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We were placed with our daughters (then aged 5 and 3) nearly 5 years ago, so we just about fall into the timeframe. Our LA experience - PROs Our SW was very good - ie practical, realistic, honest, reliable, experienced. Good range of (free) training, including theraplay, both before and after placement. Recommended we had a "buddy" for those first months of placement (another adopter to chat to). This worked well. Sent an Outreach Worker 3 times in first few months of placement, to enable us to have 1:1 time with each child. Allows us to continue to access general Post-Adoption training and events even though we no longer live in that LA. While waiting for 2 years post approval to be placed, we tried numerous contacts seen on Be My Parent / Children Who Wait. For us at least, these were gruelling as they rarely lead very far (no replies / children already linked to others, despite being advertised still / extra dynamic of our LA versus the LA of the adoptees which further complicated things). While it was good to have periods of hope that a link we had found might materialise, it rarely got very far, and so it was good to know that we had the children from our own LA also as more likely links. Our children eventually did come via our own LA. The match worked out, not because it was necessarily the "perfect" match, but because it is easiest all round for an LA to place its children with its own adopters. Hence, I guess, your chances of being matched are slightly higher. CONS Even though there were no major hiccups, it still took 2 years to get approved and a further almost 2 years to be placed. Our children came through the very same LA, and had been in foster care for 2 years, one of which was with a Placement Order. So ours and our children's files were in the same authority for a whole year, with both sides stuck in limbo. Someone / some part of the LA's system was not doing an adequate job for us not to have been linked with our girls sooner. When something slightly unusual came up in our Home Study, we felt, and we were, very much at the mercy of our own SW's take on it. Thankfully she was reasonable. Some are, sadly, not. Stories you hear, even from the same LA as ours, show there is too much variation dependent upon the SW's take. The same situation, if not plain sailing, in someone's background can be seen as (a) something to make the adopter stronger or (b) something that is a threat, weakening them. Frustrating that it appears to be at the whim of the SW which interpretation is taken, about the same situation!