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For us one of the most important questions was "what is their post-adoption support like?". We talked to a VA who said the LA would take care of that and we talked to a VA who has an open door policy. The support of the LA is a given, but the quality depends on the LA. To be fair, we have made very good experiences with the post-adoption support of two LAs, but we have the support of our VA on top of that.

I would also look for chemistry. For us, the agency we finally went with just felt right. The sw seemed very experienced, professional and knowledgeable.We also liked that they take part in research.

Finally. at the time we went to an Adoption UK meeting and talked to adopters who had recently gone through the process and they recommended their agency, which ended up being the one we chose.

The kind of child you feel you can parent might also play a role. If you are looking for an easy to place (which does not equal easy to parent!) white baby, you might be better off with an LA. We were looking for older children though.

Very simple for me....

I am with va, who can offer you a child nationwide.

My La is a small authority and they ideally place their own children with their own pool of adopters so I would potentially meet birth parents and family when out and about.

We looked at the detail and amount of pre and post adoption training and support as well as the pool of children of children they were able to connect with. In our case we went with a charity who not only provided great support but also worked with LAs and other agencies to family find. Because they didn’t have a list of children they were trying to place themselves we became their focus.

For us it was definitely being listened to. We have a colourful past to say the least. We applied to 2 agencies. One said no straight away without even hearing us out. The other agency listened to everything and after the initial meeting they asked us if they were right for us. Needless to say we went with that agency and they are incredible. You will know the right one for you. Get feedback from other adopters and please don’t ever settle for second best.

Thank you for all of the advice. That's really helpful. I must admit that we didn't expect there to be such differences in attitudes between different agencies so thought that we would just pick the nearest one and go with them. How wrong we were!

Post adoption support is definitely important, however we also looked at first impressions and their Ofsted ratings. So we looked on the First4Adoption website and called around (our LA and 5 'local' agencies) with some basic questions to see what sort of reaction we got. That was quite an eye opener(!) The gentleman from our LA sounded really annoyed and couldn't be asked. Most agencies reacted similarly telling us to either look on their website or give them our email address, but then they'd send us some generic info pack, which in most cases was literally screenshots of their website.
Two agencies however were really helpful and happy to chat. We talked for over an hour on the phone to each one and ended up with Barnardo's as the other agency, Family Futures (started out as a post adoption support agency) felt we lived a bit too far from their head office in London.
It just needs to feel good because if it starts off with agency workers having a sort of 'yeah whatever' attitude then it doesn't bode well for the future.
Best of luck!

I contacted my LA for some information as their website was sparse. I was expecting a pdf of a leaflet or a link to a webpage. Instead I was told "You'll just have to come to our open day in April". Not the warmest of welcomes!

I've got two info evenings lined up for next month. One is with an agency I feel drawn towards (reviews, web info, support, nice email replies!) and the other is with a one a bit further away but recommended by friends. I'm using these events to make my decision.