Moving a foster child onto adoption

Rebecca and her partner Martin started fostering eight years ago and joined St Christopher’s two years ago. Over that time they have looked after two girls and six boys. They currently have three siblings placed with them. They are experienced at helping foster children to move on to adoption.

Out of the placements we’ve had over the last eight years, one returned home to birth parents and the rest were adopted. We are hoping to find an adopted family for our current children.

All of our foster children have known us as Aunty and Uncle, something that they still refer to us as now. A lot of them have arrived to us as new-borns, often arriving displaying symptoms of alcohol or drug withdrawal. St Christopher’s has supported us with this by providing training and support groups with other foster carers, to make sure we have the skills needed to manage this.

So what I really wanted to talk about was how we’ve helped move these children onto adoption and some of the things we’ve learnt over the last eight years. Potential adopted families go through a matching process to ensure that they are right people to be adopting the child.

Once this process has happened they come and visit your house when the children are not in. This is foster carers’ and adopters’ opportunity to share likes and dislikes of the children and give more information on them. The meeting is also a chance to see the child’s current bedroom, giving them lots of ideas of what the child may want their new room to look like.

A lesson we’ve learnt along the way is exchange all the information possible, even if it seems unimportant. Simple things, like telling them what soap powder you use, will mean they have a familiar smell when they move on.

The next step is for them to meet the child/children they are adopting. Top tip: Buy them something small that they can keep at their foster home. It helps them to start the transition process of moving between the two homes.

We still have regular contact with all our foster children that moved on to adoption. One of them has recently moved to Australia with her parents, but we still keep in touch with them on Skype and receive regular photo updates.

We are so, so, so lucky to be a part of these children’s lives We see them on their birthdays, Christmas and other special occasions. They are our extended family. Seeing them grow up is wonderful, they love to visit us, but want to go back with mum and dad. To us that means it was a success.