Adoption overhaul to get process moving faster

FAMILIES who have been through the bureaucratic, slow and painful adoption process can take some heart that the system is to be overhauled.

Many potentially excellent adopters have been declined in the past due to minor reasons such as not being the right ethnic match, not being an ideal weight or they may have once dared to smoke a cigarette.

Even waiting to be approved as adoptive parents can take a year or more.

And on average, a child waits two years and seven months to be adopted.

The overhaul of the system was announced before Christmas by Children’s Minister Tim Loughten.

A group of experts have been asked to draw up a new process to recruit, assess and train people to become adoptive parents.

The panel is made up of representatives from the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies, British Association of Adoption and Fostering, Adoption UK, and the Association of Directors of Children’s Services.

They will be working with the Government’s Adoption Advisor Martin Narey and provide new recommendations to be introduced later in the year.

Tim Loughton said of the new process: “I want it to be quicker and more effective at approving adoptive parents and matching them with children. We cannot afford to sit back and lose potential adoptive parents when there are children who could benefit hugely from the loving home they can provide.”