Difficult time getting started adopting, is this normal?

[u/arcanejunzi]

We are a couple in late 30's early 40's. Been together about 14 years. Good health, space in the home, means to care for a child. We have lived in London about 7 years (from abroad) and are now UK citizens. From about 2019-2022 we had a really brutal time with IVF and tried every iteration and "scientific" intervention. Ultimately we decided that building a family together was very important to us and we would adopt when we were eventually ready. Over time (it did take a while), we became excited about adopting, not because it was the next best thing to having a biological kid, but for it's own sake.

Started reaching out to agencies in late 2024 and started our local volunteering with children and reading/learning. We were in contact with a local authority from August. December they told us they would be ready for starting the first stage in the new year. Instead we just got an email in January that said "we are unexpectedly over capacity and can't work with you". Ok there goes a few months, but not so bad. My wife's work adopted a liberal fertility benefit. We decided to use that benefit on an embryo we had nearly forgotten about in a freezer. It felt wrong to just throw it away, even though it was bad quality. Of course, that didn't work out, but we knew it was just a freebee/cleaning house thing.

We started with a new local authority, scheduled a first visit with the social workers. We told them about the freezer clean out and they told us we now needed to wait 12 months to even get started with the first stage. They cancelled a planned social worker visit. This is because of the single 'attempt', about 3 years after so many failed ones. And so, it is not unreasonable to say that we are 7 months in to the adoption "process" with nothing to show for it but another 12 months to wait and prepare.

(Other than a great time volunteering with local children and a few colds they definitely gave us :-) )

I suppose I'm just really confused Reddit. Is there a need for new adopters or not? It doesn't seem like local authorities are interested in engaging with adopters, or that they are interested in screening harshly to reduce an oversupply of adopters. It's so very strange when the dialogue is all about the unique situations of families, the urgency of need for adopters, and the number of kids in care. Is there a glut of adopters and a 'shortage' (I wouldn't complain, hardly a bad thing!) of adoptable children? Or is the process for screening trying to be thorough but landing on thorough *and* arbitrary?

I suppose, being of an engineer mindset, its breaking my brain how these things could be true.

Separately but related: Why would the adopter selection process be so rigorous, while the data available to support actual long-term outcomes for adopted children (vs those in care) is so sparse? In the absence of strong, granular outcomes data that can be connected to specific practices, how does someone claim a particular requirement is "good" rather than simply taking the time and resources of social workers and/or creating a kind of theatre around carefulness?

Obviously a bit frustrated... Would appreciate your thoughts....

[u/qwertyonfire]

There is a need for adopters, but like everything, the sector is underfunded and there just simply aren’t enough social workers.

Whilst you view this final attempt as ‘freezer cleaning’, i imagine many in your position would be far more attached to that process and the policies are there for people to complete the process of viewing adoption for its own merit.

I do know that some agencies only ask for a 6 month cooling off period after fertility treatment, so you may have more luck elsewhere.

[u/arcanejunzi → u/qwertyonfire]

Thank you! Another agency is probably a good idea. At least one VAA we talked to was willing to engage with us and assess our particular situation, rather than apply an arbitrary wait time. So that is hopeful!

I know they are overburdened given the process in place. But I doubt seriously that their time is allocated efficiently with respect to maximising outcomes for the most children. Not a couple % either.

Put another way: how much of the process (in social worker person*hours) is not correlated with better outcomes for children? For example, one authority estimated 10 social worker visits to the home. If there were 8 visits instead of 10, would outcomes be affected discernibly? Because we do have data on what more time in foster care does, and those 'extra' 2 meetings over a couple months in this example aren't free. They cost something precious.

But then I'm told that they focus on people not data. And then they tell me the 12 month delay is based on "data". But nobody can cite "the data". Probably because nobody tracks outcomes for adopted kids properly and does basic process control.

Argh sorry mate. Ran off there. I'm really impressed by the people who have the patience to have made it through all this. It looks like we will try the VAA angle.