International Adoption Guide

This week is one for strange statements from adoption professionals and it is not surprising that adopters are feeling lost and confused.

The mind boggles. Just listen to these three stories I have heard from potential adopters this week:

1. I am a trainer and my partner is a teacher, we would like to adopt but we have been told that we will not be able to until we have more experience with children. We have been advised to arrange to read to children after school for a minimum of 6 months before approaching the social services to start the adoption process.

2. We have been told that we cannot adopt a child from X country (which we love and have travelled to 100 times) because we do not have the language and  we will not be able to communicate with the child and if we want to go to X, then the adoption agency says that they may not approve us. The agency has have suggested we go to Y country (where we have never been before and they speak a language we have never heard) as for some strange reason we will be able to communicate with a child from this country.

3. You cannot start the adoption assessment process until you have stopped smoking for 6 months (even though most processes take years to complete)

It just makes me so cross. There is nothing logical or commonsensical about any of these things. And a child waits, and waits, and waits. And each day is so crucial to orphange children and it is imperative that they get into safe and loving families as soon as possible. So sad, so unprofessional and ultimately so cruel.