Hello and welcome to the first edition of We Made a Wish online adoption magazine.  It’s purpose is to promote openness around adoption by sharing articles about all aspects of the process.

National Adoption week

This week is National Adoption week which is an annual event to raise awareness about adoption in the UK.  Each year, the event has a theme. However, the overall aim is to raise awareness around adoption.

The event this year runs from the 14^th to the 20^th October. The focus is on “priority” children who have been waiting the longest to find their forever family. These tend to be older children, sibling groups or have disabilities.

Across the country, adoption agencies will be holding information events during the week to recruit potential adopters for these children. I live in the North East of England. There are 72 children waiting to be adopted in the region, with only 26 approved adopters (source : First4Adoption). That obviously means a lot more adopters are needed to give forever homes to those children waiting. 

Spotlight on Adopt North East

Our first “spotlight on” feature of an adoption agency is Adopt North East. They are seeking to recruit adopters who would like to provide a forever home for sibling groups.

Adoption isn’t for the faint hearted, whatever the age of child. But it can be such a rewarding experience. Adopting our daughters has been the most incredible, challenging and rewarding thing I’ve ever done. Apart from being able to have more sleep, I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Adoption stories

The stories featured this week are about two sibling groups and a five year old girl. Emma Sutton, the author of one of the stories, wrote this brilliant post about adopting siblings. It isn’t easy, but then parenting, whether you’re a birth, step or adoptive parent, can be challenging.

The sad reality is that children of all ages are waiting to be adopted. However, children who are older, tend to be waiting the longest to find their forever family. This can be for a variety of reasons, but usually relates to the experiences they’ve had in the early years. 

Adopting an older child

Often the main challenge adopters face with older children is restoring their trust in adults. They may have experienced neglect or abuse in their birth family, or they may have moved to numerous placements. This can lead to a lack of trust as the children fear that new adults will disappear from their lives just as others have.

This 2017 article written by Dr Tani Shenfield highlights some of the things to look out for in adopted children. 

First4Adoption

If you’re considering adoption, First4Adoption is a good place to start. It’s the national information service for adoption in England. Their website provides you with all the information you need to get started. 

From finding adoption agencies in your area, to explaining the assessment, it has all the information you need to start your journey.  If you’re in the North East of England, have a look at this article from Adopt North East. They have information events coming up this week.

That’s one of the reasons why there haven’t been any new posts for a while. I’ve been planning the new magazine.

Another reason for the lack of posts is we’ve just been enjoying life. We’ve had a lovely summer with lots of chill time, adventures and a lovely trip to Whitby. There’s also been a fair amount of tantrums and tears from all of us too.

I can’t believe how quickly the time is going. Eldest is loving being in year 1, youngest has just started nursery. I don’t go back to work until the end of October, but decided to start youngest in nursery early to give her some time to settle.

Eldest took a long time to settle at nursery. She loved it once she was there, but drop offs were awful for the first few months. She had to be peeled off me, hysterical, most days. That meant I drove to work in tears which wasn’t the best start to my working day.

Hopefully, starting youngest now means we’ve all got time to adjust before W day. Reality sucks sometimes as I’d love to be able to stay in the bubble of not going out to work. I’ve written about this before as I prepared to go back to work after adoption leave with eldest

I started this blog to share our adoption journey and to promote openness around adoption. I want to expand on this and share other people’s journeys and experiences of adoption in the UK. I’d also like to share articles from experts and provide more information about adoption agencies.

So, I’ve decided to change my blog into an online adoption magazine.

In the long term, I’d like it to provide help and support for everyone affected by adoption. To start off with, it will mainly focus on adopters, sharing their experiences.

I’d love to hear from you as to the kinds of things you’d like to see featured. The format will probably be new posts twice a week with a monthly topic and monthly feature on a particular adoption agency.

I’m aiming to launch the new site on the 14th October which is the start of National Adoption week. So, to get everything ready, I’m probably not going to be posting any blogs.

Let me know if there’s a particular issue you’d like to be covered in the magazine. The more input I from you, the better, so that it’s providing those involved in adoption what they’d like to read.