Adoptive parents provide a child with a new home and family for life.
Once an adoption order is granted, full parental rights and responsibilities are transferred to the adoptive parents. Adopted children have the same legal status and inheritance rights as birth children.
We need adoptive parents for single children and to keep brothers and sisters together.
Adoption criteria
- You must be 21 or over.
- There is no maximum age to adopt, but your age will be considered as part of your adoption assessment.
- You can be single, have a partner, be in a civil partnership or married.
- The age of adopters for children two plus must be of reasonable age to have parented a child of that age.
- You must be in reasonable health and a health assessment will be undertaken.
- Potential adopters should have stopped smoking by the time they attend our preparation to adopt groups.
- You must have a spare room for the child.
- You don’t have to be employed.
The children
Children may be placed for adoption at birth or more commonly, care proceedings have decided that the child’s needs will be best met through adoption. Most children will have experienced abuse or neglect before or after birth and there may be developmental uncertainty as a result.
Adopters need to be:
- adaptable and flexible to the changing needs of their child
- provide a safe, stable and nurturing family environment
- be able to be open and honest with children about their family of origin to help them understand their history
Support from our adoption service
Adoptive parents will be allocated a supervising social worker who will undertake their assessment and provide support, advice and guidance until the adoption process is complete.
After adoption, support is available until an adopted child reaches 18 years of age. This might include ongoing support from an allocated social worker, signposting to services such as:
- Adoption UK
- therapeutic support including play therapy or therapeutic life story work
- support from the educational psychology or intensive support services, or
- provision of an adoption allowance.
Financial support can be provided in particular circumstances.
Adoptees
If you are an adopted person, East Ayrshire Corporate Parenting team will provide counselling and may, if you wish, help with tracing your origins.
Inter-country adoption
It is possible to adopt children who live outside the UK, although the process for this is complex and can be prolonged.
East Ayrshire Council will charge a fee for undertaking an adoption assessment for inter-country adoption.