Children and Young People Committee
AD01

Inquiry into Adoption

I read in the Western Mail that you were looking into adoption services. My wife and I had some negative experiences of the adoption process and would like to let you know so that they could be improved.  The first problem is that the people working for the adoption team wanted to keep the adopters to their own list of children for adoption for a period of time before widening to the consortium of other agencies. This was of concern to us as we both know a lot of people in our authority area and did not want the birth parents to turn up at our door. Also it lengthens the time before a suitable match can be made. The second problem was that the adoption people work too closely with the children’s team and try to get unsuitable matches with children from within the authority to save money. If the money was controlled at the consortium level the matches could be made quicker saving money and lessening the chances of failed matches. In our own case the information we were told about the first family were false. We knew this because of our circle of friends we knew the true circumstances of the children. When we told our social worker of the true facts then things went better for us. If we did not realise until further into the introduction process this would of been more costly and upsetting for all involved.

Hopefully this information will be of help to you in your inquiry and that the adoption process can be made smoother and better for all.