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There is no such thing as the 'ideal'
adoptive family. Most agencies nowadays are more interested
in what
you have to offer a child who needs adoption than your
marital status, income level and whether you have children
or not. You do not have to follow any religion to be considered
and people from ethnic origins are needed. People with
disabilities are not excluded and sometimes experience
of disability will be positively welcomed. Everyone has
to have a medical examination and health issues will need
to be explored.
A record of offences will need to be carefully
looked into but, apart from some offences against children,
will not
necessarily rule you out. The only legal requirements
are that you are over 21 years of age, and if you wish
to adopt
jointly with a partner, you must be married to each other.
It is also possible for single person, or one partner
in an unmarried couple - heterosexual, lesbian or
gay - to
adopt.
There are far more people wanting to adopt white
babies without disabilities than there are such babies
needing
new homes. To avoid recruiting and preparing families
whom they will never be able to use; some agencies
close their
waiting list for prospective adopters for these babies.
Others may take on very few families.
Most birth parents
placing infants want their child to go to relatively
young adopters rather than to people
the age of the birth parents’ own parents.
And married couples rather than to single people.
Some
local authority
agencies have so few babies to place that they will
use the services of specialist baby-placement agency.
This
enables agencies to concentrate their limited resources
on recruiting families for older children whom far
fewer people are seeking to adopt.
Agencies will be
looking for families who can meet the needs of
individual children. Some children will benefit from being
adopted by a couple who already have children of their
own
whilst other children
may need the one-to-one attention of a single person.
Adoption
focuses on the needs of the child and the agency will
concentrate on looking with you
at what
you have
to offer waiting children and what sort of child
would best
fit into your family.
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