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Lucie M May 3, 2022 16:26

Hi all,

I hope you are well! We are currently at the info gathering stage and we had a very good info session with Adopt London North and another good one with Coram (albeit less interactive, as it was a webinar rather than a video call with all potential adopters participating)

After our ALN session, I spoke on the phone with two different SWs working there and one of them was absolutely lovely but the other was quite cold and dismissive. Coram's process seemed more straightforward whereas ALN seemed to have a few more steps and probably a good number of months before even getting to stage 1. That being said, we haven't had a call with Coram yet so it's hard to tell what their ethos is like.

Would any of you have feedback on these two agencies? It seems to hard to place such a big process and decision into the hands of an unknown social worker, I'm not sure how anyone ever decides, ha!

Many thanks,

Lucie

chestnuttree May 3, 2022 19:04

Coram is an excellent adoption agency with social workers who really look out for their adopters and try to make sure you are well matched. They will make you aware of risks, if there are any. They offer post-adoption support by extremely knowlegeable senior social workers with a longterm open-door policy, which you get on top of the support you are legally entitled to by your LA. They also offer specialised parenting classes with longterm 3 times a year follow up meetings, support groups (eg. for BAME and transracial adopters), free workshops about life story work, education etc. and will send a social worker to attend meetings with your child's school if needed, even 10 years after placement. I don't think there are many agencies out there as good as Coram.

However, it depends what you want. If you are looking for a very young white child who is easy to place (which does not necessarily mean easy to parent), you might be better off with the RAA.

Someone1977 May 4, 2022 07:59

We used adopt north London and I can highly recommend them. We adopted once before they became adopt north London (but many of the same social workers) and once last year.

If you want to message me at all please feel free.

mummywestiewoo May 12, 2022 09:27

I would definitely go for Adopt London as they have several branches that cover all areas so they have a wider “pot” of children available to them and they will always prioritise their approved adopters first before looking elsewhere for prospective families. Personally, for us, we would never recommend Coram. Once approved, they were disengaged, hard to communicate with and they left the whole family finding process to us which is not how it should be at all. I would have to say that out of the many children we reached out for that 80% of them were linked to a branch of “Adopt London” so they seem to be a safe bet. Good luck 🤞

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