papers will stay with the LA for another month until the next panel meeting where it is ratified. Once ratified they get passed onto the Department of Children, Schools and Families. If you are 'rejected' there is an appeal process that you can follow.
The social workers have incredible power in the fact that they are the ones that are going to say yes or no to you becoming parents and fulfilling your dreams.
Fortunately, some have a great understanding of adoption and your needs, but others seem to be on nothing but a power trip and exploit their position. It is pretty much luck of the draw. If you do not get on with your social worker you may ask for another one, but if you have problems with your local authorities whole team then you will be facing serious difficulties as there is no way that you can change to another borough. This is a serious fault in the system and again another thing we want to look into.
There are certain pointers that they look out for and these throw up read flags for your adoption. One is that you must not appear desperate to have a child. Why? when this is exactly what has lead you down this path? But do not express these sentiments. Don't say things like - well if there are no younger children available then I will adopt an older one - this shows that you are desperate. For more pointers contact us.
The Government's Bit
Your home study and panel approval letter (which are now confidential documents, so confidential that you are not allowed to see them) gets sent to the Department of Children, Schools and Families, along with your medical and your police clearance certificate. It is unknown what happens in these hallow halls of Westminister - well actually Doncaster, but it takes approximately 25 weeks for them to issue you with your Certificate of Eligibility. This is the certificate which other countries recognise as your right to adopt.
After about 3 months you will receive a letter to say that they have received your documents and they will issue you with a number. They also enclose country information. Not unusual for them to send wrong country information. After another 2 months they may notify you to tell you that your local authority did not sign the panel form, or other misdemeanour. Then after approximately 6 months you will receive the most important Certificate of Eligibility which proves to other countries that the UK accepts you as a suitable potential parent.
Depending on which country you are adopting from the procedure differs.
If you are adopting from China then DCSF will forward your documents to the Chinese authorities. If you are adopting from any other country these documents will need to be notarized and appostilled. In some cases they will send these documents to your agency, in other cases they will ask you for your notary's address and they will forward them directly. In very rare cases will they send the documents to you - because of course you are not privy to them.
From this point on the DCSF deals with all the UK aspects of your adoption. But don't expect help to be at hand. You can only call them three times a week from 10-12am. That is 6 hours out of a 45 hour week. Of course the phone is always engaged or else it just rings. You cannot leave messages. They have a e-mail address but no one responds. You are allocated a person, but they are never there or have only just joined the department and have no idea where St Petersburg is. Faxes seem to work the best.
Now you are ready to find your child!
Hurrah!
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