Could You Adopt a Child?

About Adoption

Islington Adoption Service aims to bring adults and children together as a family, and support new and existing families before, during and after adoption.

Adoption is about making a real difference to a child’s life. When you adopt, you provide a secure, loving home to a child – for life! Like all parenting, it means sticking with it through good times and bad, and is one of the most challenging and rewarding things you can do.

When you adopt a child, you become their parent. It’s a way of providing a stable and secure family life that makes adoption a positive choice for children. Like any parent, you will care for the child into early adulthood and beyond. Help and support from Islington and voluntary organisations is available, as you need it.

We refer to a "child" throughout, for ease of reference this applies to a single child or a group of brothers and/or sisters.

What is Adoption?

Adoption is a way of providing a child with new legal parents. It ends the legal relationship between a child and their birth parents. Adoptions are arranged by adoption agencies and are made legal by the courts – having been satisfied that adoption is in the best interest of the child.

We will work towards you being approved as an adoptive parent and match you with a child. After the child comes to live with you and is settled into your family, an adoption order will be made. At this time the child will usually take on your surname, and will end all legal ties they have with their birth family - they cannot take him or her back after the order has been granted.

Is Adoption different from Fostering?

Yes, for more information, see our Fostering pages.

Who can Adopt?

All sorts of people can make a success of adoption:

• You can be single, living with someone, married or divorced, or a lesbian/gay couple

• You can be in or out of work

• We welcome enquiries from people of all backgrounds; white, black, Asian, mixed parentage and mixed relationship couples, and from all cultures and religions

• You can live in or out of Islington, and can own or rent your home, but you do need to have enough space to care for a child as they grow

• You will need plenty of patience, humour and energy. Above all, you need to be determined to give a child the kind of love and support that will really make a difference to their lives
  
  

Islington Children

There are many children who need adoptive parents, as it is not possible for their birth parents to raise them.

• At Islington we have babies, toddlers and school-age children, from many different backgrounds, cultures and religions and we need new families to reflect this. Sometimes there are brothers and sisters who need to live and grow up together or children with learning or physical disabilities.

• Some children have had troubled pasts – they may have experienced loss, suffered the effects of neglect or emotional, physical or sexual abuse. Drug and alcohol abuse, mental health or other illnesses may have made it impossible for a parent to continue caring for their child
  
  

The one thing all these children have in common is that their birth parents are unable to care for them and that they need a new permanent family to accept and care for them. They need to be supported and encouraged to reach their full potential as they grow up into adulthood.