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Hi Cooky. I'm a single adopter and I adopted a nearly 5 year old. She didn't go to school for the first couple of months after moving in and I had to go back to work after 8 months. Nothing prepares you for how exhausting a traumatised child who has just moved in with you (as a complete stranger) is! It all happened very quickly for me, so I had hardly any savings and still had to pay my mortgage but I managed. Those first few months are essential for building bonds and developing their trust and security. Mine had 45 minute screaming tantrums every bedtime for months after moving in and crawled into my bed in the middle of the night every night and then woke at 5am most mornings!

The school day is amazingly short and even though I had a brilliant childminder when I did go back to work, it was still hard for her. Eventually I gave up my job to work as a teaching assistant so that I could work school hours only.

I was told I had to take a minimum of 6 months off for a school aged children and a year for a younger child. I also had to cut down my working hours. The reality is that a traumatised and very frightened child will need huge amounts of your time and patience and social workers are unlikely to support a match where you can't take at least 6 months. At the end of the day it's about finding the best family for a child not finding a child that fits your requirements and the amount of adoption leave you are willing to take will reflect on the matching decisions.

Best of luck x

Thanks for the response Calypso :)

Personally I'm prepared to take the necessary amount of time off work needed, the bills will get paid and I'll put in the work and time to bond etc.

Sadly my work isn't the most understanding of places, and before I've even started the process (I'm just info gathering currently) they are being awkward. They're very much "someone else managed this way, so you can too". Well I'm not someone and neither is my potential child like that other persons.

Any child related leave (maternity/paternity/adoption) longer than 6 months triggers a review of if you can return to your role and department, or if they will move you elsewhere. I do enjoy my role and it's flexibility so would want to stay in the department as other departments aren't as flexible; but if I need more than 6 months then I'll accept a role review.

It's just frustrating that the policies seem to be in place to deter people from doing things!

As an ex-teacher I'm marking exam papers in the summer which will add to the 'wage buffer fund', anything to extend my time off work when the lucky day (hopefully) comes!

I was going to say you shouldn't get treated any differently to someone taking maternity leave but it sounds like your employer isn't great around any type of family leave which is a shame.

Just to suggest, if finances are part of your concerns about taking longer adoption leave it might be worth looking in to whether you would be eligible for universal credit. I'm a single adopter and once I went down to SAP I was eligible for UC. Now I'm working 3 days a week, a reasonable salary but still get some UC, a bit towards living costs/rent but mostly towards childcare - I get 85% of nursery fees covered.

I was fortunate that my employer let me take a year's adoption leave. It was such an amazing year, I'm so glad I had the full year to focus on me and my son. Things feel a lot harder work now juggling work and being a parent. We all have different circumstances and have to work within them but if there is any way you can extend the time you can have on adoption leave my advice would be to go for it. You won't get that opportunity again.

Also my agency (local authority) definitely favoured longer adoption leave.

Good luck as you work this out!

Thanks for the replies, it’s good to get someone else’s view as I feel I’m so annoyed with work, I’m unnecessarily panicking.

I got the calculator out this morning and realised 12 months off is totally viable and work will just have to accept it. If they move me departments, so what, work pays the bills.