You Can Adopt has launched ‘A Life Less Ordinary’, a new campaign to find parents for children waiting longest to be adopted. With latest data revealing there are enough prospective adopters for most children waiting to be adopted, the campaign is focused on finding the right adopters for specific groups of children that face the greatest delays in finding a home.

These include children aged five or over, children with additional and/or complex needs, brother and sister groups, and those from an ethnic minority background.

These groups represent 65% (1,220) of the 1,890 children currently waiting to be adopted in England, according to the most recent data from the ASGLB (Adoption and Special Guardianship Leadership Board, 2021/22). Further, 760 children in these groups have been waiting for 18 months or longer to be placed.

Compared to children without these characteristics:

Children over 5 wait 13 months longer to be adopted from care

Children with a disability wait 11 months longer

Children in brother and sister groups wait 11 months longer

Children from an ethnic minority (excluding white minorities) wait 3 months longer

Michael*and Robert*, a same sex couple who have adopted through Diagrama, tell their story. They found that their initial view of the kind of child/children they wanted to adopt had changed somewhat when going through family finding.

Whilst they had always known they wanted to adopt from a dual heritage background, the age of the child they had in mind was 0-3. In reality, Michael and Robert have adopted a slightly older sibling pair, a decision which they have since found so many positives in.

Michael says, “In the first instance we were looking to adopt a child aged 0-3, however until you are involved in the family finding process you don’t fully understand the needs of those children who are waiting to be adopted. Adopting from an older age range has been beneficial in the sense that we were fully aware of the siblings’ current needs and how they might require support in the future. Many people think that they will miss out on a child’s milestones if they were to adopt from an older age range, but we haven’t found this to be the case.”

Michael goes on to explain that having older children than expected also benefits the family in practical terms. With the rising cost of living, Michael and Robert have less time to pay for the children to attend childcare before attending primary school.

Michael says, “Our plan was to adopt one child then another to complete our family, but we started to consider sibling groups during the adoption process so as the children would have each other from the very start. Despite us wanting to adopt a child/children from a dual heritage background we do understand that many people worry about being able to meet any cultural needs that differ from their own. I wanted to point out that there is a wide network of help available and ways around this.”

Do you think you could live a ‘Life Less Ordinary’ and help a child from one of these groups?

For more information on adopting with Diagrama please contact adoption@diagrama.org or call 0800 802 1910

*Names have been changed.