Nottinghamshire County Council and Barnardo’s appeal for more people to adopt older children and siblings
One of the biggest challenges facing Nottinghamshire County Council with adoption is finding permanent homes for older children and keeping brothers and sisters together when they’re placed.
This year’s Barnardo’s Fostering and Adoption Week (ending 27th January) focuses attention on children in the UK who currently wait the longest to be adopted with some of them never finding new parents.
The charity is appealing to people to consider adopting older children as it isn’t just babies who need a permanent loving home. Another of its pleas urges people to come forward who have the space and energy to adopt more than one child so that siblings don’t have to be separated.
Coun Philip Owen, committee chairman of children and young people’s services said: “It’s good to see that Barnardo’s is working hard to raise the profile of fostering and adoption. In Nottinghamshire, there are currently more than 40 children we’ve identified as hard to place because they are boys aged five to eight – and many of these are part of sibling groups of two and three.
“If families are thinking of adopting just one child, we’d ask them to consider adopting a boy or an older child, and think about whether they could provide a loving home for brothers and sisters together.”
Out of the 112 children discussed at the Council’s homefinding meeting earlier this month, for example, it was unable to match 36 of them with adoptive families. Of those, there are three sibling groups of three; four groups of two; three children with disabilities; nine single boys and seven single girls.
“We placed 50 children last year and expect to find adoptive homes for nearly 70 this year, but this means there are always some children waiting. Sadly we had to withdraw 22 adoption plans last year, just because we couldn’t find the families,” explained councillor Owen.
Barnardo’s says that the proportion of children being adopted drops from one in three when a child is age four or younger to one in 15 when that child turns five.
Shelagh Mitchell, the Council’s adoption service manager said: “The main challenges include siblings who are all one gender, particularly where one is aged over six, and single boys aged four, five and six.
“We realise that the idea of adopting more than one child in one go can be daunting, but during preparation, we encourage potential adopters to open their minds to all children.
“And whilst the speed we’re matching children to families is improving, we still need more potential adopters to get in touch with us.”
The Council currently has 889 children in its care.
The Council shares these children’s profiles and tells families who are waiting about those it is finding difficult to place.
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Thursday 23 May 2013
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