The Matching Process

I explained a high level view on the process back in my 'The Process' blog post

This post is more focussed on stage three - the matching process (briefly touching on stage four at the end).

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Currently most approved adopters are being matched within 6–12 months, but for some it may take a little longer. 

Once you have been approved as suitable to adopt, your social worker will work with the family finding team to identify children whose needs you could meet.Your social worker or family finder look at the profiles of children. You only find out about them when it looks like it’s a good match. I've written about this in 'Searching...'.

So what happens after you've expressed interest in someone and they agree to take that forward?

Shortlisting 

Sometimes the family finder thinks there’s more than one adopter that’s a good match for the child(ren). If that happens, they’ll visit everyone and see what they have to offer the child(ren) through a shortlisting interview at their home.  This seems to have become more common since lockdown when the numbers have changed around to have more adopters than adoptees. (A positive thing for reducing the time the children are in care for).

 

They’ll then make a decision (at a "Linking meeting") as to who is the best match and proceed with that adopter. This is called competitive matching. 

Recommended - next steps

Once you, your social worker and the child’s social worker have agreed to proceed, meetings are arranged with the other people involved in the child(ren)’s care. That will be foster carer, medical adviser and any other medial professionals involved, and depending on age, school.

It is unlikely that you will meet the child(ren) until after the match is formally approved. However it is fairly normal that videos of the children in their foster homes will be shown to you during this exploratory phase. 

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Depending on the age of the child(ren), there may be a bump in meeting with the child(ren). This may be somewhere like soft play or the park. It’s an informal meeting so you can see your child(ren) in the flesh. This is, however, more likely to be once formally approved.

Once you all agree that a suitable child has been identified your adoption agency, together with the child’s agency will write an Adoption Placement Report for the matching panel. This report will include an Adoption Support Plan which outlines the support that the child’s agency will provide depending on the known needs of the child. The match will then be presented to the adoption panel of the child’s agency.

Adoption matching Panel

A match needs to be approved by the child(ren)’s agency’s Adoption Matching Panel.  

The independent adoption panel of the child(ren)’s agency will read through all the reports provided. These reports will help the panel to understand more about the child(ren)’s needs and how you will hope to meet them. This will enable them to decide if you are the best match for the child(ren). You are generally invited to attend the panel considering the match, perhaps to talk about what drew you to the child(ren). If the panel recommends the match, the child’s adoption agency (Agency Decision Maker) will make the final decision about whether the match should go ahead.

Once the right match(es) has been found for your family and the child’s adoption agency has given its approval, you move to stage four: Introductions. For this, an Adoption Placement Plan is prepared. This plans out a series of managed introductory meetings where you and the child can get to know each other. These meetings will be built up over time and at a pace that is right for the child(ren) and for you, leading up to them moving in with you. Previously this happened over a fortnight, but studies have shown that a more gradual approach is much better for the children*. It is not unusual for this to now be over a couple of months.

*Moving to Adoption – The UEA Moving to Adoption model