What is Adopting?
Adoption is a lifetime commitment to a child, where you become the legal parent of the child. They will usually take your surname and will inherit from you as if they were born to you.
Adopters are needed for children who cannot return to their own families. Children may have memories of their birth families so you will need to talk openly and honestly with them about their thoughts. By settling them into your family and giving them a sense of security, you will have the satisfaction of seeing them grow into happy, confident adults.
People choose to adopt for a variety of reasons, the most common being simply a desire to share some of the good things they have with a child who is less fortunate. You may well have gone through a great deal prior to considering adoption and we understand that for some people adoption is their only option. Being unable to have children can and does affect people in a big way. So for some adopting a child makes their family feel complete.
All the children needing adoptive families have one thing in common: a longing for a place in a family. Many of the children in the Bradford district are from a variety of backgrounds and racial groups. They are mainly white or of dual heritage (Asian/white or African-Caribbean/white) with many children aged two or over. There are also groups of brothers and sisters who want to stay together in a new family.
The experience of some adopters
Jenny & Michael
We had always longed to have children and had gone through three courses of IVF treatment before we decided to consider adoption. Meeting other prospective adopters at the preparation groups was an great experience for us as we realised that we were not the only people going through this.
After we were approved as adopters our social worker rang with the details of two children that need an adoptive family. We knew when we read about them that we wanted these children and the day that we met them confirmed this. Four months later they were living with us and within a year we had adopted them.
Emma
When I decided to adopt and attended the preparation groups I heard about the type of children that needed adoptive families and I realised that it’s not all about babies. There are slightly older children that were more in need of being adopted. I thought long and hard about this whilst going through the process of becoming an approved adopter, I decided that I would adopt a child aged 3-5 years old.
The child I adopted was 5 when he was first placed with me. He had some learning difficulties, which is attributed to neglect by his birth mother. He requires extra support in school as he has some developmental delay and poor concentration, but progressively this is beginning to improve and he has settled well in to his new school. I continue to receive support from the Adoption & Fostering Unit and find it very useful to attend their Adoption Support Group.
