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Hi Macy

I’m a single adopter.

Yes anyone can adopt as long as they meet criteria and can provide adequately for a child. Its the same for couples.

Yes I think you will struggle to be accepted in a one bedroom flat, unless its enormous and you can divide off a sleeping area for you.

A two year old doesn’t stay 2 very long, children have lots of stuff. I know several adopters who live in flats, thats not the issue, but you do need adequate space to house a child.

sorry this won’t let me edit

Its not unusual for people to have to wait or delay a bit to get themselves in a better position, I waited two years to get my finances in a better place and to find a more family friendly job

When we applied to adopt originally we had to put our application on hold when we had to move from a two bedroom property to temporary accommodation and discovered that we would have to be in a two bedroom property to adopt so a child would have their own room. Also we could only apply for social housing for a one bedroom property, so had to wait until we were in a long term private rental before we would be considered.

This did give us time to prepare. However when we did adopt a 10 month old he had been sleeping in his foster parents room. I think they may be more flexible when fostering if they are short of parents.

In my opinion now, it is important for a child to have their own space.

We adopted over 20 years ago (our two were both toddlers) - so I’m sure it’s very different - also I think out children were considered hard to place - it was never mentioned about our house being small - our daughter shared with our eldest birth daughter initially and our son had a cot in our room - as he had done in foster care. We had plans to build a loft extension but didn’t do it till later on that year or possibly the next year - and our eldest daughter moved up there. That meant AD then had a room of her own. Eldest BD later moved in with her boyfriend and then our middle daughter moved up there giving AS a room of his own (box room) too. It all worked out in the right timescale - as it probably would’ve if they’d been birth children and wasn’t a problem. Do you have any longer term plans for how you will manage as your child gets older? That might help your situation

Thanks so much for everyone’s reply This is a tough one because of the current pandemic I don’t know how easy / quick it would be to sell and buy a house but moving has always been my intention However I do not want to pause this process, especially with no certainty.

I have been on this adoption journey for 2 years

That’s a shame I’m being overlooked, especially when there are thousands of children living in worse conditions

Thank you all, I will have to make the hard decision I guess

all the best to you all

On the other hand if you’ve got plans to move - and you can demonstrate they’re realistic - you can present that as something you would do in the next couple of years. Meanwhile sharing a room is good for bonding. I’m not clear how far you are along in the process as if you’re waiting to be matched you are probably looking for the age range in highest demand and that could be the problem? As people always point out SWs are looking for a family for a particular child rather than the other way round so they choose amongst those available to them and sometimes people may get overlooked for the most apparently trivial of reasons particularly if the choice is wide