Adoption: Preparing the Child

How are children prepared for adoption? 

Children who are being placed for adoption will have many professionals and adults involved in their life – the child’s social worker, the adoption family finding social worker, foster carers, health service professionals and birth families.  They work together in planning and preparing for adoption. 

• Every child will have a care plan which is monitored and reviewed
• Children are visited by their social worker regularly, every 6 weeks for the first 12 months of a placement and then quarterly
• Social workers work with the child to help them understand why they became looked after and why they cannot return to their birth family
• Through direct work, social workers explain to children about the adoption process
• Children are encouraged to share their views and opinions at review meetings.  Their wishes and feelings are included in a child’s permanence report which is presented to the Adoption Panel when deciding if the child should be placed for adoption. 

How do we find a suitable family?

Once it has been decided that a child is to be placed for adoption the adoption family finder social worker works with another adoption social worker who has case responsibility for the child to find a suitable match.   The social workers make a Family Finding Plan which involves:

• Developing a clear picture of the specific needs of the child/children.
• Trying to find a family within Wirral, unless there are reasons why this is not in the child’s best interests.
• Finding as many potential suitable matches as possible through the local authority adopters, adoption consortiums and advertising for specific children at pre-approval training or in the press.
• Collecting information about potential adoptive families.
• Holding a shortlisting meeting, to identify two or three families that match the needs of the individual child/children. 
• Proposing a match to the Adoption Panel following visits to the shortlisted families and a matching meeting.