Our Greatest Needs
Adoption:
We currently have many children aged between six months and seven years of age waiting for adoptive families. The children are from a range of ethnic backgrounds. A number of children are brothers and sisters and need to be placed for adoption together. Bradford receives a large number of enquiries to adopt and we need to prioritise applications which are most likely to help us place the children in our care. We are particularly interested in meeting people who are of dual heritage or are in dual heritage relationships as a significant number of our children are Asian/White or African Caribbean/White.
At the moment we are looking for families for a number of children who have complex health problems. We are very keen to be talking to individuals or couples who have a particular interest in adopting a child/ren with health or development problems.
Please read through all the sections on adoption so you have a bit more information so you can make an informed decision. The next step would be to come along to one of our Information Evenings where you can speak to a social worker and adopters who have been through the process. These meetings are invaluable and give you a good insight into adoption and whether it is right for you.
Fostering:
Over the last two years we have had a large number of people enquiring about fostering. Currently we have got sufficient people to assess for certain types of care and age groups of children. We are therefore prioritising enquirers with the following interests, skills or backgrounds.
- Carers who can offer care to children/young people aged between 10 and 16 years. We need to recruit carers, who are flexible, patient, adaptable perhaps ideally with parenting experience; who can work with a range of professionals; who understand the challenging and disruptive behaviour that children/young people can present and can cope with the challenges associated with non school attendance, criminal activity and anti-social behaviour.
- Carers whom can provide single placements for a broad age range of children i.e. 0 to 10 years.
- A limited number of foster carers who can provide both short and long term placements for children with a range of disabilities.
- A small number of Carers from an African Caribbean background that can care for children aged 0 to 10 years.
- Foster Carers from an Eastern European background who can care for children of any age.
We are also prioritising people who speak English in addition to another first language. This gives the unit more flexibility for placements and reflects the requirement for foster carers to complete a new induction process and later a National Vocational Standard.
If you decide that fostering is not right for you at this time, we would like to thank you for your interest.
As a department of Bradford Council we are committed to working openly with people and aim to treat everyone fairly and with respect and we would welcome feedback from you about the service you have received.
Thanks for taking an interest and we look forward to seeing you soon.
