Adoption

Adoption is about providing a permanent, alternative family life for children who are unable to live with their own parents or relatives. Adoption gives these children the clear message they are part of their 'new' family forever. Most children being placed for adoption have spent some time living with foster carers because of problems in their own family. During this time, work will have been done to try to return them to their own families. Adoption will only be considered once it is clear attempts to support a child in his/her own family are not going to succeed.

Sometimes foster carers do adopt a child they have been looking after but usually fostering and adoption are quite separate.

Adoption is a legal process, which involves a court transferring all rights and responsibilities of birth parents to adoptive parents. A child usually takes the last name of his/her adoptive parents and will inherit from them. All legal ties to the birth family are broken, although some children may stay in touch with some members of their own birth family. This could be in a variety of ways, depending on individual circumstances, ranging from sharing information   -- (for example when adopters send photos and/or letters occasionally, to let a birth family know how a child is getting on) -- to a child having some face to face contact with family member -- (for example where brothers and sisters have been placed with different families).

The move to a new family can be a particularly difficult time for children who have lost everything which is familiar to them, so they need families who can understand their sadness and work with it. Helping children to overcome earlier difficult experiences and to cope with separation from their birth families, and also their foster carers, can be a long and challenging process. It can also be very rewarding.