New to Adoption?

Adoption is a way of providing a new family for children who cannot be brought up by their own parents. To adopt a child in the UK you need to be accepted by an adoption agency and go through a series of checks with them before you are approved to adopt. Once this is complete the search for your new child can begin. This page explains what the process involves.

Most agencies are part of the local authority children's services (in England and Wales) or social work (in Scotland) department. There are also voluntary agencies run by charities, such as Barnardo’s. The agency will allocate you a social worker, and take you through the process. An adoption panel needs to approve you to adopt, before you can be matched with a suitable child. The whole process from the point of formal application should take no more than eight months.

Initial application

Use our Find an Agency database to contact some agencies for an information pack and ask whether they have an information session you could attend. If you are a member of Adoption UK, ask your local Volunteer Coordinator to put you in touch with other local members to discuss whether they used a local authority or voluntary agency, and speak to our Helpline.

After your first contact with the agency, it should provide written information within five working days and invite you to an information meeting within two months. You then complete an application form, which is a formal request to be assessed. If you are accepted by your chosen agency, you will be allocated a social worker and assessed.

You will be invited to attend group workshops to learn about parenting and the additional problems associated with bringing up an adopted child, and to meet people who have been through the process.

Home Study

This is the process exploring the prospective adopters’ suitability to adopt. A social worker makes about six home visits, asking detailed questions about your family background, relationships, childhood and current circumstances, and interviewing other members of the household. The aim is for the social worker to gauge your strengths and potential, and for you to consider issues relating to parenting an adopted child.

You must agree to a health check-up, examination of your medical history and police check. Local authorities are called on to uncover any problems with previous children. A minimum of three references are taken through face to face interviews of friends. Previous partners will be approached particularly if there are any children from that relationship.

The social worker then puts this information together in a Prospective Adopters Report (formerly known as Form F). You have at least ten working days to comment on this.

Approval

Prospective adopters are invited to attend an adoption panel meeting, which recommends to the agency whether or not they should be approved as adopters. The agency’s decision on whether they are approved or not should be given orally within two days and in writing within five days. 

If the agency plans not to approve the adopters’ application, the prospective adopters (in England and Wales only) can seek a review with the IRM (The Independent Review Mechanism). You must contact the IRM within 40 days if in England, 28 days if in Wales, of the written notification from the agency.

Once prospective adopters are approved, the agency starts the matching process, looking for a suitable child.

What happens next…

Once you have been accepted by an adoption agency and been through the process to become an approved prospective adopter, the wait begins for a suitable child who needs a family.

Sometimes this will be a child in the care of your local authority, sometimes from another local authority.

Approved prospective adopters can be proactive by reading Children Who Wait magazine, sending out flyers with their details to other adoption agencies, or attending Adoption Exchange Days where several agencies get together and display details of children in their care waiting for families.

Matching and meeting

Once a suitable child is found, the agency meets the prospective adopters to discuss the placement and assess the needs of the adoptive family for an Adoption Placement Report.

The prospective adopters submit their comments on this report, and it is referred to the adoption panel, which makes a recommendation on whether the match should go ahead. The child’s agency (often different to the adopters’ agency) makes the final decision, within seven working days of the panel’s recommendation. The prospective adopters are then notified in writing within five working days.

The agency then holds a placement planning meeting to produce the Adoption Placement Plan detailing introductions, contact and adoption support.

Once this is all in place, the introductions can begin, when the adopters meet their new child for the first time, usually in the presence of the child's foster carer. A series of meetings takes place giving the child and the adopters the chance to get to know each other.

Placement

After the introductions, the child moves into their new parents’ home. The adopters now have parental responsibility (PR) in law, shared with the birth parents and the agency. The child is not yet legally adopted.

Once the child has been in placement for at least ten weeks, the adoptive parents can apply for an adoption order. The order means that all PR for the child is transferred to the adopters. The child is now a full member of their new family, and can take the family’s surname.