Could it be me?

As Director of Child Placement Services for BAAF, Mo O’Reilly is responsible for managing the Be My Parent service, as well as line-managing the National Adoption Register for England and Wales. She has a social work background and has specialised in adoption and fostering for over 30 years. Mo joined BAAF from Barnardo’s just as Be My Parent online was beginning to take shape.

How long will it take before I am matched?

It is almost impossible to say! There is no average length of time from being approved to being matched, as each family and each child is different. However, some types of families wait longer than others: for example, a white couple will usually wait longer than a mixed ethnicity couple, who may be matched within a few months because there are fewer prospective adopters or permanent foster carers of mixed ethnicity. Being a single carer or a same-sex couple should not affect how long you wait – although we do know that it sometimes does, unfortunately… If you have any concerns, talk to your agency.

Lots of families are keen to be matched with a child under five with no special needs or health issues. However, the majority of children in Be My Parent are older or have special needs (such as developmental uncertainty). There are groups of children who wait longer. Over half of the children waiting are groups of brothers and sisters who need to stay together. You may be matched more quickly if you can accept some level of special needs, or consider an older child or group of siblings, although it’s important that you are realistic about what you can manage.

Asian children, particularly from Hindu and Sikh communities, are under-represented in the care system as a whole, so Asian adopters, especially if they are wanting to adopt a baby, and foster carers from these communities often wait longer for a match. Your agency should be able to advise you further.

Can I apply if I have a health issue or disability?

Yes, of course. There are over 4,000 children waiting for a permanent family in the UK and we don’t want to discourage anyone from considering adoption or fostering.

Once you have approached an agency, they will look at any health condition or disability along with all the other information you provide. When considering you as an adoptive parent or foster carer, the agency needs to ensure that any child coming into your family will have a stable home life with no preventable disruption, such as a carer becoming seriously ill due to a long-term health condition.

All applicants need to provide a full medical report from their GP as part of the assessment process. In addition, your agency may refer your case to their own medical expert for further advice. It is very important to be honest about any health condition at this stage, including mental ill-health or disability. It may not prevent you from adopting or fostering, but withholding information from your agency could certainly affect your chances, as agencies need to be confident that you are open and honest in your dealings with them.

If you have a disability, the agency will ask you how this affects your everyday life, mobility, etc, and talk to you about how you could best manage the needs of a child until adulthood. If the first agency you contact decides not to go ahead and assess you, you may consider approaching another agency.

Why is it important to have a two-year age gap between my birth child and the child I want to enquire about?

Often, when prospective families enquire about children in Be My Parent, they are keen to find a child of a similar age to their birth children. However, research shows that it is far better to have a minimum age gap of two years. If the age gap is less than two years, your child and your adopted or foster child will have competing needs: they will have to share toys, friends and perhaps classes at school. This can put a strain on the placement since, as with any other family, it is important for each child to have their own ‘place’ and identity – and with adopted or permanently fostered children, all the more so. This is why you will often see the phrase ‘where she or he would be the only or significantly youngest child in the family’ in Be My Parent profiles. There is usually more flexibility about this in permanent foster placements involving teenagers.

I phoned up about a child and you said they were on the reserve list: what does this mean?

It will usually mean that a child is very close to being matched, perhaps after having been featured in Be My Parent for a run of three months. Their social worker doesn’t want us to give out their telephone number to families any more, but is keen not to lose any families in case that match doesn’t happen. So instead we keep a record of your contact name and number. A monthly enquiries report is sent on to the social worker, and it is up to them to work through the list and respond to each family. Putting a child on a reserve list can also mean that they have had a huge amount of enquiries and the social worker is a bit overwhelmed! They need time to respond to the families, so don’t want their number given out for a while. Or they may be working through a shortlist and prioritising those families at the moment. Sometimes there are confidentiality reasons why a social worker puts a child on the reserve list. But don’t be disheartened if a child you phone up about is on the reserve list, it’s still worth leaving your details!

What does a child’s legal status mean?

Every Be My Parent profile includes information on a child’s legal status. You can find full information in our glossary. However, we are often asked by enquirers what a child’s legal status means for them in simple terms. Hopefully this will help them, and you!

Children who are accommodated by the local authority are in voluntary care with their birth parents’ permission. If they are being featured in Be My Parent, then there is a great likelihood that their birth parent/s will consent, or have already consented, to their children being adopted or permanently fostered.

If a child is on a care order or interim care order (England and Wales only), it means that the local authority has gone to court to take the child into care but shares parental responsibility with the child’s birth parents. The local authority will need to return to court to obtain a placement order if the child is to be adopted – or they may apply for one at the same time as a care order. However, a care order is sufficient for them to place the child with a permanent foster family.

A placement order (England and Wales only) is required for a child to be placed for adoption, unless the parents have given their formal consent. If they have not consented, the agency needs the authority of the court to be able to place for adoption. The child’s birth parents will have had a chance to be heard by the court earlier on in the process. This is not required for permanent fostering.

A supervision requirement is made by a Children’s Hearing in Scotland. No parental responsibilities and rights are taken away from the birth parents, and the local authority is not given any, but the requirement interferes with what the parents may do. The child is “looked after” by the local authority, which supervises and directs what should happen in the best interests of the child, implementing what the hearing says.

However, if a child’s profile really leaps out at you, we would encourage you to make that enquiry regardless of his or her legal status. You may just be the sort of family the agency is looking for!

As told to Claire Bussey.

Originally published in the Be My Parent newspaper in March 2008.

This article is published with the kind permission of the people involved. You may download it for your own reference but if you wish to use it for any other purpose, please contact Be My Parent for authorisation: Be My Parent, BAAF, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Telephone: 020 7421 2666/5/4.

Last updated: 12 March 08

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