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Moving house midway through a stressful process wouldn't be a good move. Probably better to move, get settled, particularly if it's a new area, before starting. They will question why your partner has no relationship with his children and will explore that in great detail. Possibly they'll want to speak to them and their mum. Well, probable rather than possibly. They'll want to know about support network. Who'll be taking time off to care for the child initially. But I think the main issue here is your step children and your partners relationship with them.

Hi. To answer your question, no its not a good idea to move house during the approval process for the following reasons; Approval process is stressful enough Moving may reduce your support network that SWs find very important when considering your application You can not transfer approval to a different LA if you move out of area So the best advice is to move house before you start the process. SWs dont like you to plan to move house after a child is placed with you because they are traumatised children who require consistency and routine more than they need a bigger house. Also be aware that SWs will investigate why you DH does not have contact with his children and will interview the adult child and ex wife. But SWs are used to negative exes so dont worry too much. I think you need to be aware that agencies are currently being very choosy over who they take on to be approved just because there are far less children than adopters at present. And even after you get approved you have to "sell" yourself to a childs SW as they will have lots of prospective adopters to choose from. So no its not required that you own you own home but in this current competitive environment it helps. No you dont have to have a full time stay at home parent but it helps greatly if applying for the under 2 age group and a minimum of one year adoption leave for the under 5 age group. Again it helps when finances are stable. stable long term relationship etc et But you have huge positives with being a SEN teacher and husband being at home regularly. So its a very promising start and in next 2 years I am sure you can have all your plans in place Good luck G

It is better to move first. We moved during approval and I nearly had a total meltdown.

Totally echo the comments about moving, my advice is keep your life as simple and stress free as possible once you start the process. We had a similar issue and this was looked into in fine detail however this did not stop us from adopting. There are many reasons that relationships break down and this does not mean that you are not suitable to become adopters so don't let that put you off trying. It may be worth discussing this again before you start as once they start probing it will bring up all sorts of emotions. We made a pact to protect our relationship first and foremost so we communicated and kept talking it through making sure we both knew how we wanted to answer the questions and how this may be judged. Just for the record our first approval panel was fine but it was matching panel where they were quite harsh and brought it all up again despite this being dealt with in great detail in our PAR so be prepared for the repetition! Good luck its worth it I promise! x

I think the pressing issue will be with the contact personally at 14 and 24 it's unlikey they are being kept away from your oh and are choosing no contact for some reason this will need to be explored your ohs ex will be spoken to and also I would imagin the children I think it will all hinge on this really