What is Adoption?

Adoption is the legal process of providing a permanent family for a child or children who are in care and who cannot, for many reasons, return to their birth parents. Adoption by a new family enables these children to have a stable, secure and loving upbringing. All the parental responsibilities and the duties of the birth parents are transferred by a Court Order to the adoptive parents. This gives adoptive parents the same rights as all other parents.

Who Needs Adopting?

Adoption is about meeting the needs of the children who are waiting for families. There are many thousands of children across the UK who need to find permanent families. In Thurrock, Havering and Southend we have children of different ages that need adoptive families, but especially children of school age, groups of brothers and sisters who need to stay together (two, three and sometimes four or more children) and disabled children (including children with learning disabilities and health problems). African/Caribbean, Asian and children of mixed parentage also need adoptive families that reflect their ethnic backgrounds.

Many of the children waiting for adoption will have had traumatic experiences in their lives. They may have been physically, sexually or emotionally abused or their parents may have been unable to care for them. We need to find the right families that are able to meet the individual needs of our children. Sometimes those needs can be very simple, security, love and understanding but for other children their life experiences may have traumatised them to the extent that they need higher levels of care and support. We work with all our adoptive families to ensure that they are equipped to meet the needs of the children they adopt.