We want to be able to support you to be able to meet the needs of any child placed with you and to help you grow as an adopted family. The experiences of children who need to be placed with adoptive families vary hugely with many experiencing trauma and loss. We want to ensure that you are prepared and supported to best meet these new challenges.
To help you, we will:
- Give you opportunities to meet with staff and carers to talk about adoption, to help you decide if it is right for you.
- Provide a full training programme before and during your assessment, to help you understand what's involved in becoming an adoptive parent. This training programme will be tailored to fit in with your ongoing commitments as much as possible.
- Appoint an assessing social worker who will work with you, to make sure that we get to know you as much as we possible can. This will help us make the right match between you and a child when the time is right. Your social worker will also provide ongoing support through the whole process.
- Introduce you to an experienced adopter through our Buddy/Mentor scheme.
- Provide financial support, if applicable.
- Give opportunities to access information from other professional bodies such as medical, education and legal.
- Provide access to support through an out of hours service.
- Offer membership of a local Adopter Support Group, which gives the opportunity for training and to meet other adoptive parents.
- Provide links to other support networks applicable to your own circumstances if required.
- Offer the opportunity to become involved in the recruitment and training of other prospective adopters, to share your experiences and support future families.