Archived Forums

Really sorry about your initial experience. Independant Adoption Agencies also approve people for adoption and I think that they are much more likely to be interested in progressing your application. If you ring adoption UK I am sure that they would be able to give you details of agencies in your area.

Hi. The original information that you were given that you should apply to only your local council (LA) is totally incorrect. LAs are the agencies that have children to place. So a good option, for example, if you live in a majority white british area and want a white british easy to place pre school age child. But not a good option if you are BME and live in a white majority area. It costs LAs lots of money to get prospective adopters approved so they only want to take on prospective adopters who they can place their children with. This is especially the case in recent 12 months when the number of children available to adopt has reduced and the number of prospective adopters increased. I would recommend phoning the adoption UK helpline for VAs (voluntary agencies) who specialise in BME prospective adopters and once approved will family find nationally for you and are experts in that. Or you could apply to an LA that is not your local LA, where they have a large hindu community. However, I would caution that I had friends who adopted who are from asian hindu background, they adopted from a LA that has a consortium. But very limited numbers of there preferred ethnicity children available so had to wait a long time and did not get exact ethnic match but it was a super successful adoption for them. Good luck. Gx

One of the questions ( for when you are being assessed) that might be worth thinking about is how you would help a child placed with you to cope with being in an area that is not ethnicaly diverse. It isnt just BME that get this. We are white and live in Scotland, and our first child came from England. They asked us how we would help him adjust to living here and having a strong non local accent. We pointed out that hubby was English too so could empathise !!! As long as you can show you have thought through any issues about racism, etc that is what they will be looking for on that front.

Thank you so much for the advice - right will crack on with this today ;o) - I have found the North London LA's consortium also have to many BME approved adopters already and are not taking any more ;o(. They have advised some have been waiting two years already - and it is a real problem at the moment. I find this shocking considering how diverse the UK is generally..

Hi A. I think from my friends experience, the issue is that generally asian hindu families are very family focussed. So any children in care would be placed with extended family first. This is required by the court before they will even consider a placement order and adoption. Which is a huge positive for both the child and the British hindu community. But for you a negative when looking for a child to adopt. I will PM you. G