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Hi BeabeaIn our experience a VA has been really good for us and have access to all children on a nationwide basis whereas a LA will try to find you a match from their area. I would consider whether you would be comfortable parenting a child/children where there is the chance to run into their birth family. The advantage of a nationwide search is that you could end up with a more exact match. However some LAs also prefer to place children within their own region. Not sure I've helped you much!Good luck with your journey. Vanillapod x

hi Beabeawe are with a borough,been very good, they work in a consortium of 8 other boroughs and 3 VA so a wide choice of children.don't know if this helps but it is our experience

HelloWe went with a neighbouring LA who were part of a large consortium as we thought we would be matched quicker as we were told LA prefer to match children with the adopters they have assessed .we did not go with the Local LA as we wanted to avoid any security issues. However once approved there were not any children within the consortium that we were seen as a close enough match with , so we found our LO through the adoption register .( we were not concerned about close "ethnicity"match but SW were .... )So I think it depends on your "ethnicity" and the type of child you hope to be matched with, whether LA or VA would be best for you.It might be worth doing a search on VA or LA as there have been a few threads about this before.Hope it all goes well for you.Elma.

I was approved by Action for Children. I had a very good experience with them. For a number of reasons I went through three SWs but all three were great and I will miss them now that we have our Adoption Order. All the other SWs I met on prep and other training courses have also been great. I found they did what they said they would do when they said they would do it. VAs generally also tend to want to get you matched as soon as possible as they receive no fee for your training and assessment until you are placed so they do have a financial incentive.I dont agree that it depends on your ethnicity or type of child whether you go with VA or LA. Many children aren't placed within their own area because of security reasons. At any given time some LAs wont recruit certain types of people because of the children they have waiting. If you dont get matched within 6 months you go on to the national register anyway.What matters is that you are comfortable with the agency, I had a dreadful time with my LA and left. But I imagine lots of people get on fine with them. Personally I would recommend Action for Children - but that is my experience of them. You could ask some questions about things like Post adoption support etc if you wanted to try and decide between them. I think Action for Children do specialise a bit more in placing BME children. I am single white mum to dual hertitage Simba. Though this week I met another singly who was approved by AfC who is matched with a white child Good luck